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by cratermoon 1967 days ago
> existential threat from rights holders due to users uploading content that they do not hold the rights to

Said threat only comes from big content owners, and they don't even bother to check if they have the rights to the content before issuing a DMCA challenge. A small-fry content owner doesn't have the resources to find copyright infringement, while big content providers simply scrape everything with automation and issue a claim on even the flimsiest match.

At YouTube, big content doesn't even have to do the work, they've pushed the work off to YouTube's content ID system which automatically demonetizes (or, better yet, gives the revenue to the claimant).
1 comments
nanidin 1967 days ago
> A small-fry content owner doesn't have the resources to find copyright infringement

Again, DMCA works out in favor of the small-fry content owner who more than likely has the resources to find copyright infringement (Google searches are free), but that certainly doesn't have the resources to take every case of copyright violation to court for injunction or other remedy.

Pre-DMCA, if someone posted content that I created to a website, my main recourse would be to ask the website nicely to remove said content and hope they didn't immediately delete my request. I could try to sue the website for violating my copyright by distributing my content without my permission.

Post-DMCA, if someone posts content that I created to a website, I can file an un-ignorable DMCA complaint with the website, and there are defined timelines and processes that must be followed if the website does not want to take on liability for distributing my content.

It's unfortunate that big content owners abuse the system, but it's unfair to say that there are no benefits for small content owners.

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cratermoon 1966 days ago
I've never heard a small content creator say anything good about the DMCA; all I've heard is big content abusing the system to claim the work of small creators.

Also, the entire premise of your DMCA example for small creators is false and trivializes the difficulty of even finding violations. "Google searches are free"? As if I can spend 5 minutes google "who copied my stuff"?

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