Nearly One Third Of DMCA Takedown Notices Are Improper
from the only-one-third? dept
It's no secret that plenty of companies have misused the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act, for those who haven't been paying attention) mostly for anti-competitive reasons, rather than a legitimate complaint about infringement. However, a big question is just how often is the DMCA misused in this manner? Supporters of the DMCA claim that only an occasional improper takedown notice gets through. Some new research suggests otherwise. Over 30% of DMCA takedown notices have been deemed improper and potentially illegal. In most of those cases, the notices demanded information be taken offline when it had a perfectly legitimate argument for remaining online. So, can we talk about reforming the DMCA yet, or is that still off limits?
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Erm. by carrier lost on Nov 22nd, 2005 @ 12:13pm
First rule of DMCA:
Don't talk about DMCA
MjM
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No Subject Given by ahoy on Nov 22nd, 2005 @ 12:19pm
The second rule of the DMCA is
You DO NOT TALK about the DMCA.
Seriously, talking about the DMCA is a potential copyright violation of the DMCA. Please ceast and desist, and buy more crappy DVDs and CDs.
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a study weakness by Anonymous Coward on Nov 22nd, 2005 @ 12:25pm
Unfortunately, the only ones studied were those submitted to the Chilling Effects site. It seems like those would be more likely to be frivolous.
Since the takedown notices are private communications, we have no idea of what the real numbers are.
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it has served a purpose by The Other Mike on Nov 22nd, 2005 @ 12:45pm
For good or bad the DMCA has served the role of having a unified stance on copyright issues for the government. That role is one that was badly needed when it was crafted.
The legislation really should be looked at again since it has been some 5 years, but the industries are terrified that their use of the DMCA will come back to haunt them when considering changes or replacement legislation. So they pay big money to keep it off the front burner for politicians. Let's hope the rootkit fiasco brings it up again because most people think it is a bunch of college kids pushing for DMCA reform/review.
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Re: a study weakness by Jennifer Urban on Nov 22nd, 2005 @ 12:55pm
Hi, Anonymous Coward,
Yes, we make the point that the self-reported notices are likely to be from folks who at least _think_ they're frivolous. However, most of the notices are from Google, which sends all notices it receives, good, bad and ugly.
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Re: a study weakness by Jennifer Urban on Nov 22nd, 2005 @ 1:00pm
I should also point out that A.C. is exactly right that these are all private communications, so getting a good sample can be a challenge--we do hope more OSPs will open up their notices for study.
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Re: a study weakness by Anonymous Coward on Nov 22nd, 2005 @ 3:47pm
Interesting study nonetheless. Good luck in your research.
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