what prevents someone from laying a copyright claim on something in public domain ?
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Online copyright claim systems include a system for people hit with claims to appeal. If the claim is obviously spurious (like the material is original to the creator or in the public domain), this appeal will succeed. Someone who knowingly files a false claim like this is violating the law, can be countersued, and is likely to be ignored by the platform in the future.
The DMCA, the law which lays the ground rules for online copyright claims, is notorious for its bias towards presumed rights holders, and this had led to lots of justified complaining about overreaching copyright claims. However, these are typically situations where a reasonable person could grant that there may have been a violation (even if that violation was small or unintentional). The system is much better at dismissing/punishing claims made just for the purposes of harassment. At worst, you get people who honestly believe that their intellectual property has been violated even if it hasn’t and so pursue their claim long past the point where a lawyer would advise them to stop (see e.g. that Omegaverse lady).
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