Consuming Experience tells the long story of how the BBC came to demand that YouTube remove the video she had posted. The take-away: The DMCA is an abuse magnet.

The short version of the story: The anonymous author of Consuming Experience was in the beta program for a BBC media player. After carefully reading the agreement she’d signed with the BBC and figuring that the player had already been pretty widely publicized, she posted a clip of it. The BBC asserted that the clip violated its copyright and demanded that YouTube remove it under the terms of the DMCA. YouTube complied, as it always does. If YouTube doesn’t comply, it’s legally liable if the material is found to infringe copyright. Hence, complying with take-down notices is a legal reflex action.

The Consuming Experience blogger eventually was put in touch with the right people at the BBC. They apologized. It is, to the BBC’s credit, the first take down notice they’ve ever sent to YouTube. Someone at the BBC — we don’t know who — apparently had panicked, thinking the clip gave away trade secrets. Or maybe they just regretted not having written the beta agreements more carefully.

This is not just yet another case of a big media company sending out takedown notices for material that it turns out does not violate copyright. This represents a temptation to abuse the DMCA in a different way. The DMCA isn’t about trade secrets. There are other remedies for that. The DMCA is about copyright. But it’s so easy to send out take down notices that its use will inevitably expand in every dimension. Don’t like a clip for whatever reason? Send a take-down notice. And, although victims can send a counter-notification if they think their stuff was taken down inappropriately, they are Davids facing well-heeled Goliaths.

The DMCA does allow hefty penalties to be levied against those who knowingly abuse it. I hope we’ll see some judgments. [Tags: copyright dmca bbc ]

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