Oh wow, a lot of fears people have in this thread apparently already happened.

For example they claim to own the copyright to find substring: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29239926

Absolutely disgusting.

Part of the DMCA takedown process is:

  > A statement that the information in the notification is accurate, and under penalty of perjury, that the complaining party is authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.

Has this penalty ever been enforced?

DMCA 512(f) provides a penalty for misrepresentation; however, it is quite difficult to actually prove such things unless the plaintiff is very, very stupid (in Latin: pro se) or obviously acting with malice.

For example, if the thing you're taking down does use your content, but it falls under fair use, you can still get away with taking it down. There is no objective test for fair use and 512(f) does not mandate one; the criteria is just that you merely considered fair use. And since fair use is a bottomless pit of grey areas, you basically can't get a 512(f) ruling out of a legitimate copyright owner. It only catches the kinds of people who, say, pretend they're Bungie so they can file DMCA takedowns Bungie can't retract in Bungie's name.

Well, quoting u/formerly_proven from a 5 month old thread that someone linked above:

>Literally claiming copyright on this description for "find substring": "Given s and x, we want to know the zero-based index of the first occurrence of x in s" //

This is a functional description which has very limited possible English language forms and so it's highly unlikely to qualify for copyright in the first place. Anyone who has enough knowledge to file a DMCA request that is looking at this would consider that it is at worst Fair Use but in all probability is not infringing.

Seems a very strong case, if this quote is a true representation, for a claim of vexatious action.

The problem is that the penalty requires prosecution by a federal district attorney. I've never managed to get a DA to prosecute perjury. I even filed a complaint against a DA once when they perjured themselves in writing. It was ruled "accidental perjury" and the case was dropped. [note: perjury has an intent element, you can't accidentally perjure yourself]

Also, the above statement is vague. The perjury clause only applies to the final clause which states that the person making the request has the authority of the rights holder. It doesn't apply to the first clause stating that the information is accurate?

I haven't read the DMCA statute in years, so I don't know if the wording in that clause parrots the wording of the statute.

DAs are just lawyers with a fancy title, and that profession practices perjury as a second language. They won’t eat their own.

Not exactly that, as it was settled out of court, but https://torrentfreak.com/youtube-settles-lawsuit-with-allege... comes to mind. However that person did things that are quite a bit worse than what hackerrank did.

It has resulted in a settlement, and withdrawn complaints as far as I can tell: https://www.techdirt.com/2018/08/01/universal-retracts-dmca-...

And there seems to this case that is worth keeping an eye on: https://www.techdirt.com/2021/03/11/court-allows-lawsuit-ove...

Seems like the 2nd case was also settled. [1]

[1] https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/17353586/enttech-media-...

Hackerrank is one of the most unscrupulous companies I have seen. I honestly dont understand how anyone is capable of doing business with them. My own personal experience with them as been bad. I had applied a few years ago to be a part of their intern team, I have received emails scheduling my interview with them and then they eventually ignored me.

GitHub don't seem to be getting near enough flak in this thread.

Unfortunately the way the DMCA is written means that GitHub is acting prudently here. If GitHub does not take down content they receive a valid DMCA request for, they lose their safe harbor and can be made a defendant for a future frivolous copyright suit. Nobody should be taking flak for refusing to become a party to someone else's litigation.

wow, this is scary