| Let's not be too generous here. From the article it appears that: • An account with unverified credentials was allowed to make a substantial number of DCMA takedown requests without any kinds of checks or limits • Shopify had DMCA automation that either assumed guilt for each accusation or applied woefully inadequate heuristics in apllying them • The accused have access to appeal process that leaves them suspended and thus unable to operate their businesses in the Shopify market for two weeks • Shopify took legal action, not to protect their customers, but because reputational loss from the uproar their handling of this situation caused From my perspective, there are two parties at fault here: • The user that made this false takedown requests • Shopify for: • not doing due-dilgience on the user making them,
• for automating the process with poorly tested and/or inadequate algorithms/heuristics,
• for not promptly following up on appeals, leaving businesses unable to trade for an unreasonably long period of time
If Shopify wish to aggressively automate to save costs (increase their own profits), then they should have a large enough team to handle appeals promptly, i.e. within 24 hours. |
Rights holder claims IP violation -> content uploader challenges the claim -> IP owner challenges the counter-challenge -> governmental agency steps in -> elevated number of unfavorable judgements result in legal action.
The current process places very little disincentive to place bogus claims, because very few content uploaders gain enough from content distribution to challenge the claim in a court of law and put possible perjury to the test, especially in non-obvious situations.
The modified process still places incentives to file claims out of judicial system, however it places disincentive on submitting bogus claims. Claims can still be submitted by automated systems, but presence of counter-claim incentivizes detection quality as drop in automated detection quality is automatically balanced by increased manual review cost, which is in turn balanced by risk of losing access to the quick process itself. Such system still incentivizes finding mutual agreement out of judicial system while protecting those willing to challenge on both ends.