> But we still need to recognize that these liability limiters have massively harmed the ability for plaintiffs to prosecute legitimate defamation or copyright cases.
Have they really though? I guess plantiffs might find it easier to get damages out of Facebook or Google, but it still seems to be very easy to get stuff taken down.
It's actually impossible to get damages out of Facebook or Google. Believe me, a lot of really big copyright plaintiffs have tried. The law around them is iron-clad.
The reason why it's very easy to take down things is directly downstream of this. Social media companies will trip over themselves to take down content, and the standard for what constitutes a legitimate takedown notice is hilariously low. Remember how Bungie had to basically yell and scream at Google to get them to reverse an illegitimate takedown request an angry fan made to tarnish their reputation? Google didn't want to lift a finger, because all the processes heavily encourage passing the buck. Likewise, social media likes to use content recommendation algorithms because it also lets them get around the law. If you use humans to recommend or curate content, then you're a publisher, you get full copyright liability, and you become the big copyright punching bag[0]. But, if you write an algorithm to make the same decision you would have made as a human, then you're in your safe harbor and there's nobody to sue.
And plaintiffs don't want easy takedowns, they want to sue a big company for lots of money... so that they'll settle and agree to a licensing deal. That's how copyright is supposed to work. When someone with money doesn't pay for the thing, you get to use the law to smack them until they pay for the thing. Nobody wants to sue individuals; it's expensive, time-consuming, and makes you look like an extortion artist.
But that doesn't work under DMCA 512, because there isn't a big company anymore. There's just an online service provider doing things "at the request of" billions of individual users.
We as hackers, myself included, love to complain about copyright. The problem is that copyright only inconveniences those who want to play by the rules. We get angry about it because we want to be told "yes" and will never, ever afford to actually pay to be told "yes". But if you don't care, it's quite easy to evade the system. Register new accounts, use a VPN, lightly disguise your infringement, and you make yourself far harder to sue.
[0] See Mavrix v. LiveJournal. This is the only part of law that I can think of where being willfully blind to abusive conduct is actually rewarded rather than being punished.
Have they really though? I guess plantiffs might find it easier to get damages out of Facebook or Google, but it still seems to be very easy to get stuff taken down.