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Google Play keeps banning the same web browser due to vague DMCA notices | Ars Technica
(arstechnica.com)
this post was submitted on 28 Nov 2023
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The bigger problem here is how any bad actor can abuse the DMCA system almost with impunity as even if the accused wants to fight back, and even if they grab a lawyer, usually it ends with Google reinstating the app and that's that. The actual abuser never sees any retribution for abusing the system as counterclaims again go through the mediating instance. Google in this case.
If, say, Warner would be locked out of issueing DMCA claims after a dozen fight back within a month or two, that'd be a far bigger deterrent to issueing these spurious claims. Or even better, if they were to suffer fines based on a percentage of their worth for erroneous claims.
The issue is that nobody at the justice department seems to be interested in pursuing perjury, which is what filing a fake DMCA claim would be punished as.
It's difficult. Perjury requires intent. If a badly trained employee in a hurry makes a mistake that's not perjury.
This means it's legal, under the current law, to badly train your employees and to set them quotas for the amount of DMCA takedowns they have to serve.
They're not intentionally making false statements.
To stop this, you need to create new explicit penalties for bad takedown requests.
There's plenty of examples of companies intentionally filling DMCA claims to screw competitors. As far as I know nobody's ever seen any consequences for this. The law is broken when there's no actual punishment for abuse.
If it's repeated offenses like the example in the article, it's a little harder to prove it wasn't intentional.
I think the problem is that it shows irresponsibility, however the law requires intent. That's sadly - or well, I suppose overall it's a good thing! - a very different beast on a legal level.
Don't tell me this DMCA thing is just a broken USA thing that the rest of us are forced to endure?
I thought, being as it affects the entire globe's internet community so gigantically, it would be a legal framework agreed upon internationally.
If it's just some thing the Americans made up and fucked up implementing and that's why creators in my country and around the world suffer, that's shite.
It's a US law that basically any internet company just follows (or they implemented internal processes that just follow its guidelines where you don't even need to file an actual official DMCA request).
The issue is that any lawsuit over DMCA abuse must also involve the platform. However, if plaintiffs sue the platform, the platform will kick them off and they'll lose all future income.