> You are basically saying you are entitled to using DO's legal staff and financial resources in addition to the hosting you've paid for.
No, what I'm saying is that DO must already do this to some degree if they are handling requests, as otherwise I could send letters claiming trademark/copyright infringement for any number of things and get many customers shut down. If they have internal guidelines for what they do in cases when trademark/copyright infringement, I expect they follow those. I also expect that those policies do the minimum legally required of them. That's not because it's cheaper and garners good will from customers (it does), but because to do otherwise is taking sides in a legal situation without being an appointed arbiter of the law. Not only is this excessive, but it's anti-customer.
If DO is doing what they think they must by law, I have no problem with that, as long as that is clearly explained. In the case we were previously talking about, the statement from DO (at the motherboard article) is somewhat ambiguous as to why they did what they did. Per DigitalOcean’s terms of service, a final reminder was issued to our customer and, when no action was taken, access to the content was disabled. Was the take down required by law, or was DO overly aggressive in handling it? Without a statement as to why, (and I think that given some people's assertion that they went beyond what was legally required of them), their reasoning is somewhat ambiguous, and harder to call into question. If they clearly define they enforced their TOS based on what they believe is a legally required of them, then we can look at the law and their actions and evaluate whether that's true, and if it's not, DO can learn from the experience or be called out as a company that is capricious in their execution of the law.
What it boils down to is that "We received a complaint infringement. We enforced our TOS and shut down access to the content in question." leaves a lot open for assumption. I would be much happier if it was "We received a complaint infringement and as we believe is legally required of us we enforced our TOS and shut down access to the content in question." It's a small change, but it allows customers (and critics) a much clearer view on how DO handles situations like this, and allows for the public to make an informed choice on whether they think DO was correct in their actions (whether they really were legally required to do so). It's subtle, but I think it's a very, very important distinction.