Talk:Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 24 August 2020 and 14 December 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): RampLocal.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 01:52, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Golelewe.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 05:41, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

OCILLA

Why is there a [who?] tag next to the acronym for the very subject of this article? I thought it was pretty clear what OCILLA standsfor. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.241.118.40 (talk) 18:36, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

European Union directive

The related laws section referring to the EU law is propably wrong. IMHO the section of the ecommerce direktive is more likely to be 43ff than 14. and a link to the directive (http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/e-commerce/directive_en.htm) would be nice. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.83.165.16 (talk) 15:10, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

What do you mean by "43ff"? --TJRC (talk) 17:45, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Text to merge

The second gives ISPs a "safe harbor" from copyright liability and litigation for hosting copyrighted files, as long as they take down copyrighted files quickly after being notified. (Example: I post a Madonna MP3 to my Earthlink web site. Madonna sends a letter to my ISP pointing this out. If my ISP takes the MP3 down quickly, they cannot be sued for copyright infringement.) It also requires that the ISP hand over information about subscribers to copyright holders upon request (a "DMCA subpoena", which doesn't have any judicial oversight).

For the second, some are concerned that it causes ISPs to be overly cautious about hosting copyrighted material, and encouraging them to take down any material they're requested too. Many are also concerned that DMCA subpoenas invade the privacy of Internet users. The ACLU was involved in this controversy as well, in the case of RIAA v. Boston College et al..

A controversial use of this title in 2003 was the use by the RIAA of the subpoena provisions in 512(h) to obtain the identity of ISP customers. On 20 December 2003 Verizon prevailed on appeal in a case seeking to prevent such disclosures.

In late 2003 Diebold Election Systems used the takedown notice provisions of OCILLA to demand that memos that are "allegedly" written by Diebold employees be removed but subsequently ceased making such requests. Others also see these take down notices as being contrary to the First Amendment free speech protection of free speech as a necessary part of the copyright provisions of fair use. [1]

Blizzard Entertainment threatened the developers of bnetd, a freely available clone of battle.net, a proprietary server system used by all Blizzard games on the Internet. Blizzard claims that these servers allow circumvention of its CD key copy protection scheme. (The Electronic Frontier Foundation is currently negotiating a settlement.)

• The Church of Scientology is one of the first organizations to make use of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. In June of 1999, Scientology used the controverisal law to force AT&T Worldnet to reveal the identity of a person who had been posting anonymously to alt.religion.scientology with the pseudonym of "Safe."

• The Scientology organization also used the law to force the Google search engine to erase its entries on the popular anti-Scientology Web site Operation Clambake in March 2002, though the entry was reinstated after Google received a large number of complaints from Internet users.

• The Recording Industry Association of America sued Verizon Communications to obtain the name of a Kazaa subscriber who allegedly shared hundreds of music recordings. A District Judge ordered Verizon to disclose the information in January 2003. Verizon appealed and prevailed and ISPs have reportedly subsequently refused to honor any similar subpoenas from the RIAA.

• RIAA wins battle to ID Kazaa user

• I removed the following text "Note: Copyright infringement occurs ONLY if the alleged infringer: (1) copies material with a copyright; AND (2) has had personal gain or has made monetary profit from copying material with a copyright." which I believe to be materially untrue as far as US copyright law goes (IANAL). Palnu 23:29, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

"Most" Supportive or Unsupportive?

The first paragraph states (without specifics or supporting documentation): "Most are generally unsupportive of the act believing it has many problematic portions and is overused." The first line of the Criticism section says: "While there is broad general support for the law, some object to specific provisions or uses they find problematic."

So which is it? And according to whom?

Sooo ridiculous

I can't answer to your question, but it's obvious sense that is not broadly concensed. There are years of expertise between a tablature and partiture, and what makes the difference between a professional musician and an amateur. I am really pissed of with censorship, what do the law thinks. RIGHT!!! we are so idiotic to not realize that all the troops, tanks, aircrafts, are all erased in G00GLe EARTH, is like half iraq has gone away.

Edits in Progress

This page is being revised over the next month as part of the Cyberlaw WikiProject. Dprati (talk) 02:12, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Example takedown putback

Takedown example

  8. If Bob does not file a lawsuit, then AOL must put the material back up.

I do not believe the MUST is accurate. I see no consequences in section 512 for not putting content back and many ToS's would give this discretion to the ISP. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sarterus (talk • contribs) 04:14, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Interesting question. If Bob has a contract with AOL for provision of service, then once the counter-notification has been handled, then AOL no longer has any reasonable excuse for not fulfilling their service, so could be in breach of contract if they don't promptly reinstate the content. But I don't think there's any other reason why they must; and specifically, as the example has now been changed to YouTube (who do not supply any form of agreement to provide services to their customers, but do so entirely at their own discretion), I would say it almost certainly doesn't apply any more. Anyone else agree with removing 'must' from here and replacing it with 'may'? 212.159.69.4 (talk) 13:40, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

I agree. It depends on the contractual obligations in place. An example where "must" might be appropriate is if you were paying someone to host your content, and by no longer hosting it, that someone would be in breach of contract. Youtube is not a good example as their Terms of Service probably allow them to remove videos at their discretion. A paid service could have similar terms but would be less likely to. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.88.5.242 (talk) 02:28, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

I went ahead and made the change. Even if there was a contract between both parties, it would be misleading to say that Company X "must" provide the service. DMCA is part of criminal law, and in this context it would seem to imply that Company X "must" provide the service lest Company X be held criminally liable. This is obviously incorrect. Company X does not have a duty to provide the service regardless of whether there is a contract; Company X "may" breach the hypothetical contract, i.e., it is not illegal to breach a contract in the United States. But as mentioned above, we're not even talking about such circumstances; this question is made even easier because we're talking about YouTube in particular, and YouTube has no obligation, contractual or otherwise, to return the material. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.119.70.146 (talk) 19:05, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Counter-notice

There appears to be a popular belief that the person who originally put up the material and has been notified of the takedown by the ISP is the only person who can issue a counter-notice. Where in the law is that limitation spelled out? Anyone has the right to do so, assuming of course that he knows about the takedown notice in the first place. The requirement of standing applies only to the takedown notice, not to the counter-notice. Eclecticology (talk) 22:41, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

The exception applies to "material residing at the direction of a subscriber", see § 512(g)(2). The counter notification must be signed by "the subscriber", § 512(g)(3)(A), and make a statement about the subscriber's belief of non-infringement, § 512(g)(3)(C). TJRC (talk) 00:31, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

§512(g) gives the first use of the word "subscriber" in the entire section and it is as "a subscriber", which is otherwise undefined. It can as erasily mean "any". The person who put up the material has already been identified as the "alleged infringer". Had that been the intention it could have said so without passive language to suggest that someone other than the infringer could be contemplated. Any subsequent usage involves "the subscriber"; this must of necessity refer back to the first mentioned subscriber, not the alleged infringer. Personally, even if I didn't add the offending material, I would have no problem signing the counter-notification as subscriber if I believed that the material was indeed non-infringing. Eclecticology (talk) 08:06, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

§ 512(g)(2) identifies a particular subscriber: "material residing at the direction of a subscriber of the service provider..." § 512(g)(3)(A)'s use of "the subscriber" using the definite article is a reference back to that particular subscriber. We're in WP:OR territory here, but a contrary interpretation makes no sense. If the second reference again means "any subscriber," not only is it contrary to the plain meaning of "the," but it means that Congress 's intent was to allow other customers of that particular ISP to object; but not non-customers.

But again, we're both giving interpretations here, OR. I'll check Nimmer later today and see if he discusses the point. TJRC (talk) 17:33, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

(update) Nimmer doesn't go into detail, but follows my interpretation: "In reply to the copyright owner's notification of claimed infringement, the subscriber accused of posting infringing material can serve a counter notification." Nimmer on Copyright, § 12B.07[B][2]. TJRC (talk) 18:44, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes, we are in a matter of interpretation. The word "subscriber" for a site like Wikipedia is a lot broader. It's hard to imagine what a non-subscriber looks like; they wouldn't be filing counter-notifications because they don't know about the notice. Using "the" in later appearances is fine; I don't think we are disputing that it refers back the first use of "subscriber" where the identification is made. The Nimmer quote merely states the obvious; it doesn't address our present situation. It clearly says that the alleged infringer can serve; but we already agree on that much. The difference is about whether anybody else can.

There was a takedown order issued by the French publisher Galimard against French Wikisource about a fairly lengthy series of pages by a number of different authors. Yann Forget filed counter-notifications about all but a few which did not stand up to reconsideration. Unfortunately (or fortunately if you prefer) Galimard did not file suit. I did not look to see whether Yann had himself uploaded all those pages, or even any of them. This is one of those points which may never come to court. If the rights holder feels obliged to start legal action, I don't think it matters to him who he sues. It's about the material and getting it down. The original person to post could have a claim for infringement against him, but not a different "subscriber" since that person never had put anything up in the first place.

Consider too this somewhat contrived scenario Alice puts up the material as before, the ISP takes down the material in response to a notice as before. Roger, another subscriber, sees this, believes the takedown was a mistake, but also believes as you do that he does not have standing for filing a counter notification. He can probably put the material back up to invite a new takedown notice if the ISP will let him. It makes me wonder whether these complex procedures woulld be in the interest of justice. Eclecticology (talk) 07:30, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Your interpretation is "interesting," but please leave it out of the article unless and until you can provide a reliable source for it. TJRC (talk) 16:57, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Source

Maybe someone can find this link useful for some section. ZackTheJack (talk) 21:08, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Are there any current sources from within the last five years that can be used to add to this article? RampLocal (talk) 14:30, 20 September 2020 (UTC)

Common misunderstandings

In this article, the term 'ISP" does not emphasize that some ISPs do not fall into the category of Notice-and-Takedown. Infact most ISPs nowadays do not provide storage and fall into 512(a) conduit providers which are not required to Notice-and-Takedown, yet still qualify for Safe-Harbor. Preroll (talk) 17:48, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

The ISP does need to implement a reasonable process that deals with "repeat infringers", so they don't get to entirely ignore notices from copyright holders. § 512(i), BMG vs Cox 2600:2108:40:8081:D44B:6F1B:2917:3162 (talk) 10:26, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

Copyright

Are these opinions (as given under Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), 17 U.S.C. Section 512.) free of copyright? What license do they fall under? Can we use them verbatim in Wikipedia articles? Broichmore (talk) 14:10, 25 July 2018 (UTC)