I worked at a rather well known social media company for a bit. A good portion of our customer service was for password resets or general complaints. But we had well defined copyright escalation path that started with the lowest of the lowly customer service rep and ended with the general counsel. So yes, actually, I do expect that.

Yes. Absolutely. They should have legal’s contact info instantly available.

If your cs reps don’t have this, your organization is running a big risk. Consider one party recording laws.

Let me refer you to legal should be a first day training thing.

A customer service rep doesn’t have to have all the answers, but they should be equipped to find them, or at least find a next step (which they did, in this case).

The author didn’t handle this optimally and neither did the CSR. Should they need to? I’d prefer to live in a world where each party does their best to approach a happy resolution in spite of mistakes. In this case whoever reads the PR mailbox dropped the ball.

He asked them for contact information, nothing more, nothing less. Which they were able to provide after a short wait.

> should a lowly customer service rep […] be expected to address intellectual property rights?

Address? No. Redirect/escalate to the proper channels? Most definitely.