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Warner Bros Issues Takedown For Own Website (bbc.co.uk)
An anonymous reader writes: In a case of sloppy automation run amok, Warner Bros' copyright enforcement contractor -- Vobile -- issued takedown notices for legitimate distributors and Warner Bros' own website, according to the BBC. It also asked the search giant to remove links to legitimate movie streaming websites run by Amazon and Sky, as well as Amazon-owned film database IMDB. Fortunately for them, Google chose to cut them a break and ignore those requests.
Nope. There isn't. That's one of peoples' objections to how DCMA works: it wasn't realized back in 1997 that millions of bogus, negligent, bad-faith or frivolous DMCA notices could simply be spammed without any consequences for the attackers.
You might be thinking of the part of DMCA which says it's perjury to misrepresent your ownership of a copyrighted work.
Let's say I don't hold the copyright on Hogan's Heroes, and I send a DMCA notice about your Cowboy Bebop fan page, claiming you are infringing my [fake] Hogan's Heroes copyright. That's perjury, per DMCA.
But nobody does that. As long as you hold the copyright to something, and claim that is what is infringed, you're safe.
Let's say I do hold the copyright on Hogan's Heroes and I send a DMCA notice about your Cowboy Bebop fanpage (and your Ride the Lightning lyrics page) (and your game walk-through) (and your Scientology OT III tuition invoice) (and a poem you wrote when you were 12 years old), claiming you are infringing my Hogan's Heroes copyright. Consequences: none. I can be as wrong as I want about whether or not you're infringing, but as long I have the copyright on the work I'm incorrectly claiming to be infringed (Hogan's Heroes), there's no perjury.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
No, they are not legally required to. DMCA does not require that.
By failing to take down, they merely become potentially liable for whatever infringement may have occurred (which happens be none, in this case). Complying with the DMCA takedown notice procedure is a means of avoiding such potential liability.
If they're sure there was no infringement, and also if they're sure that Warner Bros' isn't going to sue in spite of the lack of infringement (because even winning in court, can be expensive), then this is a reasonable safe decision.
If they were less sure (e.g. if it were your video instead of Warner Bros') then they would take it down. Not because they're required to (they're not) but because they'd want to not be party for any resulting lawsuit between the other two parties (e.g. you and Warner Bros).
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
It was realized but it was pretended that the perjury clause would stop it and that anyone who disputed that it would not was just a foaming at the mouth geek software pirate. Some of the early stories on this site were about it.