I would really love to see someone get prosecuted for fraudulent DMCA claims such as this one. The claimant here has sworn, under penalty of perjury, that they are the copyright holder of the code in the named repository. This is a straight up lie - in reality they hold no copyright over code in the repository, because the code in the repository has been independently created.
The anti-circumvention portion of the DMCA is a completely separate thing, and as far as I am aware running afoul of it does not give anyone the right to claim copyright over the code you wrote. The claimant's correct path to a remedy (if any) is to sue the authors of the "circumvention device" and prove the case in court, rather than fraudulently abusing the DMCA takedown process as a shortcut.
If Microsoft/Github wants to show us how enlightened they have become, they should sue this claimant for fraud and tortious interference. Standing up for one's customers against bogus legal action could even become a selling point of SaaS.
How does quoting a passage where they assert copyright ownership over one thing imply that they did not also assert copyright ownership over something else?
> What files should be taken down? Please provide URLs for each file, or if the entire repository, the repository’s URL. ... https://github.com/noDRM/DeDRM_tools
> the content of the repo was illegally obtained. The repo and its forks must be shut down entirely.
> I have a good faith belief that use of the copyrighted materials described above on the infringing web pages is not authorized by the copyright owner, or its agent, or the law.
> I swear, under penalty of perjury, that the information in this notification is accurate and that I am the copyright owner, or am authorized to act on behalf of the owner, of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.
In addition, the larger context of a DMCA Takedown Request is to assert expedient takedown of a copy of work that you have copyright ownership over. Adding a bunch of backpedaling filler to a DMCA Takedown Request does not alter its basic purpose.
edit: Sheesh it looks like Microsoft is actually encouraging claimants to write these fraudulent DMCA notices regarding circumvention technology [0]. So this is basically another extralegal "Content ID" process, and Microsoft being overzealous with takedowns makes them a terrible option for hosting your stuff. I'd love to see the law produce some justice here for once, but the real answer to these corporate-bought one-sided laws is IPFS and the like.
The anti-circumvention portion of the DMCA is a completely separate thing, and as far as I am aware running afoul of it does not give anyone the right to claim copyright over the code you wrote. The claimant's correct path to a remedy (if any) is to sue the authors of the "circumvention device" and prove the case in court, rather than fraudulently abusing the DMCA takedown process as a shortcut.
If Microsoft/Github wants to show us how enlightened they have become, they should sue this claimant for fraud and tortious interference. Standing up for one's customers against bogus legal action could even become a selling point of SaaS.