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Comment by ryandrake | Hacker News Reader

Funny how companies (not only Cloudflare) are super-responsive when it comes to forwarding takedown notifications from other companies, but drag their feet and "forget" when it comes to doing the same for counter notifications, even though both are required by the DMCA. Also, funny how (to my knowledge) no company has been criminally prosecuted for filing a false DMCA takedown notice. Likely because you have to prove intent. The law is comically stacked against the little guy.

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I regularly receive DMCA outside of America, which I wished I could reply to "your law doesn't apply to me, cite the right one in my jurisdiction or get lost".

But I can't.

Because my hosting will process those by default and shut my sites down unless I just comply to the take down, no matter how legitimate it is.

It can be even a bogus take down from a US point of view, or even a take down for a non existing content.

Doesn't matter. I have to show that I comply, or 48h later, my server is shut down.

That's seriously messed up.

If your hosting provider is a US company, you might be wrong about this law not applying to you.

Of course it's not.

Check the terms of service and the acceptable use policy of your host; even if the DMCA doesn't apply to you directly, it would apply to a U.S. based host, and you agreed to their terms when you became their customer.

US based host? Their terms?

You're aware hosting companies can have locations in multiple countries but still be controlled by a parent company in the US? So if the US parent company doesn't play ball, that has the potential for downstream issues in the other hosting locations. Easier/safer as the company to just play ball. If you're so concerned about this, find a host based and run solely from a safe country and not controlled by a US-based entity.

It's not.

I have selected my hosting specifically for this.

In that case, you might just email your host's support team and ask them directly.

I did of course. They don't care.

I tried several different hostings as well.

It's unfortunately a prevalent strat in the industry: if the client is too small, one should spend minimum money on it, so they default to that.

Your hosting company is bound by US laws. Their defense for hosting illegal content is the DMCA, which allows them to claim that it is your responsibility (the end-user's).

This is the entire point of DMCA: exempt service providers from indirect liability for content on their network (at the cost of taking action for that content upon receiving notice).

If DMCA applied to them but not to you, how could that possibly work? A US company could host content that no one is responsible for?

In other words: this is not about you but about your hosting company. They are the ones the DMCA apply to, and was written for. This is true no matter where you live, if your hosting company is US.

You think it's reasonable for companies worldwide to be bound by US law? Companies doing business in the US, sure, but random hosting companies? Do you also expect US companies to honor takedown requests according to North Korean law?

We are talking about a US company here.

No, I'm definitely not a US company.

I misunderstood "Of course it's not" upthread then. If you are not using a US hosting company, obviously you are free of the DMCA.

If your hosting provider is in the EU, the Digital Services Act shields them from liability for hosting illegal content, provided they respond swiftly to takedowns, which is why they do.

The DMCA is the United States implementation of the World Intellectual Property Organizations treaties. So there likely is an equivalent statute in your jurisdiction.

It doesn't matter. DMCA is an implementation of the IP protection (and a very biased one). While the treaties might agree on the principles, fortunately most other countries don't have an equivalent mechanism. "Yet.", a pessimist would add.

Is this actually true? I was under the impression that the DMCA came first and then similar stuff was put into WIPO treatries but not necessarily ratified or fully implemented in the domestic copyright law of other countries.

Not really sure what the point of this comment is to be honest. Other jurisdictions didn’t simply copy and paste the DMCA. OP’s desire to be threatened in terms of the regulations that they’re actually beholden to is completely valid. Because, spoiler alert, international treaties aside, not every implementation is as terrible as the DMCA.

Upon receipt of a counter notification, the DMCA obligates them to wait at least 10 business days before restoring the content to give the original party an opportunity to sue first.

Which is one of the big problems with the DMCA, it effectively lets companies/individuals shut down those they don't like at critical points without any court involvement with effectively no negative consequences for abusing that. It's an extremely biased law, even compared to how unfair copyright is to begin with.

I disagree that Cloudflare is super-responsively following the DMCA takedown notice requirements. The DMCA requires them to respond to a takedown notice by expeditiously taking down the content, and to a counter-notice by restoring the content. Instead, they responded to a takedown notice by forwarding it to their customer, along with a commitment to wait for 72 hours before taking anything down.

The original notice was not a DMCA takedown even if Buttflare's email describes it as such. DMCA is for copyright infringement, but this is a (claimed) trademark dispute.

Clownflare. Different circus, same clowns.™

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