I looked around for costs; basically the original copyright holder has to prove damages. Since most people using Youtube, et al, are not making that much profit, the DMCA-issuers won't face significant penalties for misusing DMCAs.
Seems like I won't get much penalties for taking down the trailers because it's hard to prove damages.
They have statutory damages for that, so they do not need to prove actual damages most of the time. I say "most of the time" because I think there are a few cases where statutory damages can become unavailable. I don't remember the details, but I think I heard once that someone mucked up registering their copyright and was unable to claim statutory damages because of that.
> Since most people using Youtube, et al, are not making that much profit, the DMCA-issuers won't face significant penalties for misusing DMCAs.
Issuing a false DMCA takedown is perjury, and the victims may have standing for a Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations civil lawsuit with substantial damages.
Seems like I won't get much penalties for taking down the trailers because it's hard to prove damages.
http://www.hyperorg.com/blogger/2010/02/27/the-economics-of-...
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100302/0432448359.shtml