The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) does not state how long an Internet Service Provider (ISP)/Online Service Provider (OSP) has to respond to a claim of copyright infringement. According to the U.S. Copyright Office, "[u]pon receipt of a compliant notification of claimed infringement, a service provider must respond expeditiously to remove, or disable access to, the material that is claimed to be infringing or to be the subject of the infringing activity, if the service provider seeks to receive the benefits of the limitations of liability contained in § 512(c)".
Merriam-Webster's online dictionary, defines expeditiously to mean "marked by or acting with prompt efficiency." According to Wikipedia's entry for the "Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act, "[f]or a commercially run on-line provider taking action within the hour to tell a customer that a takedown notice has been received and informing them that they must immediately remove the content and confirm removal, giving them six to twelve hours to comply; and otherwise informing them that the content will be taken down or their Internet connection terminated, may be considered reasonable."
There is no controlling case law that provides black letter law regarding the DMCA's definition of expeditiously. However, it was noted in Viacom Int'l Inc. v. YouTube, Inc., 07 Civ. 2103 (LLS) (S.D.N.Y. June 23, 2010) that when YouTube received from Viacom one mass take-down notice for 100,000 videos within one business day almost all of the infringing content was removed. Viacom's take-down notice was sent on February 2, 2007, which is more than three and half years ago. Since this mass take-down, advances in technology have made it easier to detect and remove infringing content.
Since YouTube, a commercial entity, had the resources to remove allegedly infringing content within one business day more than three and a half years ago, it is not onerous for commercial entities to abide by a one business day rule today. At first glance, it may sound onerous for a web site to be forced to remove allegedly infringing content within one business day. However, in a matter of hours a popular movie, book, or other original work may be downloaded hundreds of thousands of times. These downloads may cause serious irreparable financial harm to copyright holders.
According to the Senate Report about the DMCA (S. Rep. 105-190 at 44), "[b]ecause the factual circumstances and technical parameters may vary from case to case, it is not possible to identify a uniform time limit for expeditious action." In my opinion, this indicates that a non-profit may be held to a different less onerous standard than a commercial entity. Since S. Rep 105-190 was created, technology has drastically changed and I do not believe it was the intent of the Senate to provide ISPs/OSPs wide latitude to remove infringing content at their leisure when even a minor delay in removal may cause serious financial repercussions to rights holders.
The DMCA's safe harbor provision is already tilted heavily in favor of ISPs/OSPs. Therefore, to level the playing field it is time for either Congress or the courts to declare that under the DMCA commercial entities have one business day to remove infringing content.
To learn more about protecting and monetizing your online content you may contact me at http://www.shearlaw.com/.
Copyright 2010 by the Law Office of Bradley S. Shear, LLC. All rights reserved.
Showing posts with label DMCA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label DMCA. Show all posts
Monday, August 2, 2010
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Viacom vs. YouTube May Be a Victory For Copyright Owners
The Viacom Int'l Inc. v. YouTube, Inc., 07 Civ. 2103 (LLS) (S.D.N.Y. June 23, 2010) summary judgement in favor of YouTube was hailed as a victory for technology companies and a loss for copyright owners in most major publications. In my opinion, the instant analysis of the case and its effect on future litigation misses a key important point. This point is the amount of time that Internet Service Providers (ISPs)/Online Service Providers (OSPs) have to remove infringing content once they have received a Digital Milenium Copyright Act (DMCA) take down notice.
There is a saying among lawyers that goes something like, "when the law is against you, argue the facts. When the facts are against you, argue the law. If both the law and the facts are against you, attack the other side." In this case, the law was clearly against Viacom. The DMCA's safe harbor is as wide as the Pacific Ocean. 17 U.S.C. Section 512 (c) provides ISPs/OSPs broad protection against claims of copyright infringement by rights holders whose work appears on the ISP's/OSP's websites. In addition, the facts of Viacom's case appeared to favor YouTube. According to the facts of the case, Viacom spent several months accumulating over 100,000 videos that were illegally uploaded to YouTube and then sent one massive take down notice on February 2, 2007 to YouTube. By the next business day, YouTube had removed virtually all of the illegally uploaded videos.
The bottom line is that the take down provisions in the DMCA worked. Several months after the lawsuit was initially filed in 2007, YouTube launched a service called Video Identification Tool which assists copyright holders in protecting their content from being illegally uploaded onto YouTube. It appears that YouTube was extremely responsive in this matter.
If YouTube did not act as quickly as it did to remove the infringing content then I believe Viacom's position would have been greatly strengthened and a different outcome may have occurred. Therefore, I don't think this was the best test case for copyright holders.
In my analysis of the DMCA, ISPs/OSPs have only a small window of time to remove infringing material once they have received a DMCA take down notice. The next time an ISP/OSP is sued for enabling copyright infringement it will need to prove that it took no more than a few business days to remove the alleged infringing material after it has been notified. If it takes more than several days for the alleged infringing material to be removed I believe that the copyright holder will have a stronger case than Viacom that the ISP/OSP should not be protected under the DMCA's safe harbor provisions. Since it took YouTube only one business day after it received a DMCA take down notice to remove the infringing content, the bar is set extremely high for other ISPs/OSPs. The take down notice was also sent more than 3 years ago and since then technology should make it even easier for ISPs/OSPs to remove infringing material once they have been notified. Therefore, I believe the length of time it takes an ISP/OSP to respond to a DMCA take down notice may be a central issue in future litigation.
To learn how to protect and monetize your intellectual property you may contact me at http://www.shearlaw.com/.
Copyright 2010 by the Law Office of Bradley S. Shear, LLC. All rights reserved.
There is a saying among lawyers that goes something like, "when the law is against you, argue the facts. When the facts are against you, argue the law. If both the law and the facts are against you, attack the other side." In this case, the law was clearly against Viacom. The DMCA's safe harbor is as wide as the Pacific Ocean. 17 U.S.C. Section 512 (c) provides ISPs/OSPs broad protection against claims of copyright infringement by rights holders whose work appears on the ISP's/OSP's websites. In addition, the facts of Viacom's case appeared to favor YouTube. According to the facts of the case, Viacom spent several months accumulating over 100,000 videos that were illegally uploaded to YouTube and then sent one massive take down notice on February 2, 2007 to YouTube. By the next business day, YouTube had removed virtually all of the illegally uploaded videos.
The bottom line is that the take down provisions in the DMCA worked. Several months after the lawsuit was initially filed in 2007, YouTube launched a service called Video Identification Tool which assists copyright holders in protecting their content from being illegally uploaded onto YouTube. It appears that YouTube was extremely responsive in this matter.
If YouTube did not act as quickly as it did to remove the infringing content then I believe Viacom's position would have been greatly strengthened and a different outcome may have occurred. Therefore, I don't think this was the best test case for copyright holders.
In my analysis of the DMCA, ISPs/OSPs have only a small window of time to remove infringing material once they have received a DMCA take down notice. The next time an ISP/OSP is sued for enabling copyright infringement it will need to prove that it took no more than a few business days to remove the alleged infringing material after it has been notified. If it takes more than several days for the alleged infringing material to be removed I believe that the copyright holder will have a stronger case than Viacom that the ISP/OSP should not be protected under the DMCA's safe harbor provisions. Since it took YouTube only one business day after it received a DMCA take down notice to remove the infringing content, the bar is set extremely high for other ISPs/OSPs. The take down notice was also sent more than 3 years ago and since then technology should make it even easier for ISPs/OSPs to remove infringing material once they have been notified. Therefore, I believe the length of time it takes an ISP/OSP to respond to a DMCA take down notice may be a central issue in future litigation.
To learn how to protect and monetize your intellectual property you may contact me at http://www.shearlaw.com/.
Copyright 2010 by the Law Office of Bradley S. Shear, LLC. All rights reserved.
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