We've freed Cookie's Bustle from copyright hell

Detailed story, very helpful. You nerd baited me, so I went ahead and read 17 U.S.C. § 512(f).

  (f) Misrepresentations.—Any person who knowingly materially misrepresents under this section—
  (1) that material or activity is infringing, or
  (2) that material or activity was removed or disabled by mistake or misidentification,
  shall be liable for any damages, including costs and attorneys’ fees, incurred by the alleged infringer, by any copyright owner or copyright owner’s authorized licensee, or by a service provider, who is injured by such misrepresentation, as the result of the service provider relying upon such misrepresentation in removing or disabling access to the material or activity claimed to be infringing, or in replacing the removed material or ceasing to disable access to it.

Generally automated take down services are not my favorite business - the DMCA has strong penalties for infringement baked in, and one reason those penalties exist is that there is a strong enforcement clause that the takedown notices are made in good faith. There is no way these were made in good faith based on the facts described.

Missing detail about DMCA here is that you can file a counter-notice. You can reply and say "this is fair use" or "I own this", and the service provider will 1) forward the notice, 2) restore the content unless the claimed copyright owner sues.

It's not perfect, and the system can still be abused. But a DMCA takedown isn't necessarily an impossible burden that requires the recipient to do sleuthing to determine the real copyright owner. If they own it, they are good. If it's reasonably fair use, say so. Sending a DMCA takedown is easy, but you can flip it back just as easily. The hard/expensive part is filing/defending a lawsuit, which the complainant must initiate, which then reveals their identity, establishes liability for false claims, and carries a burden of proof.

> It’s the safest option, because at a certain scale, it is impractical for large platforms to evaluate the validity of every single takedown request they receive.

It has long seemed crazy to me that, as a society, we’ve allowed large companies to argue that they can’t do basic things that their smaller competitors have to. Provide customer support. Assess legal challenges. Et cetera. Should we not rather say: you have the resources, use them! This is a cost of getting big. You have economies of scale in other areas, don’t try to evade responsibility here.

None of this would have happened if there were any real world consequences to sending fraudulent DMCA takedowns.

So no one has discovered the motivation of this person? They must have spent a lot of money to engage in this behavior.