In common with many other online services, copyright holders regularly ask Twitter to remove tweets that link to pirated material.
Whether it’s a tweet from the U.S. President or some random pirate site, the social media platform investigates the claims and takes action, if needed.
A few hours ago Twitter published a new update to its transparency report, highlighting the latest takedown trends. This reveals that the number of copyright notices received during the first half of the year skyrocketed compared to the previous six months.
“We received a 101% increase in DMCA takedown notices since our last report,” Twitter reports, noting that this includes a high volume of fraudulent DMCA notices from Turkey and Japan.
From January to June of this year a total of 106,951 DMCA notices were received, compared to 53,094 during the last half of 2018. This is a notable increase. However, it doesn’t directly translate to an equal change in removed tweets or withheld content.
The number of tweets that were removed increased by 46% to 113,015. At the same time, there was a 4% decrease in withheld media in the same period, 266,699 files in total.
This suggests that the average notice today includes fewer tweets and media files.
The percentage of notices for which Twitter took action also dropped significantly. On average, less than half of the notices (45%) resulted in material being removed, down from 62% last period.
The above applies to notices that were sent to Twitter, but the company also owns and operates Periscope. The number of copyright notices received by the streaming platform increased by roughly ten percent to 26,331 over the past six months.
Taken together, more than a third of the Twitter and Periscope copyright notices were sent in by a handful of reporters. Music industry group IFPI is the most prolific sender, followed by Netresult, LeakID, Athletia Sports and LaLiga.
The most spectacular increase we see in the report is the number of counternotices that were submitted by people who disputed a copyright claim. This number jumped 285% to 3,966.
This uptick is in part linked to an increase in fraudulent DMCA notices, which Twitter also highlights in its report. The company says that it will continue to keep a close eye on this trend and has put safeguards in place to help protect people on Twitter and Periscope.
Earlier this year TorrentFreak was also hit by inaccurate DMCA takedown complaints, targeting our news coverage. American entertainment giant Starz removed ours and several other tweets, pointing to an article about leaked TV-shows.
While Twitter accepted these takedowns, the reporting organization lifted the claim after we and many others complained.
Twitter’s complete transparency report, which also addresses trademark notices, information requests, rules enforcement, and other removal requests, is available here.
