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Comment by jackhughman | Hacker News Reader

But a takedown is required in the course of due process until some leaning can be established as to legality and validity of the request.

It's really, really, really stupid, because it presumes guilt before innocence, standing in opposition to most general legal principles.

If anything, Microsoft via Github would do well to assert itself by not conforming, forcing the court to examine the DMCA's legality and process.

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With Microsoft's resources they could easily ignore the DMCA takedown and battle it out in the courts. But Microsoft is a paying member of the RIAA soooooooo

Why would Microsoft stand up to a DMCA takedown from any organization to a random github repo that they can't immediately tell is being wrongly taken down? Unless you pay GitHub the legal fees, no organization would lift a finger.

> It's really, really, really stupid, because it presumes guilt before innocence, standing in opposition to most general legal principles.

So shouldn't the next US-American recipient of one of these notices refuse to comply on the grounds that the law is unconstitutional?

Under the common law, actual possession is seen as prima facie evidence of ownership — i.e., possession creates a presumption of ownership, but that presumption is rebuttable.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in 2006 begins a discussion of possession with:

"That possession is nine-tenths of the law is a truism hardly bearing repetition. Statements to this effect have existed almost as long as the common law itself."

Willcox v. Stroup, 467 F.3d 409, 412 (4th Cir. 2006).

It doesn’t mean whoever possesses something is automatically the owner. It means that absent evidence of superior title, possession generally suffices to show ownership.

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