As for copyright owners, the DMCA provides an efficient tool to stop copyright infringement. Copyright owners may ask service providers to remove or disable access to allegedly copyright-infringing works.

DMCA also gives copyright owners the right to ask the clerk of any United States district court to issue a subpoena to service providers to reveal the identity of an alleged copyright infringer.

A. Safe Harbor Provisions

The DMCA provides four safe harbor provisions for service providers:

  • Transitory digital network communications
  • System caching
  • Information residing on systems or networks at the direction of users
  • Information location tools

    • To be eligible for any of the safe harbor provisions, a service provider must:

  • have adopted and reasonably implemented, and inform subscribers and account holders of the service provider's system or network of, a policy that provides for the termination in appropriate circumstances of subscribers and account holders of the service provider's system or network who are repeat infringers; and

  • accommodate and not interfere with standard technical measures used by copyright owners to identify or protect copyrighted works.

    • B. Service Providers' Takedown Procedures

    For a service provider that provides information location tools (e.g., search engines), the service provider is further required under DMCA to implement takedown procedures to be immune from copyright infringement liability. Upon notification from a copyright owner of a copyright infringement, a service provider must:

  • act expeditiously to remove or disable access to the copyright-infringing material;

  • notify the user of the copyright-infringing material that the material has been removed or disabled; and

  • put back the material in 10-14 days upon counter-notification of a mistake or misidentification by the user.

    • C. Copyright Owners' Notifications

    To trigger a service provider's obligation to remove or disable access to the copyrighted material, a copyright owner must notify the service provider of the alleged copyright infringement. The notification must:

  • be in writing and include a physical/electronic signature of the copyright owner or an authorized agent;

  • identify the copyrighted work claimed to have been infringed;

  • identify the material that is claimed to be infringing or to be the subject of infringing activity and information reasonably sufficient to permit the service provider to locate the material;
  • provide contact information of the complaining party;

  • include a statement that the complaining party has a good-faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law; and

  • include a statement that the information in the notification is accurate, and under penalty of perjury, that the complaining party is authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.

    • D. Links to Takedown Procedures by Service Providers

    On their websites, major service providers have provided takedown procedures and policies for DMCA compliance. Below is a list of useful links to some of the service providers' takedown procedures, policies, and online notification forms:

    Google – http://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/terms/

    Yahoo! – http://info.yahoo.com/legal/us/yahoo/copyright/en-us/

    You Tube – http://www.youtube.com/t/dmca_policy

    Facebook – http://www.facebook.com/legal/copyright.php

    Twitter – http://support.twitter.com/entries/15795-copyright-anddmca-Policy

    Flickr – http://info.yahoo.com/legal/us/yahoo/copyright/en-us/

    AOL – http://legal.aol.com/copyright-reporting/

    LinkedIn – http://www.linkedin.com/static?key=copyright_policy

    To find out more please access our IP Primer page.