Internet Lawyer: Internet Attorney: Internet Law Firm

Digital Millennium Copyright Act Lawyer Discusses DMCA Takedown Notice Provisions

Welcome to Copyright Law Radio.  My name is Attorney Enrico Schaefer. Today, we’re going to be talking about the Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act (OCILLA), which is a provision in the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, known as the DMCA, and how it affects OSP’s or online service providers, which includes ISP’s, web hosts, and the like.  So, what are we talking about here today?  We’re talking about claims of copyright infringement.  If you are a copyright owner and you see that your copyright protected material has been posted on a third party website, you need to understand what legal options you may have, not only against the person infringing your copyright, but in order to have those materials removed from the website so that further dissemination of your copyright-protected work does not occur. 

So, congress, back in 1998, anticipated the problem of copyright infringement on the internet and passed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the DMCA.  Part of those provisions in the DMCA included the Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act (OCILLA), which is essentially the safe harbor provision for OSP’s.  OSP’s are third party publisher of potentially copyright protected works and how those works get taken down off the internet is the subject of today’s show. 

Google, Fair Use, and a Perfect 10

Internet law Update:  Digital Millennium Copyright Act and Fair Use under Copyright Infringement Law.

In the recent case of Perfect 10 v. Google, Perfect 10 sought relief from damages alleged against Google for its part in aiding users in viewing Perfect 10’s copyrighted work. Perfect 10 is a site that allows the viewing of nude models with a required subscription. Some of Perfect 10’s content has hosted on other sites that are copyright infringing by hosting the files. The reason that Perfect 10 went after Google is because Google’s search engine was displaying copyright infringing content that was being hosted by the websites that have leaked the Perfect 10 content. Essentially, Perfect 10 made a contributory copyright infringement" argument. 

The whole story can be found here.  You can also review further information about "fair use" under copyright law or the "fair use defense" by clicking on the appropriate links.