Issuing a DMCA takedown that is both false and meant in bad faith is an act of perjury. In theory the copyright holder could get jail time.
A interesting case is the video of a toddler dancing on youtube, 29s long, to a song. The Ninth Circuit held that copyright owners must consider fair use before issuing take-down notices. The case got settled afterwards.
This difference between DMCA takedown and ID claim is often discussed by youtube creators as both a boon and a curse. The good thing is that id claim does not impact any future standing with google or legal punishment beyond the loss of revenue from the video that get claimed. The bad side is that they get abused.
Such actions should void the copyright on the claimed media, either make a DMCA or put up with it. The use of this "side-channel with a supposition of benefit to favour media corps and no proper defense review or resolution" perverts the copyright system's balance in providing a deal between the demos and the creators (and other rights acquirers).
Google's facilitation of this (instigation?) IMO shows they've come along way from 'don't be evil'.
I've seen several documented cases of DMCA abuse but I haven't seen a single case where a major company was punished for it, and I doubt they'd face any consequences substantial enough to overshadow the profits they've made abusing the process. If you've got examples though I'd love to see them.
But extreme negligence is 100% allowed, so that clause doesn't matter.
Real case that happened to my friend(with maybe 2k subscribers):
1. Film a seaside with normal sea breeze and wave sounds (recorded at the same time) no music added.
2. Some Sony Music subsidiary claims that video infringes on their song from a different region which apparently contains similar sea sounds(facepalm here). Ok stuff happens algos are only human..
3.This is where the evil of Youtube comes in:
You file a dispute, point out the obvious in a professional manner -> YouTube seemingly reviews your dispute and claims that the video is infringing still!! It is obvious to anyone that the response was automated.
4. The only way to win this nonsense is to escalate to the next level of dispute which most normal humans are loathe to do (scared of lawyers, scared of YouTube, etc).
Again, the YouTube is evil for taking out the humans out of the review process while faking the review process.
We know they do it for everything else and that is Google modus operandi - to automate everything requiring human interaction.
For the cartels the decision tree is simple. Issue a demonetization claim and take the money for the channel. Doesn't matter if they own it or not. If the user successfully contests it then you're just out the money going forward, but nothing else. There's literally no reason for them to act ethically, so they don't. If YouTube does push back they have the weight of Copyright Law to bring down on YouTube, making even relatively small violations worth potentially trillions of dollars in damages.
It’s decided on a case by case basis by the courts.
The ability to spam these kinds of take-downs at essentially zero cost and with no ramifications for the chilling effects and false claims create an environment where it is the norm.