That hosting company is pretty pathetic for not having a lawyer even glance at the poorly assembled and obviously toothless complaint. That kind of notice is only good for sharing for laughs, and certainly didn't warrant passing along as a threat to the customer.
Per the DMCA, hosting companies have to act regardless of validity. The targeted user can file a counter-notification, which the hosting company has to automatically honor no less than 10 and no more than 14 days later.
After that it goes to the courts (if the DMCA complainant chooses to sue).
So, in short, when Congress built the DMCA, they made it possible to silence someone for a guaranteed 10 day period with a spurious DMCA request.
No, the hosting company is protected until they have actual notice or knowledge of infringement of copyrights, and the notice posted on the website fails to identify any copyrights that are alleged to be infringed.
Is it GoPro's lawyer? Seems to me it might well be the CEO's fault for hiring marketing people who would send out such a takedown notice without running it by a lawyer.
The hosting company doesn't have to take down the content. Rather, if they don't take down the content and it is later found infringing, then the hosting company can't claim the protection of the DMCA safe harbor.
But the allegedly infringing content in the DMCA takedown in this case is (nonsensically) a trademark, so the safe harbor wouldn't protect SoftLayer against anything.
It's not functionally the same thing, because there is nothing here for them to be liable for.
"entirety of SoftLayer losing the protection"? What are you talking about?
1. The hosting company does not have to act, ever. It just may cause them to be liable.
2. The hosting company can always push back on faulty notices, like this one, with no impact. There is nothing for them to be liable for, as the subject matter is not properly for a DMCA notice, and an invalid DMCA notice imputes no knowledge to them, even if the part that would normally give them notice is valid. This is actually well settled.
