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Comment by LeifCarrotson | Hacker News Reader

Technically, yes. Submitters swear that their requests are valid under penalty of perjury.

Effectively, no, for 2 reasons:

1. They must be prosecuted and lose for the penalty to have an effect. Courts have historically been lax in applying this. After all, a big content company probably has to file thousands or millions of requests, and everyone (and especially automated processes) make mistakes, right?

2. EDIT - this is incorrect, see crilet2's post here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12805060

They're typically not submitting DMCA requests. YouTube's complaint system and automated content ID systems are not technically DMCA requests, they're just easier for Google and for submitters: https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2807622?hl=en. Misuse can result in suspension of the YouTube account.

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Technically, yes. Submitters swear that their requests are valid under penalty of perjury.

Nah. Perjury only applies to the part where they need to swear that the sender is authorized to act on behalf of the allegedly infringed work.

      ``(vi) A statement that the information in the 
  notification is accurate, and under penalty of 
  perjury, that the complaining party is authorized 
  to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive 
  right that is allegedly infringed.

There is a "good faith belief" requirement, but I don't think that part has ever been tested in court, so I have no clue what count as "good faith belief" in reality and if there are any actual penalties involved.

https://www.congress.gov/bill/105th-congress/house-bill/2281...

It's a really tough problem to solve for everyone.

You don't want to introduce a fee to file takedown notices, as then the people the law was arguably meant to protect (the small content creators) will not be able to make requests as easily, and you don't want to just allow people to abuse the system and use it like a "i want this gone" button.

I'm so glad that we have a congress that makes laws specifically to protect small content creators (at the behest of the largest corporations and their lobbies).

Just like the patent system, the small beneficiaries are used as a political human shield for a system that overwhelmingly benefits the large incumbents. Often against other small creators.

The system is completely abused currently. Far better would be a small fee, or even a mostly manual hoop to jump through for demonstrating ownership & infringement. This scales properly, so the small producers aren't hurt much by it and the bit content owners can't run roughshod over everyone with a few scripts.

But the "scaling" here isn't only based on the number of things you create, but also the number of people that try to violate the copyright, and the number of times they do it.

If I make one thing, and it costs $10 to file a takedown, then the "copyright violators" can bleed me dry by just re-uploading it hundreds or thousands of times.

It's already a massive time sink to make the takedowns, in my opinion adding a monetary cost will just swing the pendulum the complete opposite direction.

I was unclear - I think the cost should be put on demonstrating ownership, but given that takedowns could be easier to manage so long as fair use is protected.

You could have no fee for the first X intellectual properties you defend or the first Y DMCA requests you file every year (whichever is lower), and then introduce fees when you go past the limit.

It feels odd to price a public legal request like it were a commercial service, but it might be the most fair solution.

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