The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is an Act which contains provisions that affords internet service providers a safe haven from liability for contributory copyright infringement from user-generated content on web sites. In order to take advantage of this safe harbor from liability, an internet service provider must adopt a copyright infringement policy and register with the copyright office to accept a notice of alleged copyright infringements and to expeditiously remove the identified copyrighted material from its web site servers.
If you have a web site that receives content from third parties, you should have a DMCA policy and register with the copyright office in order to avoid DMCA copyright infringement litigation. Failure to adopt a DMCA takedown policy and register a DMCA agent to receive notifications from the copyright office may subject you to expensive litigation for copyright infringement for publishing copyrighted material on your web site placed on the website by third persons. It is not a defense to a copyright infringement claim that you had no knowledge the infringing material was copyrighted or that you had no knowledge the infringing material was being was being published on your site.
Contact a Traverse Legal Attorney to ensure that you fall within the safe harbor provisions of the DMCA and avoid being dragged into a costly copyright infringement litigation for copyrighted material that ends up on your web site from third-parties who post content on your site.
Comments