Victims Fight Back Against DMCA Abuse 111
Cadence writes "The DMCA is being used a lot recently to demand takedowns of all sorts of content on the Internet. But how many of those DMCA-fueled demands are abusive? Lately, some victims of takedown demands have begun to fight back with the help of the EFF, including some against Viacom: 'Finally, a Viacom executive admitted last month that less than 60 of his company's 100,000 takedown requests to YouTube were invalid. John Palfrey of Harvard's Berkman Center wonders what rights those 60 people have? We may find out. The EFF called for people who had videos pulled inappropriately to contact the group, though the EFF tells The National Law Journal that it cannot comment on its future legal plans. One of the reasons companies misuse the DMCA and cease-and-desist copyright letters is that the tools can quickly accomplish what they want to have happen; stuff they don't like goes bye-bye in a hurry. When the alternative is moving slowly through the court system, letters look like an excellent alternative.'"
Comment removed (Score:2, Interesting)
How many would we think are questionable (Score:1, Interesting)
Search Method Used? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I swear... (Score:3, Interesting)
If there is to be any conviction for perjury in this case, it will be some some poor, mid-level bastard who was convinced he was doing the "right thing" who will take the fall. The people who arrange all this will walk away very rich indeed.
Re:I swear... (Score:3, Interesting)
It's very rare in civil cases & TFA suggests that VIACOM is only learning about these non-infringers when they tell YouTube that they did not infringe.
I think increasing the cost of a DMCA takedown notice would resolve the issue. Add an automatic 'you were wrong' penalty if anyone sends out more than X notices or some other arbitrary criteria.
It'll only hit the people pumping out the takedowns and (if the penalty is large enough) will force them to do something more than robo-checks of the alleged infringing material.
Re:60 out of 100,000? (Score:3, Interesting)