DMCA Notices Remove 8,268 Projects On Github In 2015 (torrentfreak.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Github's transparency report for 2015 shows that the site received many DMCA notices that removed more than 8,200 projects. "In 2015, we received significantly more takedown notices, and took down significantly more content, than we did in 2014," Github reports. For comparison, the company received only 258 DMCA notices in 2014, 17 of which responded with a counter-notice or retraction. In 2015, they received 505 takedown notices, 62 of which were the subject of counters or withdrawals. TorrentFreak reports: "Copyright holders are not limited to reporting one URL or location per DMCA notice. In fact, each notice filed can target tens, hundreds, or even thousands of allegedly infringing locations." September was a particularly active month as it took down nearly 5,834 projects. "Usually, the DMCA reports we receive are from people or organizations reporting a single potentially infringing repository. However, every now and then we receive a single notice asking us to take down many repositories," Github explains. They are called 'Mass Removals' when more than 100 repositories are asked to be removed. "In all, fewer than twenty individual notice senders requested removal of over 90% of the content GitHub took down in 2015."

Comments

Yeah....

[Anonymous Coward]

The DMCA is like the TSA:
In the words of the head of El Al, "The TSA isn't security. It's an annoyance."
The DMCA doesn't stop pirates, it just interferes with legit and acceptable things.

Re:Yeah....

[zrobotics]

Come on though, when I want the hottest new Hollywood movies or the freshest warez the first place I turn is github. Seriously, this is some weapons grade bullshit, I've never run into pirating on that site. I may have seen something that was patented, but I'm not sure that 20: print "Hello World" isn't covered by someone's patent anyway. If I sand round corners onto a block of wood, do I owe apple money?

Re:How many false claims?

[ATMAvatar]

DMCA full text

The DMCA contains the word perjury twice: once in relation to the person making the claim, and once in relation to the person making a counter-claim:

(vi) A statement that the information in the notification is accurate, and under penalty of perjury, that the complaining party is authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly in-fringed.

You'll note that the only statement subject to perjury is that the claimant is authorized to act on behalf of a rights owner. The first half, about accuracy, is not subject to the same penalty. The prior section (v) mentions that a statement must be made that there is a good faith belief that the subject of the claim is infringing, but it makes no mention of any penalties if this is untrue.

There is some token language later on about misrepresentation - that the claimant is liable for any damages incurred by the alleged infringer should the claimant knowingly misrepresent that the material is infringing. However, proving there was intentional misrepresentation is a pretty high bar, and in most cases, the damages are low enough as to be not worth the legal fight anyways.

Re:Solution --

[AmiMoJo]

That isn't bad advice, actually. Most of the copyright trolls seem to be in the US, so if you host your stuff in another country it saves you a lot of bother with DMCA notices. I responded to the first few I got but then just started ignoring them.