--Previous Message--
: A "prankster" was able to remove all of Justin Bieber's
: videos from YouTube by filing a bunch of bogus DMCA notices.
: While a lot of people find this amusing for one reason or
: another, it really highlights a key problem with the DMCA's
: notice-and-takedown process, which is a "censor now, deal
: with the consequences later" system.
:
: As has been pointed out in the past, it seems like this process
: is a violation of the First Amendment, in that it involves the
: shutting down of speech prior to any sort of due process or
: adversarial hearing. I'm still amazed that the DMCA doesn't
: allow for at least a notice-and-notice process, giving the
: uploader/host a chance to respond before the content is removed.
: In a case such as this, it would have prevented the removal.
:
: As for the "prankster," he might want to be careful.
: Filing totally false DMCA claims can open you up to serious
: legal penalties, and assuming that Bieber makes a fair bit of
: money from his videos on YouTube, his representatives probably
: have decent reason to go after the prankster. And that might not
: be a bad thing. In the process, perhaps they could establish
: greater precedence for the ability to punish those who file
: bogus DMCA takedowns.
:
:
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