If I own a video sharing site and a user posted copyright videos. And then the owner of the videos take legal action. So, what will happen? who will be sued? site owner or poster? Is it OK just delete the files from the site? I'm not living in the US, so is it OK with DMCA. I believe it won't be a big problem since many big sites like megaupload, rapidshare... still host many copyright files. Please explain Thanks
As long as you take the proper action once you receive the complaint, it shouldn't be any issue for you. And, please mention this on your site terms and conditions, this can protect you too. If the same users has been reported for several times, you may ban that users too.
You should google the recent court decisions against Rapidshare and pay attention to management going to prison if the terms are not followed. It's a big mistake to assume since someone else is taking the risk that it means it is ok.
ISP and site owner both bare some responsibility in the matter. If either is negligent or does nothing then they may be exposing themselves to some legal actions. Just because you are not in the USA does not mean you are free and clear of the DMCA. I see this all the time. People think the DMCA is just in the USA but it's not. Many countries adhere to the rules and the intent of the DMCA and so their ISP's are compelled to act in accordance with the DMCA as are the ISP's in the USA. They may not call it DMCA but they still enforce the same basic concepts. It's illegal to steal other peoples intellectual property in most modern countries. DMCA or other
ISP do not have the right to police the net or clear the mess they are like a postal service which provide a service and our not responsible for contents , look at recent court orders esp. the one in regarding the Australian isp ., plus the resent order in Italy, which ruled that ISP's Not Responsible For File-Sharing Customers. DMCA is a American law , do not confuse posters here , any d.c outside U.S.A, will not comply on DMCA notice sometimes people are retarded enough to send them , we just send them an American map and or our country's or d.c's location on a globe . as for rapidshare 3 days back a court in Germany has already ruled that is not rapidshare responsibility our what the uploaders upload to it, it provides a service “The judgment shows that attempts to denounce our business model as illegal will not be successful in the long run. With its 1-click-filehosting model, RapidShare responds to legitimate interests of its users and will continue to do so in the future,†Schmid added. rapidshare's CEO statement btw what knda site is dmca.com is this not IP infringement in itself !! cause it is defiantly not official plus you are charging for service , and using DMCA as site name , if find this hypocrisy at it's best .
I didn't say that ISP have the right to to police the net. I think that would be terrible. What I did say was ISP and websites that are negligent or don't respond to Copyright claims may expose themselves to some legal jeopardy and I stand by that. (ask your lawyer or attorney) Even today I have had content removed from websites in 5 different countries. 1 was in China, 1 was in Philippines. With regards to DMCA.com DMCA.com is a company that successfully helps people get their stolen content removed from websites that steal content. What is the problem with offering DMCA services at a site called DMCA.com? Seems pretty reasonable and straightforward to me.
i have received enough DMCA notices in a past life that it is not funny , so i don't have to ask my lawyer again as per our country's laws if we ignore or don't act on a DMCA notice it makes no difference to our health . ISP share nil responsibility in every country but yeah some people are trying to change that too . as for your site name don't you find it highly unethical to charge for a service and use Digital Millennium Copyright Act , abbreviation as site name , am sure you are infringing on trademarks yourself here. it would be better in your case to consult a real attorney and not try to scare people . net is getting totally populated by this new breed of ambulance chasers using scare tactics on kids who know nothing better ! rolf this even more hilarious , domainsbyproxy.com, familiar to you i guess lolzzzz
There is nothing unethical about offering DMCA services at a website called DMCA.com. There's nothing unethical about charging a modest $99 for the service. We have real staff who spend time processing each takedown, communicating with ISPs, website owners and copyright owner(s). Many of our clients are lawyers and attorneys because they know they can't do it any cheaper or better than we can. It's a serious problem solved for $99. Most lawyers charge much more than that even to open a file. What's more is that we refund the $99 if we are unsuccessful. Unethical? I just paid $90 for a guy to put a new string on my lawn mower. People pay $50 to have their oil changed. $99 to have the serious problem of content theft dealt with is a great deal and I know because I'm one of the team that sends out emails to clients once we have successfully removed content for them. The replies I get are very appreciative and generous in praise. Many of our clients are repeat clients.
Unethical is stealing other peoples work, gaming the system and trying to profit from it. Helping people protect against abuse is not unethical.
You are getting me wrong , am very much agaist copy right infringement for profit or to use it to make money out of it in anyway , again in a past like i have had taken down p2l sites myself, i.e pay to leech , though my methods were much different . what i strive or fight for is free net not controlled by media , entertainment industry trying to push down their out dated business module on today's generation and trying to make borders on Internet . the concept of net was a huge idexing library free to all . and we strive for that. personally am sick guys posting 'somebody copy pasted my post can i sue for that' how dumb is this getting you can see . as foe file sharing and streaming sites am very much for them as long as they are not making any money on a personal level from them, taking donations from users is legit to help with server costs but that is it . as in OP's case he is not in U.S.A , DMCA is not applicable to him, the right advice is if you get busted or before you get busted look up your own country's laws and the laws and TOS of your D.C. as for your site it is unethical cause you are using a govt act which is in a law book and the American Constitution is behind it and was signed by the American president , am sure the the moment DMCA was written it was copy righted and also a serious infringement in using a govt act as site name , can i open a site patriot act.com and use that to tell people i will help catch terrorists [ i would give the impression that am official and NSA ] which you are doing . your work is legit but your site name is misleading . hope you get my point before some one serious in states wakes and you get busted over it.
Well personally I agree with you about all the net neutrality stuff but that's different. Our clients are legitimately ticked off that people are stealing their content sometimes their entire site. Sometimes pictures of their staff or their actual clients. Today I had Dentist who had his entire site (with clients smiling photos!) copied by another competing dentist (whether the other dentist did it on purpose or not I'm not sure) but why shouldn't the Dentist who paid thousands to build his site be able to protect it? With regard to the name dmca.com I can assure you that it is neither unethical nor illegal. We have proper legal counsel on the matter and they have assured us that it's 100% fine. We offer DMCA services at DMCA.com just like copyright.com offers copyright services, or domains.com sells domains. Just because law.com publishes law articles doesn't mean they are the LAW.
DMCA isn't meant to protect or enforce copyright... that can only be done in a court of law. DMCA isn't a replacement for filing court action; it isn't a cheap method to avoid expensive legal fees to protect your rights. DMCA is meant to align the unique nature of digital media to that of the rigid print world... so you can use the same copyright laws that book publishers and authors use, TV and movie production houses, etc. DMCA is meant to "PROTECT" innocent 3rd parties from getting involved in disputes that have have no knowledge of and nothing to do with and in doing so ban "YOU" from suing them with frivolous claims simply because they may have deeper pockets than the alleged infringer. If a host isn't registered with the Copyright Office in the US they are not protected under DMCA. As such, you can sue them at your leisure. The problem with that though - you have no claim against them. Unless your claim against the alleged infringer is filed in a court of law... you have no claim against a host ...and you can't file any copyright claim unless you have registered your Copyright... you must have an issuance number to file. When you send a DMCA claim ( a legal document) in advance of registered Copyright - you unilaterally negate any chance of recovering statutory damages and you won't be able to recover court costs either... thus to win a claim is limited to actually damages which is very hard to prove. As such, your business model is purely based on scam tactics. With all that in mind you're using a loophole in the system to make a buck and eventually one of your customers will get wise start a class action suit against you... because you harm your customers' legal chances of getting a fair judgment on any action that started with you.