I have a hosting client who offers "streaming" music, apparently of copyrighted material. I received a DMCA notice and suspended the client's site. Now the client emailed me back with this reply: My site does not promote anything illegal and nor is my site infringing any copyrights. The group that have emailed you "xxxxxxxx.com" do not have any authority and are not a registered anti-piracy division. They offer downloads from there site and as my site is a higher rank then there's they decide to email out DMCA notices which are not backed by anything. Please analyse my site as my site only offers streaming music which no record label has an issue with. I checked the site that sent me the DMCA notice and it seems like they offer music downloads. I don't know if what they offer is legal or not. Anyway, any suggestions on the best way to handle this?
This is a tough one you can try to find out wether the other site does legally offer music, in wich case they probably have the right to file a DCMA On the other hand, it can be a trick to get your client out of business. I think your best bet would be to find out or streaming music is illigal yes or no.
What did the DMCA Notice say? They normally, just tell you to remove one file or thread, just tell your client to remove it and everything should be fine. If you have your servers in the UK and people are downloading music files and albums when not allowed to, then that is not allowed and I would keep his site down, he should have no right to host with a host located in the UK or USA. Your doing him favors, if his site gets really big and the police/FBI see his site, they will come straight to you and ask for his details to take him down! He is much safer if he owns a Warez site to try an offshore place!
it's not your responsibility to investigate. your safe harbor is at risk if you take no action. the client should file a counter-dmca notice perhaps or substantiate their rights after you take action, and/or take action against the source of an improper dmca (if it really is). either way- dmca does not = host becomes the investigator.