You’re correct. However, you only have to take down valid claims. If I issue a take down for a music video owned by, say, WMG, Google doesn’t have to listen if

You’re correct. However, you only have to take down valid claims. If I issue a take down for a music video owned by, say, WMG, Google doesn’t have to listen if they can see I don’t have the right to. That’s where people are coming from: they’re saying the takedown was never valid, so GitHub (Microsoft) didn’t have to listen to it. The big problem with that is: if GitHub refused to take it down but the RIAA prevailed in court, GitHub would lose their “safe harbor” protections. The DMCA is heavily tilted in favor of the supposed rights holder, and GitHub really did have no choice in that situation. It’s messed up, but it’s the reality of the laws of the land. There’s also the issue of people who are mistaken and think it was a section 512 notice (direct copyright infringement) when it wasn’t. It was a section 1201 one (DRM circumvention). We can argue all day about whether it’s DRM circumvention or not, but the fact of the matter is: there was obfuscation of some sort, and it wouldn’t be hard to convince a judge that that counts as DRM. GitHub erred on the side of caution here.