Most often things are morally neutral, and can be used for good or bad, some things are morally bad and it is difficult to use them for morally good things, and some things are morally good and it is difficult to use for morally bad. But most things are morally neutral. I think the DMCA is morally bad, but here he can use it for a moral good. But even when you use a morally bad thing for good it is still slightly bad, as in people could point at his usage here (if he chose to use it) and say "see the DMCA isn't bad" and the benefit for the bad solution his good usage promotes would taint his good usage ever so slightly.
As I tend to be more of a pragmatist I would say use the DMCA takedown if possible, but I can understand someone else feeling that would be bad.
Your view is Stallman-esque, but the world is not so clear cut in terms of good/evil. At best, I would say the abuse of the DMCA by large entities is an unintended consequence of the existence of the DMCA, and it could be patched up by lawmakers if there weren't already a remedy for DMCA requests made in bad faith.
The problem is that places like Youtube have implemented policies more strict than the DMCA that do enable big content owners to bypass the DMCA process and remove user content without much recourse.
that's sort of a nonsensical statement - it would mean that abuse cannot be patched up if there is a remedy. But how does abuse happen if there is a remedy? Surely the remedy is not very good if it does not stop abuse? But abuse cannot be stopped because there is a remedy.
That's some catch there, that catch-22.
At any rate given that I said most things were neutral and only some things were bad or good I don't know that I am very Stallman-esque - or is it just because I, as many other people, have identified one particular thing as being bad that Stallman also identified as bad. Geez, I don't wanna be like that guy - I guess I should change my viewpoint.
Then again, maybe I'm just John Doe-ish, assuming your average John Doe when told about the abuses of the DMCA thinks - whoa, that's messed up! I wonder why the lawmakers don't do anything to fix it, I bet there's some non-working remedy that prevents it!
The target of the complaint can file a counter-notice. That is the remedy that you have if there is a false complaint made against you.
There is no catch-22 here - there is a clear path to follow within the legal system for cases of abuse. Could it be patched up to be better? Sure. But catch-22? There is no rule preventing you from responding to or addressing false complaints. If anything, the catch-22 comes from the sites that benefit from DMCA that don't allow DMCA counter-notices, or even worse that pre-emptively remove user submitted content that it suspects will generate DMCA notices. In that case, your argument skews toward "posted speed limits encourage a system where law enforcement officers set up speed traps" - but would we be better off without speed limits altogether? Or maybe just with some limitations on the problems that arise from them?
The net benefit of DMCA is better than without DMCA. The non-DMCA alternative is that I can go post the text of Harry Potter to Reddit, and J.K. Rowling can sue Reddit for distribution of her (registered) copyrighted material for damages. With DMCA, J.K. Rowling can send a DMCA notice to Reddit, and Reddit can take the post down and offer me the chance to respond that the content is not in violation - but Reddit is not in peril.
I'm not a lawyer, but I took a grad level IP law class as part of my undergrad coursework. I think people like us stand to benefit quite a bit from learning how things work at that level.
Said threat only comes from big content owners, and they don't even bother to check if they have the rights to the content before issuing a DMCA challenge. A small-fry content owner doesn't have the resources to find copyright infringement, while big content providers simply scrape everything with automation and issue a claim on even the flimsiest match.
At YouTube, big content doesn't even have to do the work, they've pushed the work off to YouTube's content ID system which automatically demonetizes (or, better yet, gives the revenue to the claimant).
Again, DMCA works out in favor of the small-fry content owner who more than likely has the resources to find copyright infringement (Google searches are free), but that certainly doesn't have the resources to take every case of copyright violation to court for injunction or other remedy.
Pre-DMCA, if someone posted content that I created to a website, my main recourse would be to ask the website nicely to remove said content and hope they didn't immediately delete my request. I could try to sue the website for violating my copyright by distributing my content without my permission.
Post-DMCA, if someone posts content that I created to a website, I can file an un-ignorable DMCA complaint with the website, and there are defined timelines and processes that must be followed if the website does not want to take on liability for distributing my content.
It's unfortunate that big content owners abuse the system, but it's unfair to say that there are no benefits for small content owners.
Also, the entire premise of your DMCA example for small creators is false and trivializes the difficulty of even finding violations. "Google searches are free"? As if I can spend 5 minutes google "who copied my stuff"?
I guess the Chinese copycat will still be sold in China and other non-compliant markets for IP law but that would ba a partial victory.
Just because another app works similar to another app does not mean it's infringing.
Apple is not in the same position: the businesses who would sue them to try to force them to enforce their copyright are much much smaller than it (and are additionally very reliant on Apple).