Shopify Files Lawsuit over Illegal DMCA Takedown Abuse * TorrentFreak
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E-commerce platform Shopify is suing a 'John Doe' defendant for sending numerous false DMCA takedown notices targeting legitimate vendors.
admiralteal
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The DMCA is so fucking contradictory about these subjects too. For example, per the DMCA, a party that misrepresents themselves in a takedown claim:

shall be liable for any damages, including costs and attorneys’ fees, incurred by the alleged infringer, by any copyright owner or copyright owner’s authorized licensee, or by a service provider, who is injured by such misrepresentation, as the result of the service provider relying upon such misrepresentation in removing or disabling access to the material or activity claimed to be infringing, or in replacing the removed material or ceasing to disable access to it.

This should mean you can sue the person for absolutely every bit of damage you suffered + whatever legal costs you encouraged in the process when you are delivered an illegitimate takedown. Reality is though, when regulatory duty is foisted onto private actors like this, that’s just making it harder to get access to your rights.

The DMCA limits liability for platforms that host infringing content so long as the platform does not have knowledge the content infringes… but it provides NO guidance for how the platform should ascertain that an infringement claim is legitimate – and waives their liability for making an erroneous determination.

It mandates a counter-notification process, but in this process the content will stay down for 10-14 days – which in the world of social media can be an absolute death sentence. In no small part because the service provider’s own algorithms will now bury that content when it is restored. And of course, DMCA has zilcho recourse for algorithmic burying (of course the writers weren’t even aware of these potential effects).

And you cannot have an anonymous of pseudonymous counter-notification. Must be your full name, address, and phone number on it. Which will theoretically get handed off to the person that put in the fake claim against you as part of the process! Fucking madness! I don’t know if this is enforced as written, but as written this is what it says.

There’s probably a lot more to be said, but christ it is a poorly written law. And this is all from Section 512, which is often viewed as the only “good part” of the DMCA.

@millie@beehaw.org
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This isn’t remotely true. You contest the claim by submitting information through the host and basically telling the complaintant to sue you or go away. There’s no obligation for the host to do this, though; they’re free to just take your content down because of course they are.

DMCA takedown notices protect server hosts from copyright lawsuits.

admiralteal
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What are you claiming is untrue about what I said? The part where I directly quoted the statute, or something else? Fuck off with this “not remotely true” bullshit.

I mentioned the counter notification process. Extensively. It’s a bad process.

There IS an obligation for the host to do something with the counter-notification, by the way. Their liability waiver for damages goes away if they do not participate in the process. But same as other parts, it puts the legal onus on the victim, meaning little guys get fucked.

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