Increasing Transparency: Twitter Responds to DMCA Copyright Notices

  • Twitter has a new policy for responding to DMCA copyright notices that aims to provide more transparency.
  • The Digital Millennium Copyright Act does not hold companies like Twitter or Google responsible for copyrighted material that their users post; however, it does require the companies to take down the content when they receive copyright complaints. Users can then counter the notice to get their content reinstated.
  • Previously, Twitter would simply remove the content without providing any public notice of copyright notices. Now the company is “withdrawing” tweets, replacing them with a statement explaining the takedown.
  • “This is important to reporters and scholars who use Twitter as a news source and now have an explanation when a piece of news vanishes due to copyright reasons,” notes GigaOM. “This is consistent with other efforts by Twitter to shine light on a copyright process that critics say is susceptible to abuse by content owners.”
  • After Twitter withdraws the tweet, it also sends the requests to the Chilling Effects clearinghouse for online publication, according to a Twitter spokesman.
  • “The new Twitter policy comes as both Internet companies and copyright owners are growing frustrated with the existing DMCA regime,” GigaOM writes.
  • “On one hand, content creators say it is too much effort to track and send DMCA notices for each infringement. On the other hand, rights owners may be growing trigger happy with notices; Google, for instance, is now receiving more than 1 million copyright requests a month, some of which are not justified and can create a ‘chilling effect’ for users.”

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