SteamShare.com received a threat, of sorts, from a firm that claims to represent a handful of production studios whose content may or may not be posted on our website, steamshare.com. In short, they are saying either we totally disable the feature that allows our users to upload videos and remove any videos they tell us to, or they'll shove a suit up our chute. Questions: 1- this is a video sharing community, much like youtube. i understand youtube is not liable for copyright issues so long as they remove reported content within a sufficiently reasonable amount of time. how, if at all, would that be different for us? our ( http://www.steamshare.com/SteamTOS.html )Terms of Service lays the burden of copyright infringement on the user who uploaded the content, and clearly states how to inform us if you find something you own on the site. we get a bunch of these notifications every day and handle them very promptly(24 hours or less). 2- i understand they can FILE suit, basically to see if we'll fold under pressure, but won't they be liable for any fees we incur in relation to the lawsuit, provided they lose? I'm brand-new to this board, and I'm really looking forward to your replies. Thanks in advance!
Tough one man. If you are hosting a video that isn't yours then ya they have all the right in the world to sue the hell out of you. They can't ask you to take down the upload feature but you should remove there vids and make it clear to your users not to upload content that is not in the public domain. Just to cover your back. Also I'm sure this company and there buddies will be watching so make sure not to violate again because they might really come after you and they will win.
If you are in the US then you are probably fine. In this case it looks like one of three things is happening: 1) They assume they can scare you into shutting down your site. 2) Looking at the recent rash of settlements for similar cases (YouTube has settled on some themselves thinking the cost would be cheaper than a drawn out case). 3) The law has not been sufficiently tested in court and these groups think you might be a good test case to see if they can get the courts to modify the DMCA safe harbor provisions. Given the "production" companies probably involved, there is a history in that industry of overreaching in these types of areas. Remove what they request and I don't think there is anything else they can really do to you. If they actually file suit even after you remove the requested content, seek a lawyer immediately.
Yep, see a lawyer! Let's be honest here - the majority of the content of your site is infringing copyright. 'User uploaded content' might wash with myspace sites where people have gone around ripping stuff off and claiming it was users who uploaded, knowing full well the people who owned the copyright didn't have the financial muscle to do anything about it, but you're dealing with the big guns of the porn industry and they have the financial muscle to drag your ass through the courts for years. Removing the 'upload' option will simply make this easier for them since all content will then be webmaster uploaded and proof of intent, imo. Maybe there's a workaround - the likes of pornotube and whatever seem to be able to provide clips and stuff but I suspect that's them running promo clips they have permission to use rather than stuff they have ripped.
YouTube has protection under the DMCA safe harbor provisions since they have a registered copyright agent. If I understood it correctly having a registered agent is a requirement for safe harbor protection. If your site doesn't have a registered agent I'd advise you to register one. That should give you some form of protection. After registering an agent, follow all the requirements for the DMCA and promptly remove infringing content. That being said you should definitely see a lawyer specializing in copyright issues.
After all the great replies from you guys, we've made a bunch of major legal changes. We've since registered a copyright claims agent with the US Copyright Office(costs all of $80), provided an easier way for owners of infringed content to notify us, and effectively become mostly covered under the DCMA's provisions, most notably the Safe Harbor provisions provided under the OCILLA. Thanks, all the help definitely got us to look further in to the copyright issues at hand. Much appreciation. Oh yeah, and you were right mcfox, according to an IP lawyer, had we removed the "upload" button as requested, we would have been directly liable for 100% of the infringing content on the site. With that feature available, we're only required to removed content that is REQUESTED for removal by the copyright owner, and remain not liable for content we don't remove without notice.