A recent decision shows why intellectual property owners need to
verify the merit of their DMCA takedown notices before making them.
Improper DMCA takedown notices can lead to costly litigation and
potential liabilities.
The plaintiff in Beyond Blond Productions, LLC v.
Heldman is a small business that acquires public domain videos
and cartoon classics, makes compilations of them and then lists the
works on video streaming platforms, such as Amazon. Between 2017
and 2019, the company uploaded six cartoon classic compilations to
Amazon's Prime Video service.
In March 2020, the defendant submitted takedown notices to
Amazon on behalf of ComedyMX, LLC, which ran its own cartoon
service, claiming infringement based largely on the similarity of
ComedyMX's logo and plaintiff Beyond Blond's logo.
