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by JoshTriplett 5342 days ago
> And those penalties are based on the cost to the other guy. So if warner falsely demands your youtube video is taken down - you lost no money so even if they lied the penalty is zero.

DMCA notices include the required text "under penalty of perjury". Perjury qualifies as a criminal felony, quite aside from any financial penalties. Unfortunately, nobody has ever enforced that requirement; someone ought to. Perhaps with the parties responsible for sending such notice imprisoned for up to five years (http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/1621.html), they'd think twice about sending false takedown notices.
1 comments
narcissus 5342 days ago
I read once that the 'under penalty of perjury' was 'linked' to the statement that you were an authorised representative of the company making the claim, not 'linked' to the claim itself.

Having said that, it's been a long time since I've seen a notice :)

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JoshTriplett 5342 days ago
It specifically says "I swear, under penalty of perjury, that I am the copyright owner or am authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed."

So, if you're not the copyright owner...

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narcissus 5341 days ago
See that's the thing: I read that as "I'm saying that Product X is being infringed and I swear that I am authorised to act on behalf of the owner of Product X".

It is not saying that "I swear, under penalty of perjury, that that the product I claim is being infringed actually is being infringed".

That's a pretty important difference I think.

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JoshTriplett 5341 days ago
Fair enough. Do you have any reference to indicate that as the intended reading?
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narcissus 5341 days ago
I don't unfortunately. The discussion I read was so long ago that it was probably on Slashdot :) Having said that, I found a few sites with 'DMCA policies' (eg. http://www.azlyrics.com/copyright.html ). Looking at how they discuss perjury, as well as just reading that line that you quoted nothing mentions that you are claiming the infringement under perjury, just that you are allowed to represent the product that is allegedly being infringed.
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nobody3141592 5342 days ago
There is a similar clause in patent applications but I have never heard of a defeated patent involving a prosecution for perjury!

I suspect the burden of proving that it was a deliberate lie to damage the other guy , in a criminal trial, is rather too high.

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