(1) seems nearly universal, either via full automation or automation plus a cursory manual check that amounts to a rubber stamp. Either way, it seems contrary to the "on penalty of perjury" language in the DMCA and the notices, and I'd love to see someone enforce that.
This case seems very simple: whoever at the media companies set up these automated tools without adequate checks on the validity of the claims is guilty of perjury and should be punished accordingly.
Likewise, anyone who instructed that this be done or was otherwise responsible for the conduct of those people should be treated the same as someone who had told an employee to lie under oath in court.
Perhaps I'm missing something, but there doesn't seem to be any scope for interpretation here at all. I think that was rather the point of requiring that declaration as part of the DMCA.
If I remember correctly a DMCA requires you say you are the legal entity or represent the legal entity that is holding the copyright. So a lawsuit would have to be placed against Warner, unless Warner can prove that they did not authorize the person writing the script to act on their behalf. If Warner wants to make the person who wrote the script liable or not would be up to Warner, not this lawsuit.
You're missing something very important: these laws were tailor-made for the companies currently using them to send these notices, and any issue like this may simply be interpreted as a bug. Courts also frequently suffer from ad-hominem problems, and may choose to ignore the claims of a site they think exists only to infringe copyright, whether it does or not.
