GitHub has published its annual report detailing notifications received regarding intellectual property violations and unauthorized content publications for the year 2022. According to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), in 2022 GitHub received 2,321 DMCA requests, resulting in the takedown of 25,387 projects. In comparison, in 2021 there were 1,828 takedown requests affecting 19,191 projects, in 2020 — 2,097 and 36,901, and in 2019 — 1,762 and 14,371. There were 44 counter-notices from repository owners against wrongful takedowns.
There were 6 content removal requests from government agencies due to violations of local legislation, all of which originated from Russia. None of the requests were fulfilled. By comparison, in 2021 there were 26 takedown requests involving 69 projects sent from Russia, China, and Hong Kong. Additionally, there were 40 requests for user information disclosures from foreign government agencies: 4 from Brazil, 4 from France, 22 from India, and one request each from Argentina, Bulgaria, San Marino, Spain, Switzerland, and Ukraine.
Additionally, 6 removal requests were received related to local legislative violations that also breached the Terms of Service. The requests involved 17 user accounts and 15 repositories. The reasons for the takedowns included misinformation (Australia) and violations of GitHub Pages usage terms (Russia).
Due to complaints regarding violations of the Terms of Service unrelated to the DMCA, GitHub suspended 12,860 accounts (4585 in 2021, 4826 in 2020), of which 480 were later restored. Account access was blocked in 428 cases (58 accounts were then unblocked). For 8,822 accounts, both suspension and hiding were applied simultaneously (115 accounts were subsequently restored). In terms of projects, 4,507 projects were disabled, with only 6 being returned.
GitHub also received 432 requests for user data disclosure (335 in 2021, 303 in 2020). 274 of these requests were sent in the form of subpoenas (265 criminal cases and 9 civil), 97 were court orders, and 22 were search warrants. 97.9% of the requests were sent by law enforcement agencies, while 2.1% were related to civil lawsuits. 350 of the 432 requests were satisfied, resulting in the disclosure of information about 2,363 accounts (1,671 in 2020). Users were notified of the disclosure of their data only 8 times, as the remaining 342 requests were accompanied by a gag order.
A certain number of requests also came from U.S. intelligence agencies under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, but the exact number of requests in this category is not disclosed; it is reported only that there are fewer than 250 such requests, and the number of disclosed accounts is between 250 and 499.
In 2022, GitHub received 763 appeals (1,504 in 2021, 2,500 in 2020) regarding unjustified blocks in compliance with export restrictions concerning territories under U.S. sanctions. 603 appeals were accepted (251 from Crimea, 96 from the Donetsk People's Republic, 20 from the Luhansk People's Republic, 224 from Syria, and 223 from countries that could not be identified), 153 were rejected, and 7 were returned with a request for additional information.
Source: opennet.ru
