The DMCA Is Unconstitutional

The DMCA is unconstitutional because it requires anyone trying to fight a takedown notice to give up their anonymity. Anyone who has material removed from the internet must choose between:

1. Filing a counternotcie with your real name and contact information,
2. Committing perjury by filing a counternotice with a fake name and contact information, and
3. Doing nothing and being censored.

I am not a lawyer, but it doesn't take a lawyer to prove that the DMCA is unconstitutional. One only needs to read a few Court cases to realize that:

1. There is a a First Amendment right to post anonymously on the internet.
2. The DMCA is unconstitutional because it is government regulation that curtails that right. Now, the government may make a law curtailing a constitutionally guaranteed right, but any such law must be justified by a compelling state interest. Not only must the law be justified by a compelling state interest, the government must be able to show that the law is NECESSARY and NARROWLY TAILORED to serve that interest.

The DMCA does indeed serve a compelling state interest--IF you define the state interest as helping creators protect the interests in their work. But anyone who would argue that it is narrowly tailored to serve that interest is in desperate need of a drug test. It applies to both truthful core political speech as well as to defamatory speech. It applies to public as well as private forums. It destroys Fair Use and will allow any scoundrel willing to perjure himself (while undoubtedly using a fake name when stating his identity on a DMCA complaint) to get any video that he doesn't like pulled from the internet. The DMCA is as narrowly tailored as John Goodman's pants.

Table of Contents

Home

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.

Please attribute excerpts you take from my work to themaskedanalyst and include a link to themaskedanalyst.com.