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GitHub received 1,828 valid DMCA takedown notices last year, resulting in the removal of 19,276 projects. Less than one percent of these projects were reinstated following retractions or counter notifications. The development platform uses automated tools to detect abuse, but this technology is not used for copyright infringement.
With over 200 million code repositories, GitHub prides itself on being the world's largest and most advanced development platform.
As with other platforms that host user-generated content, this huge library of code occasionally runs into copyright infringement issues.
In some cases, people use code without permission from creators, while others use GitHub to store pirated books or even music. And there are also developers whose projects are seen as pirated tools or apps, often leading to complaints from copyright holders.
A few high-profile cases have emerged over the years, including the RIAA's. YouTube-DL removalwhat was it then inverted. Other rights holders were more successful, as GitHub removed unlock it proxy service repositories as well as reverse engineer GTA games โTe3โ and โreVCโ.
1,828 DMCA notices last year
These examples are just the tip of the iceberg. Latest from GitHub transparency report reveals that the platform received a total of 1,828 valid DMCA takedown notices last year. Only a small number of these, 46, were retracted or inverted.
GitHub not only removes content in response to takedown notices, but can also communicate with developers before taking action. This means that developers can sometimes make modifications to prevent entire repositories from going offline.
โThat way, if the user removes or fixes the specific content identified in the notice, we avoid having to disable any content. This is an important element of our DMCA policy, given how many users rely on each other's code for their projects," GitHub notes.
GitHub already posts copies of all DMCA notices on its own website, and starting this year, sends copies to Lumen as well. This central database, managed by Harvard University's Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society, also archives copies of notices sent to Google, Twitter and other platforms.
19,276 Projects Eliminated
These detailed notices also show how many GitHub projects were addressed in the past year. This is substantially higher than the number of ads, which can list dozens of projects each.
In 2021, DMCA notices removed 19,276 projects from GitHub. This can refer to entire repositories and subsets of code or individual files. In response to counter notices or reversals, 85 projects were reinstated, meaning that 19,191 became inactive.
Github notes that this number is significantly lower than in 2020, when 36,173 projects were taken offline. The company highlights that the number is also relatively small compared to the total number of repositories hosted on the site.
โThe number 19,191 may seem like a lot of projects, but it is less than 0.01% of the more than 200 million repositories on GitHub in 2021,โ writes GitHub.
Supporting developer rights
There is no clear explanation for the drop in takedowns. However, GitHub believes that its response to the YouTube-DL debacle, after which it made a strong commitment to supporting developer rights, may have played a role.
"We are unable to determine the exact cause of the outage, however we suspect a contributing factor is GitHub's continued focus on upholding developer rights, including updating our DMCA review process in late 2020," write GitHub.
It's also worth noting that, for the first time, GitHub is providing details about its automated browsing filters. The platform does not use them for copyrighted content, but does scan images for child abuse, extremist and terrorist content. This resulted in a hit last year.
โIn 2021, out of millions of images scanned, we confirmed automatic detection of an account with CSEAI, which was reported to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC),โ GitHub writes, noting that no terrorist or extremist content was found. .
GitHub's full transparency report is available here. In addition to what is discussed above, it also includes more details on user data requests, national security letters, government takedown requests, and more.
