Re:RIAA Takedowns Backfire as Pirated MP3s Now Surface on Gi...
by bxk1 on Wednesday November 04, 2020 @11:01AM
(#24990192)
People outside of the US can't be bound to be sued in a US court or anywhere outside of the jurisdiction they currently reside in and even then a country he is a citizen of could try to use high level channels to get him out of there. Extradition treaties complicate this a bit more, but extradition still has to go through local laws, local law enforcement, local government and far from everyone would get extradited left and right if there is an agreement.
The biggest thing a counter-notice could do (if it's even possible) is reveal one's identity and only if Microsoft/Github tries to verify it, which would be bad, because it could be used for harassment. But the author is obviously Russian, not sure if he lives in Russia, but if he does, they definitely won't be able to get him in Russia, only harass him.
They might decide not to counter-notice, because there's a big trap in the DMCA counter-notice: as far as I know, for a DMCA counter-notice to be valid, the one doing the counter-notice must agree to be bound to the jurisdiction of an USA court. If the youtube-dl author is not from the USA (I think he's from the EU), that would expose him to legal risk.
(As a non-USA person, to me this is the most evil part of the DMCA take-down system: even a defective DMCA notice leads to a dilemma, either you keep the content offline, or you risk being sued in a foreign jurisdiction you have no control over. This is also why I believe one should always prefer to host in one's own country, so that any dispute can be resolved by the local courts.)