Yes, I know, I was none too happy about it in 1998, either - but I didn't know about the ten-day mandatory waiting period. Also, we didn't have YouTube yet or video blogs yet, so the issue of direct interference with free speech was not nearly so dire.
I can't tell you how many times I've seen YouTube videos taken down by "companies" with such names as "0wn3d Limited" and "Videosux Corp." The DMCA was broken from the start.
The whole point of that provision in the DMCA was that filing a lawsuit to get a judge to order something to be taken down takes time. If that takes two or three days to happen the damage can already be done by that point if the item in question is allowed to continue being hosted for all of that time.
The problem with the solution (DMCA) is that it also removes the monetary burden of filing a lawsuit (making it very low-risk to just file thousands of these things off per day, never intending to ever followup with a lawsuit) and the sanity filter (the judge).
There are potential repercussions. A false claim of infringement leaves the claiming party open to liability for it. In practice this may not be easy to take advantage of, but it is there.
Part of the problem is that when your home video is wrongfully taken off of YouTube, it's hard to argue damages during the time it was offline if/when you turn around and sue the label.
Arguing a perjury case is also probably a losing battle. Even if you win, it seems doubtful that you would recover any of the lost time, lost wages and/or sunk costs of lawyer fees.
Also, if you won a perjury case, would it be against 'the company' or just the individual that signed off on that particular notice?
So even if you turn around and attempt to pursue legal avenues against wrongful take-downs, there is not much to be gained.
(This in reference to UMG's taking down a news show about the video in question...)
That blows my mind. That means anything at all can be taken down for a couple of weeks without the slightest repercussions to the fraudulent party.