Comment on The Cox Shock: A Tectonic Shift or Just a Tremor? (Guest Blog Post) by billrosenblatt

If you want to get an idea of Cox's real-world impact, I recommend looking at DMCA 512 takedown notice handling mechanisms rather than the courts. A cottage industry has developed around sending and processing takedown notices over the past 20+ years. A wide range of online services accept them and purport to process them (Cox got dinged for not doing that thoroughly enough); large rightsholders have departments that send them; and there are many independent companies that you can hire to send them on your behalf. Since the Cox decision, a few law firms whose clients include online services have been putting out notes recommending to keep doing this just in case, or out of an abundance of caution, or whatever. The big question is how long this will continue to go on. The reality is that both sending and handling takedown notices incur costs. Companies will make decisions about legal risk vis-a-vis those costs in relation to their perceived liabilities for the kinds of online services they provide (ISP? Cloud storage? UGC? Search engine? Etc.?) I say look to the Google Transparency Report as an indicator; see how its volume of DMCA 512 notices changes in the next year or so. Then we'll know just how resilient the system is.