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If you misrepresent that you are authorized by the company making the takedown request, that's literally the only thing that the DMCA considers to be perjury.

• dcrazy 2y ago
  It’s not that crazy when you consider that someone might be wrong about whether their work is even copyrightable, but they can’t realistically be mistaken about whether they are acting as someone’s authorized agent. That’s the kind of relationship that lawyers know very well how to make explicit.
  • mithametacs 2y ago
    But they should also have foreseen the routes for abuse. That's also their job. The DMCA is a disaster.
    • SpicyLemonZest 2y ago
      They did foresee the routes for abuse and set up a formal counterclaim process. Neither the source article nor the original reporting really explain why the targets of these takedown orders didn't want to file a counterclaim - in some cases there can be privacy concerns, but the T-shirt artist at least has already publicly identified herself.
      • thayne 2y ago
        The process is extremely assymmetric, the counterclaim process has much higher requirements than a takedown notice. Like having to actually provide evidence you aren't infringing, provide your real identity, and often convince an AI that your content shouldn't be taken down or least get it seen by a real person. And if you succeed, you just get your content back up. No compensation for any damage caused by your content being down for a while.
        • dcrazy 2y ago
          Maybe you’re describing YouTube’s DMCA process? The actual law doesn’t specify any of that [1]: > If the user believes that the material was removed as a result of mistake or misidentification of the material, the user may submit a counter-notice requesting the reinstatement of the material. To be effective, a counter-notice must contain substantially the following information: > (i) a physical or electronic signature of the user; > (ii) identification of the material that has been removed or to which access has been disabled and the location at which the material appeared before it was removed or access to it was disabled; > (iii) a statement under penalty of perjury that the user has a good faith belief that the material was removed or disabled as a result of mistake or misidentification of the material to be removed or disabled; > (iv) the user’s name, address, and telephone number, and a statement that the subscriber consents to the jurisdiction of Federal District Court for the judicial district in which the address is located, or if the subscriber’s address is outside of the United States, for any judicial district in which the service provider may be found, and that the subscriber will accept service of process from the person who provided notification under subsection (c)(1)(C) or an agent of such person. 1: https://www.copyright.gov/512/ https://www.copyright.gov/512/
          • thayne 2y ago
            (iv) sure sounds like giving them your true identity to me. You have to give them information to sue you (or do other nefarious things), but they don't have to provide you with information that say, you could use to sue them for perjury or try to recover damages from the time it was taken down.
            • dcrazy 2y ago
              Again, you seem to be conflating YouTube’s DMCA process (which is designed to optimize the experience for YouTube, not to maximize the rights of YouTubers) with what the law actually specifies. The filer must provide contact information (paragraph iv), which can be used to serve process. > (i) the signature of the copyright owner or an authorized agent; > (ii) identification of the copyrighted work claimed to have been infringed, or, if multiple works are on a single site, a representative list of such works; > (iii) identification of the infringing material or activity (or the reference or link to such material) and information reasonably sufficient to permit the OSP to locate the material (or the reference or link); > (iv) contact information for the copyright owner or authorized agent; > (v) a statement that the person sending the notice has a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law; and > (vi) a statement that the information in the notice is accurate, and under penalty of perjury, that the person sending the notice is authorized to act on behalf of the copyright owner . I agree the system is intentionally asymmetric, because it was built by people who understand how quickly material proliferates once it’s been posted to the Internet. That makes it abusable to chill speech, as in this case. But the law was also written with an expectation that anonymity does not guarantee full participation in civil society.
    • matheusmoreira 2y ago
      These laws are bought and paid for by corporations of the trillion dollar copyright industry. They hire expensive lobbyists to get these laws passed. It's no surprise that the laws only foresee the abuse that could hurt their bottom lines. The better question is: why have the people's representatives failed to protect their interests? Why didn't they foresee the abuses that hurt us all?
      • JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        > why have the people's representatives failed to protect their interests? Nobody cares about copyright. There is a vocal minority of us who do. But we're only slightly more useful on it than the privacy advocates, both sharing a good chunk of people who are lazy or nihlistic about the political process to the point of being politically irrelevant. As a result, a representative who brings up copyright reform gets like one call in support and zero net new votes. Meanwhile, they get powerful and patient adversaries from the Big Tech to the record companies and their billionaire artists.
        • int_19h 2y ago
          It really depends on how you phrase it. If you talk about copyright in the abstract, then yes, few people will care. But ask them how they feel about stuff like this specifically, and it'll be rather different.
      • mithametacs 2y ago
        The Senate is quite deliberately there to protect the interests of the wealthy and powerful.
      • jgerrish 2y ago
        It's unfortunate that the UnitedHealth Group death has fanned the flames of this hatred of corporations. Artificial Intelligence is going to change how we work. Many top software engineers on Hacker News may be ok for a while. Although everyone could use help. But already many artists and junior engineers feel pressure. Lack of copyright protection can make that even worse for many. These are allies and people who we mentor. Just brainstorming, Social Purpose Corporations could provide innovative co-op opportunities for artists and engineers. That's just one example. I don't see the management class failing to forsee the financial reality in the global workplace. But I do worry about dependents facing division and hate. Bully that, right? I can't fucking forsee every possibility, traps and all, though. Maybe not social purpose corporations but just hyper-incubators that enable a million small indy corps. Man, I'm imagining Jar Jar binks manning the hyperspace lychgates across from the content generators. Sorry, stupid digression. I'm sorry for wasting cycles on that.
• Underpass9041 2y ago
  As someone receiving a notice you have no idea if it's legitimate or from a AOL account someone made 15 minutes ago, the threat of it being perjury doesn't work when there's no authentication whatsoever of who sent it. Unless the DMCA is signed by Zaphod Beeblebrox the receiver has no choice but to assume it's legitimate.
  • SteveNuts 2y ago
    What happens if you ignore it?
    • gruez 2y ago
      You lose safe harbor protections, which means if the notice was legitimate, you could be on the hook for copyright infringement as well.
    • deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    • bombcar 2y ago
      You can respond and refuse, but you have to authenticately dox yourself to do so, and you assume liabilities.
      • eurleif 2y ago
        You're conflating two things: a DMCA counter-notice by an alleged infringer, and the refusal of an intermediary to honor a DMCA takedown notice. Your statement is a mixture of claims that are true about one or the other of those separate things. DMCA counter-notice: * Sent by an alleged infringer (in this case, that would be the artist) to an intermediary (in this case, TeePublic) asserting that a takedown notice the intermediary received was invalid. * Requires the alleged infringer to provide information about themself ("authentically dox"). * Can enable the intermediary to restore access to the material without losing their liability shield. * Doesn't affect the alleged infringer's copyright infringement liability in any direction (though as with takedown notices, there's the potential for perjury). If the alleged infringer committed copyright infringement, they were already liable for it, and remain so; if they didn't, then they never were liable and still aren't. Intermediary refusal: * Simply a lack of action on a takedown notice by the intermediary to whom it was sent. * Doesn't require anyone to dox themselves, or to do anything in particular. The intermediary can throw the takedown notice in the garbage and go about their day. * Removes the intermediary's liability shield; the intermediary can potentially be liable for infringement, when they would otherwise would have been immune.
• willis936 2y ago
  I'm not sure how DMCA enforcement isn't a clear violation of the 1st amendment. If you are connected you can use the government to stop speech? Isn't this the kind of thing that US feels very strongly is not okay?
  • cratermoon 2y ago
    When the government does it, it's bad. When the Free Market™ does it, that's innovation.
  • omgwtfbyobbq 2y ago
    The 1st amendment applies to the government, so it wouldn't apply unless the DMCA request is to a government website.
    • foota 2y ago
      The DMCA is a law that restricts the ability of people to make speech. The government is the one doing the restricting, even if the place the speech is being done isn't controlled by the government. The argument you're making is applicable when a website decides not to publish your speech (they're not the government, so the 1st amendment is irrelevant), but the DMCA is different.
      • omgwtfbyobbq 2y ago
        The 1st amendment only applies to freedom of speech that the government can control/affect directly. Using the DMCA like this is censorship by copywrite, and it does go against freedom of speech in society at large, but it's not a 1st amendment issue. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_by_copyright https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_by_copyright
        • JoeAltmaier 2y ago
          Lots of arguing around the point, perhaps. Freedom of speech is an American ideal. It's in the Bill of Rights because it was so important. Not as a tool to restrict this right to just government infringements. It is supposed to be a universal right. I often wonder at those arguing that it's 'ok' somehow in some circumstances because, not protected except for the govt! Somehow they've lost sight of the ideal.