Mar 02, 2026 08:00:00

The company said it was concerned about the large number of bad DMCA takedown notices being sent to WordPress by AI.

Automattic , the parent company of WordPress, has released its Transparency Report for the second half of 2025. According to the report, the number of Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedowns has increased by 20% compared to the same period last year, but the quality of takedown notices has increased and the rejection rate has also increased, raising concerns that AI will be used to send even larger volumes of DMCA takedown notices in the future.

Intellectual Property | 2025: Jul 1 – Dec 31 | Transparency Report
https://transparency.automattic.com/wordpress-dot-com/intellectual-property/intellectual-property-2025-jul-1-dec-31/

WordPress.com Flags Concerning Spike in AI-Generated DMCA Takedowns * TorrentFreak
https://torrentfreak.com/wordpress-com-flags-concerning-spike-in-ai-generated-dmca-takedowns/

According to the 2025 Transparency Report, WordPress processed 2,431 takedown notices for copyright infringement between July 1 and December 31, 2025, an increase of 415 from 2,016 in the same period last year. Furthermore, only 14% of all notices were actually removed, and 86% of the takedown notices were rejected due to some kind of flaw.

The total number of takedown notices processed by Automattic from 2014, when the company began publishing its transparency report, to 2025 was 123,211, of which 27% were removed, showing a high rejection rate. In particular, from around 2023, the removal rate was around 13-16%, and the number of rejected notices further increased.

Regarding the reason for the rising rejection rate, Automattic's Trust & Safety team stated, 'We are seeing continued abuse of our DMCA notice and takedown systems by third-party monitoring services, and in some cases, copyright reporters are using AI to send mass takedown notices in an effort to reduce costs and maximize revenue.'

The Transparency Report lists the companies and organizations that send the most takedown notices, and shows that Enforcity led the way with 838 in the second half of 2025. Automattic says that Enforcity is a monthly content protection service primarily targeted at OnlyFans creators, and that its pricing structure prioritizes quantity over accuracy, resulting in an increase in low-quality notices that have to be dismissed.

'Enforcity's notifications began arriving in August 2025, claiming to protect OnlyFans creators, but none of the reported links were related to copyright-infringing content,' said Steve Blythe, head of policy and process at Automattic. 'Our team had to manually review these notifications and inspect them for potential abuse, which was a huge undertaking. As of September 2025, we had contacted Enforcity directly several times, and they acknowledged the issue and assured us that it would be resolved, but the notifications continued.'

Although hundreds of poorly written takedown notices were still being sent by Enforcity in January 2026, Automattic's repeated efforts resulted in no new takedown notices being received as of February 2026. 'DMCA notices and takedown procedures are powerful tools that allow creators to control the use and dissemination of their works, but they are often abused,' Bryce said. 'With the rapid development of AI technology, the DMCA's flaws increasingly risk having a chilling effect on freedom of expression.'