Twitter slaps many with DMCA takedown notices for years old violations

Since yesterday Twitter has been flooded with multiple reports of users receiving Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) notices for alleged copyright violations that may have occurred years ago.

DMCA is a U.S. copyright law that enables copyright holders or agents acting on their behalf to issue notices asking the party infringing their copyright to take down the offending content.

However, multiple reports emerged of Twitter users being warned over copyright violations that may have inadvertently occurred years ago.

These cases included even user-made videos with a (copyrighted) song was playing in the background, or memes with images of celebrities:

In other cases, in addition to removing the infringing content, Twitter also locked out user accounts until they reviewed and agreed to Twitter’s copyright policy.

This relentless move by Twitter, acting on behalf of copyright holders, has left many surprised especially since action is being taken against dated tweets that have had little to no distribution and contained excerpts of copyright content (e.g. music playing in the background or memes) rather than complete exhibits.