Reddit Banned 5,853 Users for Excessive Copyright Infringement Last Year * TorrentFreak

Home > anti piracy > DMCA >

The number of DMCA takedown notices Reddit receives has skyrocketed in recent years. The same goes for the number of users and subreddits banned for violations, which now number in the thousands every year. Reddit's latest transparency report shows that user bans linked to hacking have more than doubled in a year.

Every day, millions of people around the world send posts, comments, and other content to Reddit.

The social news and discussion platform has been around for over 17 years, and over time its popularity has only increased.

With Reddit about to reach adulthood, the site has certain responsibilities. In recent years, these have included the publication of a transparency report document how various legal policies affect site content.

The report shows how Reddit's content policy leads to the removal of millions of posts per week, including spam, hateful content, sexualization of minors, prohibited goods, and harassment. As a result, more than five million user accounts were banned last year, either temporarily or permanently.

Increased DMCA Notices and Takedowns

The number is significant, especially considering that it does not include copyright-related complaints. Reddit's responses to DMCA takedown notices and the site's handling of excessive copyright infringement are listed separately in the "legal takedowns" section.

These figures have been constantly increasing, and last year was no exception, according to the transparency report.

“In 2022, we saw a 43% increase over the previous year in the total number of copyright notices received, a 126% increase in the amount of content reported for takedown, and a 97% increase in the amount of content removed”, Reddit reports.

Compared to other content takedowns, copyright actions are relatively modest. In 2022, Reddit received 254,632 copyright notices, in which rights holders asked the site to remove 1,668,452 pieces of content. Of these requests, close to 80% resulted in the removal of items.

These numbers are relatively small compared to the tens of millions of 'content policy' removals. However, they carry different weight as the content is reported by external actors, rather than mods or Reddit bots.

User and subreddit bans

This increase is not limited to copyrighted links and removed content, subreddits are also affected. Several popular Reddit communities have to jump through hoops to avoid getting forbidden but not all manage to do it. In 2022, Reddit took down 3,215 subreddits for excessive copyright infringement.

According to Reddit's transparency report, this is a 105% year-over-year increase, but this percentage seems a bit high, as the site has already reported. 2625 subreddit bans last year. That being said, the trend is definitely up. If we go back to 2020, 'only' 514 subreddits were banned.

A similar trend emerges for users banned for excessive copyright infringement. In 2020, 303 users were banned, increasing to 2,813 users in 2021, reaching 5,853 last year. That's close to a twenty-fold increase in three years.

fan notices

Not all DMCA notices are accepted as true. As mentioned above, about 80% are rejected for various reasons. This can simply mean that some information is missing, but there are also more notable rejections.

For example, Reddit reports that several of the notices received did not appear to come from the rightful rights holder, but rather from fans.

“The notices contained clear signs that they were submitted by fans of the creators, who did not have express permission from the creators to do so. A copyright notice must come from the copyright owner or an expressly designated agent, so Reddit refused to process these notices."

Overall, it's clear that Reddit is very busy complying with DMCA takedown notices. With billions of pieces of user-generated content, this is not a huge surprise. That said, it's good to keep an eye on these developments with the help of Reddit's transparency reports.