Laura Quilter and Jennifer
Urban, Director of the Intellectual Property Clinic at the University of
Southern California, have released a summary report of findings from a study of
takedown notices sent pursuant to Section 512 of the Digital Millennium
Copyright Act, and submitted by the recipients to the
Chilling Effects clearinghouse. The
report, titled "Efficient Process or 'Chilling Effects'? Takedown Notices Under
Section 512 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act," traces the use of the
Section 512 takedown process.
According to the report nearly
one-third of takedown notices submitted to online service providers under the
DMCA are for claims that may not justify takedown. One of 11 notices had
significant statutory flaws (failure to properly identify the allegedly
infringing work, failure to provide contact information, failure to provide a
way to locate the allegedly infringing work etc.), that render them invalid.
Another result of the study:
Businesses targeting apparent competitors accounted for 57 % of the takedown
notices submitted to Google Inc. seeking removal of links from the index.
