[AnthonyMouse]

Those are literally the words in the statute. I'd be more interested if you could find a case upheld on appeal of someone being actually found guilty of perjury for filing a DMCA claim against non-infringing content. Because if it is never actually enforced then it's a distinction without a difference anyway. In either case fraudulent DMCA notices are rampant and the perpetrators face no consequences.

[ikeboy]

Courts have interpreted the statute to mean that perjury applies to a good faith belief in infringement as well. See two cases cited at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23198236

[StanislavPetrov]

If this was meaningful we would have seen perjury prosecutions. We haven't, so its not.

[ikeboy]

There's no private cause of action for perjury. I agree that it would be nice if some ambitious DA would go after some of the people abusing DMCA or other infringement claims. Or perhaps someone in a state that allows private prosecution?

[gpm]

As far as I'm aware (and again, my knowledge of this field is far from perfect), the justice department has never charged anyone with perjury over a DMCA claim... period.

There have been civil lawsuits, for example Lenz v. Universal Music is famous for establishing that failure to consider fair use when filing a DMCA complaint constitutes misrepresentation under the DMCA. But these don't directly relate to perjury.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenz_v._Universal_Music_Corp.

[AnthonyMouse]

> There have been civil lawsuits, for example Lenz v. Universal Music is famous for establishing that failure to consider fair use when filing a DMCA complaint constitutes misrepresentation under the DMCA.

That's misrepresentation rather than perjury. It's a different section. That changes it from criminal penalties to actual damages, but then what are the actual damages to Joe's Blog from having a link delisted from Google for a few days? A hundred bucks to make a federal case out of it? That'll be more trouble than it's worth to most everyone and then nobody does it and there are still no consequences. Meanwhile if you did have major actual damages, then what? You have a valid claim against a judgment-proof DMCA spammer who just files for bankruptcy?

Whereas perjury charges that had the spammer spending a few nights in jail and were regularly enforced by well-resourced government prosecutors might actually make a dent in the prevalence of this sort of thing. But that hasn't been the case in practice, one way or another.