User Submitted?
 

Defendant: "It's all user submitted"
Judge: Okey dokey, thanks, case dismissed.

Is this the way it goes? You would think that the judge might want to see and validate some evidence to prove that the contents of the site were in fact submitted by external users.

Do courts just take whoever's word for it when they say "it's user submitted" or do defendants have no choice but to purger themselves by making up fake users and ips and such and judges buy it?

it's up to the plaintiff to prove that the content in question isn't user submitted. the DMCA is a total disaster and until a new law replaces it thieves will get away with it. Hopefully in the Viacom vs Google/Youtube and PinkVisual vs Pornhub cases a court will finally call bullshit on 'user submitted' content sites.

Correct.

Innocent until PROVEN guilty. The proving part is on the plaintiff.

:2 cents:

None of it has ever made it to court because "user uploaded" isn't a crime. So there never would be a judge or court to begin with.