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31 DMCA Statistics, Trends, and Insights for 2024

Claire Fountain

DMCA, short for Digital Millennium Copyright Act, of 1998 is a law that protects owners of digital products from online theft. This includes various types of media, online courses, and more.

Here are the stats you need to know about DMCA and DMCA takedowns in 2024.

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Annual DMCA Takedown Requests

Percentage of Types of Media Request for Takedown

Every year, thousands of people issue DMCA takedown requests asking people committing piracy to remove their stolen content from their websites.

Here are what those numbers look like.

  1. At the end of January 2024, 729 total cases had been filed with the Copyright Claims Board (CCB).
  2. Of these claims, 296 are what are considered “smaller claims.”
  3. Google received just over 75 million DMCA-related takedown requests in March of 2016 alone.
  4. Some studies show that mainstream copyright owners send takedown notices for more than 6.5 million infringing files, on over 30,000 sites, each month.
  5. Copyright owners are currently sending notices at an annual rate of over 78 million infringing files.
  6. The largest percentage (25%) of content targeted by DMCA notices was mixed media that involved more than one type of media (images and video or text and images).
  7. Images (23%) and video (19%) and text-based content (18%) made up the largest percentage of types of media requested.

DMCA Requests by Industry

Music account for DMCA requests

So which industries are issuing the most DMCA takedown requests?

  1. The largest percentage (22%) of DMCA requests were to blogs that are “undefinable.”
  2. Music, entertainment, and sports blogs were tied for second at 17% of DMCA requests.
  3. Adult content also came in second with 17% of DMCA requests.
  4. Blogs that were clearly spam accounts constituted only 7.6% of the requests.
  5. Personal blogs made up 12% of takedown requests.
  6. Social, cultural, and political accounted for 8.4% of requests.
  7. Science and technology blogs constituted 8.6% of requests.

Top Platforms Receiving DMCA Notices

Number of Google Request Files

OnlyFans, YouTube, and Twitter are three platforms that receive plenty of DMCA takedown notices, but here’s a deeper look.

  1. When content is uploaded or posted by users to an OSP like Twitter, YouTube, or Google Blogger, these OSPs constitute a “service provider” under the DMCA.
  2. To date, copyright owners on adult content sites, including OnlyFans representative, submitted 2,135,574 URLs over 2,204 individual requests to be delisted from Search results.
  3. Of these requests, 2,994 were filed by OnlyFans content creators, with the most recent filing on March 6th, 2024.
  4. YouTube Content ID claims reached an all-time high in the first half of 2023, with 826 million claims in six months, though only 1% of those were DMCA claims.
  5. 6 million removal requests were made with YouTube’s Copyright Match Tool.
  6. In the first half of 2023, Reddit received 152 requests for DMCA takedowns.
  7. The total number of requests filed for Google is 7,749.31 million.

Response to DMCA Takedown Notices

Average Takedown Stat

Are they even effective? Most of the time, yes.

  1. Sites like DMCA.com claim to be able to take down DMCA-violating content in 24-48 hours.
  2. The average takedown timeframe is around 10 business days.
  3. While the average response time is around 10 days, some offending content owners whose content is a DMCA violation sometimes take up to years to respond to requests.
  4. Up to 8.4% of all successfully-processed requests had “technical” errors, which could lead to a delay in the takedown.
  5. If they do not respond in a timely manner, owners of offending content could face a copyright infringement lawsuit.

Predictions and Trends

Here’s what experts have to say about the future of DMCA.

  1. While there are valid concerns about DMCA’s loopholes and complications, some experts believe that “The numbers of independent creators and the amount of money spent on content is growing every year. Changes to 512 are likely to make things even worse.”
    1. – Professor Rebecca Tushnet
  2. Automated notices are on the rise in recent years. “In the last five years, there's been a lot of automated infringement cases, with imagery and with text that can get indexed on websites.”
    1. – Sam Rogers
  3. Experts note that gameplay is a good example of how DMCA takedown requests have evolved. “The game has really changed in gameplay videos over the last decade or so. It used to be that video game producers did not want their content up on YouTube, that is, you can't play a video game and post that up to YouTube. You're playing the game, but it's our game, that's our content. And they would strike down those videos. There were a few smart game studios that took the opposite approach of, “Sure, you can upload as many copies as you want if you're playing this game. It's our game, but you can play it all you want. Post it on YouTube.”
    1. – Sam Rogers
  4. They also claim that training will likely be increased for staff members to avoid DMCA requests altogether. “Well, for training specifically, I do anticipate that there's going to be a lot more attention paid to those mandatory trainings that everyone's supposed to take. More and more, this is being mandated differently at the state level, at the county level.”
    1. – Sam Rogers
  5. Recently, the Supreme Court tackled cases that challenged both Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). But the DMCA shows no sign of being erased from law.

Conclusion

While DMCA is far from perfect, and has plenty of loopholes allowing large platforms like YouTube and Facebook to get away with things the average internet user could never, it remains a major tool for content creators to protect their rights as owners.

With the internet and social media constantly evolving, and with the introduction of AI into the mainstream, DMCA will likely become further complicated.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is DMCA an American thing?

Yes, DMCA is a copyright law only in the US.

What is the title 5 of the DMCA?

Title V, also known as the “Vessel Hull Design Protection Act,” created a form of protection for the design of vessel hulls for ships.

How effective is DMCA?

DMCA takedown requests can be effective in removing copyrighted content from sites without filing lawsuits or suing anyone.

Is DMCA a federal crime?

Yes, copyright infringement of the DMCA is a federal crime.

Sources:

  1. https://copyrightalliance.org/copyright-news-january-2024/
  2. https://copyrightalliance.org/copyright-news-january-2024/
  3. https://www.theverge.com/2016/3/7/11172516/google-takedown-requests-75-million
  4. https://sls.gmu.edu/cpip/wp-content/uploads/sites/31/2013/08/Bruce-Boyden-The-Failure-of-the-DMCA-Notice-and-Takedown-System1.pdf
  5. https://sls.gmu.edu/cpip/wp-content/uploads/sites/31/2013/08/Bruce-Boyden-The-Failure-of-the-DMCA-Notice-and-Takedown-System1.pdf
  6. https://law.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Penney_20190923_Clean.pdf
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  15. https://law.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Penney_20190923_Clean.pdf
  16. https://transparencyreport.google.com/copyright/owners/279096
  17. https://transparencyreport.google.com/copyright/owners/279096
  18. https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2023/07/10/youtube-content-id-claims-reach-all-time-high-with-826-million/
  19. https://transparencyreport.google.com/copyright/owners/279096
  20. https://www.redditinc.com/policies/2023-h1-transparency-report
  21. https://gigazine.net/gsc_news/en/20240112-google-requests/
  22. https://www.dmca.com/FAQ/What-information-will-you-need-from-me-when-I-make-a-DMCA-Takedown-claim
  23. https://www.dmca.com/FAQ/What-information-will-you-need-from-me-when-I-make-a-DMCA-Takedown-claim
  24. https://www.dmca.com/FAQ/What-information-will-you-need-from-me-when-I-make-a-DMCA-Takedown-claim
  25. https://writtendescription.blogspot.com/2015/10/how-often-are-dmca-takedown-notices.html
  26. https://www.legalzoom.com/articles/i-got-a-dmca-notice-now-what
  27. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/02/reevaluating-dmca-22-years-later-lets-think-users
  28. https://imslegal.com/podcasts/podcast-sam-rogers-digital-copyright-infringement-litigation
  29. https://imslegal.com/podcasts/podcast-sam-rogers-digital-copyright-infringement-litigation
  30. https://imslegal.com/podcasts/podcast-sam-rogers-digital-copyright-infringement-litigation
  31. https://marksgray.com/news/will-the-cda-and-dmca-be-amended-or-appealed-in-2023/

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