I suppose. It's optional in the sense that the DMCA process is the alternative, and the DMCA sucks really bad. My interpretation of google's copyright system i

I suppose. It's optional in the sense that the DMCA process is the alternative, and the DMCA sucks really bad. My interpretation of google's copyright system is that it tries to straddle the line of being both significantly less punishing to content creators while also giving enough of a remedy to rightsholders so they don't end up preferring the DMCA takedown. The system is completely useless if rightsholders disfavor it and use the DMCA instead (which by law they can do at any time). This is a really unfortunate challenge around the design of copyright systems like googles that isn't often appreciated. All this would be so much easier if the DMCA was just reformed. There are so many obvious changes that could be made to make it much more tolerable and remove the need for complex systems like google's.