[heyadayo]

The DMCA is surprisingly fair and well balanced.

- The content owner may sent a counter-notification, and the Online Service Provider must put the content back up with two weeks, or it may be held liable for monetary damages.

- The original DMCA notice issuer must then actually sue the content owner to actually remove the content

- If the issuer makes a false claim, and it can be shown that they knew it was false, then they can be held liable for significant fines under the DMCA.

The only downside I see is that an average Joe doesn't know how this works and can easily have their content removed for ten days or longer. For breaking news and the like, ten days on the internet can be an eternity. But usually its not a problem.

I'm curious, how would you address this problem better?

[nathos]

Criminalizing all circumvention of access control is "fair and well balanced"? Even if the circumvention does not result in the infringement of copyright?

The DMCA enabled the broken, DRM-ridden media landscape we enjoy today.

[heyadayo]

Maybe, maybe not, but with respect to the posted article which is clearly referencing § 512(c), the DMCA is surprisingly fair and well balanced.

We're talking about takedown procedures, not DRM.

[eli]

There's little to stop copyright holders from using the takedown provision in bad faith. Sure, they have to swear they believe the content is infringing... but how can anyone disprove that? And there are plenty of companies that seem to truly believe that there's basically no fair use of their content whatsoever.

You also forgot to mention that although the provider is supposed to restore the content within 14, they're also not allowed to do so any earlier than 10 business days. They have to give the copyright holder time to consider if they want to bring a lawsuit. So if I don't like, say, a negative book review you wrote, I can knock it offline for minimum two weeks with a single spurious letter.

There are many examples of copyright holders using the DMCA takedown in bad faith to silence critics.

[scythe]

I take issue with "and it can be shown that they knew it was false". If you're going to force a takedown of someone else's content, it's your responsibility to be entirely sure.

[alecco]

> The DMCA is surprisingly fair and well balanced.

Right. Tell that to Dimitry Skylarov.