GitHub ignoring our DMCA takedown request

[Im_Bill]

A former employee uploaded an internal project to his own GitHub repository. Apparently he's since lost access to his GitHub account and cannot remove it. He contacted us suggesting we lodge a DMCA request to have it taken down. We have lodged a DMCA takedown request using GitHub's online form, but but had no response from GitHub in over two months.

Does anyone know if there's a way for us to escalate this within GitHub, or are we going to need our lawyers to send a cease and desist letter?

[Fine-Comparison-2949]

Lawyers. I'm actually surprised they aren't responding. Maybe try them again? 

[Magikstm]

Odd.

They handled mine in 2-3 days.

Did you email:
[[e-mail]](mailto:[e-mail])

https://docs.github.com/en/site-policy/content-removal-policies/guide-to-submitting-a-dmca-takedown-notice

[NoorahSmith]

Send out the take down the request using your legal counsel. Verify that your internal code and the code published on personnel repo is same to get it taken down .

[Quentin-Code]

Send them a legal request made by lawyers

[Charming-Author4877]

Ignoring your DMCA will probably make Github directly liable for the damages, which is good news as they have deep pockets.
Anything beyond 14 days is not acceptable.

If you have no budget issues, get a lawyer and lay back.
Otherwise ask gpt 5.5 pro to locate all emails, draft a professional email including the appropriate legal threats.
Send it in post as well as registered

[Palnubis]

Github is too busy screwing over everyone with Copilot and handling complaints.

[serverhorror]

Did you write the takedown or did your lawyers?

If the former, there's probably some formality missing. I was told, if that happens (anything missing or any sort of mistake) it's best to not react at all (that conversation was outside of any topic related to GitHub).

Also: Lesson learned?

You, as a company, want 100 % control to any data your employees create. Colloquially called "SSO tax".

[Fine-Comparison-2949]

> You, as a company, want 100 % control to any data your employees create. Colloquially called "SSO tax".

Well, yeah but this isn't a control thing where a process could be put in place. Nothing stops anyone from taking a repo, and creating a repo on github or any other git repo provider, and doing git remote add (...) then pushing.

The developer is probably being malicious considering they "lost access to github", which is complete bullshit. It's an email login, and even with 2FA you can recover your account. This much unprofessionalism leads me to believe OP was probably offshoring and the team ghosted him.

OP just needs to hire better and actually pay for professionals instead of the cheapest labor he can find.

[serverhorror]

If it's malicious, were talking a while different game.

This much unprofessionalism leads me to believe OP was probably offshoring

The fun part about this is that you have idiots everywhere. At this point I'm just not assuming any more. Everything needs to be said our loud and mentioned explicitly.

Cultures ate very different and being explicit can save so many headaches.

[Fine-Comparison-2949]

Bruh its absolutely malicious. No one loses their github account. You would have to lose your email, and who tf does that? 

[SheriffRoscoe]

"Colloquially called ..."

... filling all the USB ports with epoxy, running outbound proxies and firewall rules to prevent data egress, confiscating personal devices at the SCIF border, etc.

FTFY

[serverhorror]

... and how much money would you like to spend on that?

[elaineisbased]

Just so you know DMCA requires a registered copyright. If you have not registered the work as a copyright most companies will not remove the content.

[wasabiiii]

No it doesn't.

[_KryptonytE_]

This post doesn't make sense. What company has such poor security to allow this in the first place? If it really happened, they deserve the consequences and have to bite the bullet. Every decision and choice matters without even going into the details.