Why does GitHub anonymize DMCA takedown requests?
github.com
github.com
More disturbing is that Sony requested all available contact information for the offending users .... it would be much more interesting to ask if GitHub honor that.
On one hand, the person sending the takedown request is afforded the courtesy of anonymity.
This, while he (or she) is accusing someone who is most certainly not anonymous of breaking the law, & demanding the identities of other users.
That is unfair, & unjust.
1) GitHub is anonymizing the sender on DMCA notices they publish.
They anonymize it because they're not The Pirate Bay exploiting someone else's work and keeping teh internets riled up so the ad impressions keep coming. You should not expect them to instigate or facilitate or even just enable retaliation, they gain nothing and risk plenty by taking a more antagonistic approach to publishing DMCA notices.
2) Sony hopes a DMCA can be used in lieu of a subpoena.
This is not the same as removing senders.
A Sony employee is publicly accusing a non-anonymous GitHub user of breaking the law, and at the same time demanding the identities of GitHub users in the hopes that GitHub will comply out of courtesy (i.e. without a subpoena). At the same time, GitHub is providing him or her with anonymity.
Imagine you're a legal guy at bigcorp and you issue a DMCA because some clown uploaded [something shiny] to GitHub ... and then 10s or 100s of thousands of people got pissed off it was removed, and shown your phone number, email, etc.
It's really a good policy for them to have - they don't need the fallout from people harassing some guy or some company, and the internet's always looking for an excuse to be outraged.