It doesn't matter whether you broke the law if you go broke defending yourself. And good luck raising money with a lawsuit hanging over your head.

No law explicit, no. But there is loads of laws they may break and loads of ways many rich companies could sue them if they didn't use bots like this.

I don't see any. As long as they comply with DMCA takedown requests, they should be under safe harbor status.

That is not how the laws are being enforced, however. MegaUpload also apparently complied with takedown requests, and yet they have been down for 9 months as a result of enforcement action, with directors being held in remand for a period of time. Even if they win in court, this will undoubtedly have seriously damaged the momentum of their business.

It is understandable that businesses will self-censor beyond the requirements of the letter of the law to avoid legal action against them, even if those legal challenges are likely to fail.

Until a *AA gets tired of them "taking advantage" of the law and sues them into oblivion... won't even matter that they were on the right side of the law.

It's not that clearcut: https://torrentfreak.com/rapidshare-not-guilty-of-copyright-...

I know the paranoia copyright laws create on companies.