A company can send non-legally binding notices to copyrighted content it does not own?
What legally stops me from filing it against all of Warner Bros' legitimate content like trailers then?
What legally stops me from filing it against all of Warner Bros' legitimate content like trailers then?
The DMCA tale down notice requires you to swear under penalty of perjury. So, if you claim something that's not yours it's like lying under oath.
Whether or not Big Media will be held to this standard depends on how cynical you are.
Seems like I won't get much penalties for taking down the trailers because it's hard to prove damages.
http://www.hyperorg.com/blogger/2010/02/27/the-economics-of-...
Issuing a false DMCA takedown is perjury, and the victims may have standing for a Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations civil lawsuit with substantial damages.
If you request a Warner file to be removed they will prove that they lost $billion dollars. After all, an industry that claims star wars made a loss can prove anything.
DMCA notices include the required text "under penalty of perjury". Perjury qualifies as a criminal felony, quite aside from any financial penalties. Unfortunately, nobody has ever enforced that requirement; someone ought to. Perhaps with the parties responsible for sending such notice imprisoned for up to five years (http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/1621.html), they'd think twice about sending false takedown notices.
Having said that, it's been a long time since I've seen a notice :)
So, if you're not the copyright owner...
It is not saying that "I swear, under penalty of perjury, that that the product I claim is being infringed actually is being infringed".
That's a pretty important difference I think.
I suspect the burden of proving that it was a deliberate lie to damage the other guy , in a criminal trial, is rather too high.