Y-Combinator's policy requires all notification to be physically delivered - i.e. US Postal Service or UPS or another delivery service is acceptable. Email is not acceptable - and presumably fax is not either, since no number is listed.

This means:

1. It will take several days for most takedown requests to be acted upon, by which time material will probably have rolled off the front page.

2. There is significant documentation when an entity pursues takedown in less than good faith - and if it came via USPS there could be substantial penalties for any fraud.

3. It makes bulk takedowns more difficult because each notice is required to provide adequate documentation.

In other words, Y-Combinator places a meaningful burden on those claiming violation of copyright, and I suspect that this creates enough friction to eliminate many claims - making HN better, and letting YC staff do more important work.

The January 2013 copy of the policy on archive.org lists the same contact information.

Does it? It's pretty easy to spool up a lot of faxes if you have an account with an email-to-fax service.

In any event, spooling up a lot of faxes would tie up YC's fax machine, not YC's staff.

I'd still be interested to know the legal basis for that policy. I asked about this once before, because having read the actual text of the DMCA it doesn't seem like such a policy would be sufficient to achieve the safe harbour protection, but I'm not a lawyer and I don't think I ever saw an answer on the earlier discussion. If anyone at YC would be willing to share any information they can about their rationale, it might be of general interest to anyone running sites with user-created content, which surely applies to many people reading HN.

    DESIGNATED AGENT- The limitations on liability established in this
    subsection apply to a service provider only if the service provider 
    has designated an agent to receive notifications of claimed 
    infringement described in paragraph (3), by making available through 
    its service, including on its website in a location accessible to the 
    public, and by providing to the Copyright Office, substantially the 
    following information:

    the name, address, phone number, and electronic mail address of the agent

    ...

    To be effective under this subsection, a notification of claimed 
    infringement must be a written communication provided to the 
    designated agent of a service provider

At the same time, the actual form to designate an agent implies that the notification should be delivered by mail:

http://www.copyright.gov/onlinesp/agents/n/news_ycomb.pdf

That said, whether YC ignores a notice it gets by e-mail because it doesn't believe it was delivered properly, or because it simply chooses to ignore the notice, the result would seemingly be the same -- YC can be sued for copyright infringement.

If the motivation for complying (or appearing to comply) with the DMCA is to gain the liability protection, YC would want to be easy to contact and act on the notice no matter how they receive it.

If YC isn't actually worried about being sued, which seems reasonable for a site that hosts nothing but minimal discussion and external links, then urging potential notifiers to jump through hoops makes more sense. That minimizes the amount of notices they have to deal with, and their impact on the site.

You may have a hard time arguing they meant to require an email address, but at the same time, stuff sent there would not be valid.

From Google's old DMCA page[1] (cached 13 April 2013 - now directs to an automated system):

> To file a notice of infringement with us, you must provide a written communication (by fax or regular mail and not by email, except by prior agreement)

From Google's current support pages [2]:

> Send the written communication to the following address: <postal address> OR fax to: <fax number>

> To file a counter notification with us, you must provide a written communication (by fax or regular mail -- not by email, except by prior agreement)

[1] http://www.google.co.uk/dmca.html [2] http://support.google.com/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=112...

I'd say you have a reasonable argument either way, my point was more on the side of "A judge may disagree".

Hence "you may have a hard time arguing".

It's less trouble to put a link at the bottom of nearly every page than to think about what pages to put it on.

Basically it's just restating what's already in the law.

Generally, if you have a question about what happened to something on HN you should email info@ycombinator.com and someone will reply to you. The terms are quite clear on that. IIRC people have been hell banned for complaining about HN/PG on HN instead of emailing them.

As my EDIT shows, the [dead] was due to the submission being a unnecessary duplicate post. It turned out to be a bad example for the real question in the title.

Mentioning the [dead] post wasn't a complaint, instead, it was just an example that led to the question in the title of whether or not HN has received any DMCA takedown notices. The follow-on question of whether or not PG/YC would be willing to publish any received DMCA notices on ChillingEffects.org is also viable.

In spite of the poor example link I picked, they're still good questions to ask publicly and it seems a lot of people are curious about the answers. None the less, you are still correct about emailing info@ycombinator being the right way to handle questions about stuff that gets moderated/deleted/edited.

(BTW over the last half decade I've sent in more than enough private bug reports directly to pg with my phone number included so he could contact me. I probably have some minimal "good will" stored up and I sincerely doubt he'd hell-ban me or anyone for a poor choice of example links.)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5579538

Anyhow, I'm still curious if HN has gotten any DMCA notices?

Sites do that so they are in compliance with "safe harbor" laws. It not required to have it on every page of course, but it's probably just a standard footer template so not really a lot of "trouble" to do.

I think the "real trouble" should work both ways.

"In order to protect against the possibility of erroneous or fraudulent notifications, certain safeguards are built into section 512. Subsection (g)(1) gives the subscriber the opportunity to respond to the notice and takedown by filing a counter notification. In order to qualify for the protection against liability for taking down material, the service provider must promptly notify the subscriber that it has removed or disabled access to the material. If the subscriber serves a counter notification complying with statutory requirements, including a statement under penalty of perjury that the material was removed or disabled through mistake or misidentification, then unless the copyright owner files an action seeking a court order against the subscriber, the service provider must put the material back up within 10-14 business days after receiving the counter notification.

Penalties are provided for knowing material misrepresentations in either a notice or a counter notice. Any person who knowingly materially misrepresents that material is infringing, or that it was removed or blocked through mistake or misidentification, is liable for any resulting damages (including costs and attorneys’ fees) incurred by the alleged infringer, the copyright owner or its licensee, or the service provider. (Section 512(f))"

The DMCA act is readable; read it.

Effectively, all it does is offer safe harbor for an ISP, with ISP loosely defined.

Congress attempts to offers a pseudo mediation framework to limit/remove liability from the ISP for the acts of its users.

If the ISP complies with the DMCA, the ISP is immune from liability for copyright infringement.

Here's the part the ignorant ignore:

If the target of a DMCA notice sends a COUNTER-NOTICE, the ISP will/must/should put their stuff , else the ISP can be liable for taking it down without case.

Read the DMCA, it's fairly short as these things go.

http://www.copyright.gov/legislation/dmca.pdf

Disclosure: I spent $80k on attorneys defending against a nuisance lawsuit and used the DMCA as a shield.

Under copyright law, distributing copies of someone's protected work without authorization is illegal. Many types of internet service providers, as part of fulfilling the service they offer, distribute copies of works on behalf of others. Web hosts serve files their customers have uploaded, video sites stream user uploads, discussion boards serve messages written by users, etc. Thus, an ISP may come to unknowingly distribute copyrighted works without authorization, and would be subject to lawsuits for doing so.

The DMCA offers a way for these ISPs to avoid being sued despite having indeed infringed someone's exclusive rights under copyright law. If they register an agent with the copyright office, and follow a procedure for disabling and re-enabling access to materials they distribute based on certain notices, they then cannot be sued for having hosted that specific material in the past.

The DMCA does not require that anyone register an agent and follow those procedures, it only offers a benefit if you choose to do so.