3 ms·

> But that makes it completely trivial to abuse The perjury bit not applying doesn't rule out there being other forms of liability from incorrect DMCA notices

> But that makes it completely trivial to abuse The perjury bit not applying doesn't rule out there being other forms of liability from incorrect DMCA notices - it just strikes out the most visible and severe one. For instance if you wrote up a fake notice, based on a work you owned but targeting an unrelated URL, you could be sued for some sort of fraud or tortuous interference, even though you didn't run afoul of the perjury provision. The problem is commercial DMCA mills have the standard corporate veil where nothing is any one person's fault to hide behind. So even though it might be technically possible to take them to task, it's much harder to argue something like gross negligence.

anticensor 3y ago
Corporate veil cannot absolve anyone from criminal liability.
- mindslight 3y ago
  Sure. But there aren't generally criminal penalties for gross negligence in filing DMCA notices, as far as I'm aware. So that's not really relevant. However the corporate veil I'm referring to goes beyond the legal doctrine. I'm referring to the protection that comes from having a bunch of people doing something, so that errors get written off as constructive emergent behavior rather than pinned on singular willful actions. If an individual set up a script that generated a bunch of DMCA notices based on the possibility of infringement with no verification, then signed the requests and sent them off, they'd likely find themselves in court and pinned with a finding of bad faith (regardless of say having set up an LLC or not). Whereas when a group of people does the same thing, each only contributes part of the action, they all point fingers at each another for who's responsible (A: "I said the output of the script had to be verified", B: "I wasn't responsible for the output of the script", C: "I thought everything I got from B had already been verified"), and any argument of willful bad faith becomes much harder.

anticensor 3y ago

Corporate veil cannot absolve anyone from criminal liability.

mindslight 3y ago
Sure. But there aren't generally criminal penalties for gross negligence in filing DMCA notices, as far as I'm aware. So that's not really relevant. However the corporate veil I'm referring to goes beyond the legal doctrine. I'm referring to the protection that comes from having a bunch of people doing something, so that errors get written off as constructive emergent behavior rather than pinned on singular willful actions. If an individual set up a script that generated a bunch of DMCA notices based on the possibility of infringement with no verification, then signed the requests and sent them off, they'd likely find themselves in court and pinned with a finding of bad faith (regardless of say having set up an LLC or not). Whereas when a group of people does the same thing, each only contributes part of the action, they all point fingers at each another for who's responsible (A: "I said the output of the script had to be verified", B: "I wasn't responsible for the output of the script", C: "I thought everything I got from B had already been verified"), and any argument of willful bad faith becomes much harder.