[hnbad]

This is what struck me as well. Giphy doesn't exist to scrape full videos from YouTube. Kapwing offers to scrape full videos from YouTube and then reupload them to other platforms. That not only likely violates YouTube's terms of service but also directly contradicts YouTube's business interests.

I'm not sure the DMCA claim is legitimate (and Google seems to have walked back on it, which seems odd) but this feels more like a ToS violation that would justify an IP ban or strongly worded legal letter than an obvious DMCA case.