The law that helped shape the early internet is now showing its limits. 

When the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) became law in 1998, it marked a groundbreaking moment in internet governance. It offered creators and rights holders a formal process to request the removal of infringing content as well as a legal framework for platforms  to avoid liability. For over twenty years, the DMCA has shaped the way online platforms approach content moderation.

But the internet it was designed for has evolved in ways the DMCA never anticipated.

Today, content is generated, shared, and manipulated at a pace that would have been unimaginable in 1998. Our digital environment is increasingly shaped by AI-generated media, real-time image abuse, and impersonation at scale. While the DMCA remains foundational, it was never built to address the kinds of threats individuals now face or the technological sophistication behind them.

How the DMCA Works

At its core, the DMCA takedown process is designed to facilitate the removal of copyrighted content from the internet. Here’s how it typically works:

1. Identify the infringing content: A copyright owner, or someone acting on their behalf, discovers unauthorized use of their content online.
   
   
2. Submit a takedown notice to the platform: The rights holder sends a formal DMCA notice, which includes specific information about the content and a statement made under penalty of perjury that the claim is accurate.
   
   
3. The platform reviews and responds to the notice: Once the platform receives the request, it evaluates whether the claim meets DMCA requirements. If so, it will usually remove the content.

Once content is removed, the uploader has the right to file a counter-notice if they believe the takedown was a mistake or a case of misidentification. If the original rights holder does not initiate legal action within 10 to 14 business days, the platform may restore the content.

While this process created a clear legal pathway for addressing online copyright violations, it was built for a narrower era of the internet that is increasingly outpaced by the threats individuals face today.

Why the DMCA Isn’t Enough in the Age of AI-Generated Abuse

The DMCA set a new standard for content protection and platform accountability, but it was built on a set of assumptions that no longer hold. It presumed that most harm would stem from copyright issues, that the source of infringing content could be identified, and that platforms would respond appropriately when notified.

Those assumptions break down in today’s digital environment, where the rise of generative AI has exposed a major weakness in the DMCA. It was never designed to address the misuse of a person’s likeness, now a common form of harm involving deepfakes, non-consensual image generation, voice cloning, and impersonator accounts. Unlike traditional copyright disputes, these threats stem from deception, exploitation, and the abuse of personal identity.

Even when takedowns are possible under the DMCA, the process places the full burden on the individual, who must discover the abuse, report it, and hope for a timely response. Worse still, successful takedowns do not guarantee resolution. Content can be reposted within hours, often across multiple platforms, creating an exhausting and ongoing cycle. That is exactly the gap Loti AI was built to close.

How Loti AI Makes it Work

While the DMCA provides a legal foundation for content takedowns, it was never designed to address the pace, scale, or nature of modern abuse. Loti AI builds on the frameworks established by the DMCA and others like the ELVIS Act by combining these existing legal mechanisms with advanced AI to detect and remove unauthorized content more effectively.

Loti AI scans the internet for unauthorized uses of a person’s likeness, including deepfakes, impersonator accounts, and non-consensual media. When we detect abuse, we act quickly, automating takedown requests, escalating when needed, and coordinating removals across platforms. This removes the burden from the individual, who would otherwise be left to track, report, and re-report harmful content on their own.

Loti AI achieves a 95 percent success rate in removing harmful content, often within hours of detection. We are built to handle volume, repetition, and speed, three challenges that routinely overwhelm victims but that our platform is designed to match.

The legal tools exist, what was missing is the infrastructure to use them effectively. That is what we have built. Loti AI delivers effective protection by turning legal rights into real-world results.

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