[Infowarrior] - Google provides DMCA takedown #s

[Richard Forno]

Google Provides Numbers On Just How Often DMCA Takedown Process Is  
Abused
from the quite-frequently,-it-appears dept

http://techdirt.com/articles/20090315/2033134126.shtml

Some entertainment industry lawyers have been going around lately,  
pitching a fable that the DMCA isn't really that bad, since bogus  
takedown notices are somewhat rare. However, some new evidence from  
Google suggests quite a different story. Reader Slackr points us to  
some news about Google filing a comment on New Zealand's proposed new  
copyright law that would kick file sharers offline based on  
accusations rather than convictions. While New Zealand has agreed to  
hold off putting the law into place, while it hopes to work out a  
compromise, the government is accepting submissions from interested  
parties. While it's interesting alone that Google is participating in  
the process, even more interesting is what it has to say about its  
experience with DMCA takedown notices:

     In its submission, Google notes that more than half (57%) of the  
takedown notices it has received under the US Digital Millennium  
Copyright Act 1998, were sent by business targeting competitors and  
over one third (37%) of notices were not valid copyright claims.

Google's point is that these types of laws are widely abused, and  
setting up such a system where punishment is handed out without any  
real due process is going to lead to an awful lot of mistakes. But,  
these stats are worth discussing just for what they say about the DMCA  
itself, and that myth that the process is rarely abused. From the  
numbers Google has seen, it's quite clear that the DMCA isn't just  
abused, it's regularly abused in ways that are both anti-competitive  
and chilling.