Happy birthday DMCA
In October 1998 the Digital Millennium Copyright Act was passed by the US Congress and signed by former President Clinton.
This law is basically the legal manual for file hosters like us: In general, limits Internet service providers from copyright infringement liability for simply transmitting information over the Internet. Service providers, however, are expected to remove material from users’ web sites that appears to constitute copyright infringement.
Which means that the service provider (like ourselves) has to remove any copyright material found on the server or will be held responsible for the distribution of it.
We strictly follow that and try to delete any copyright material before even someone notices. But as we grow so fast and big, it is hard to keep track.
I wonder why so many people upload copyright stuff, even when they are not anonymous. Unbelievable!
October 24th, 2005 at 2:40 pm
I have been asking that question for years. But in a turnaround move, a now defunct file sharing/Indie music site blocked me from registering an Indie account in their Artist section simply because I found some of my own and my husband’s copyrighted hypnosis MP3’s being shared through their server without my permission; I therefore demanded their removal from the site.
This was not a simple matter of ‘copyright of creation’. Two of my MP3s that were found on this server have Library of Congress registration numbers. Thus DMCA violation charges could have easily been filed. This incident happened in 2001, well after the passage of the DMCA.
I now wonder what would have happened if when I was blocked from artist registration, I had filed a tortuous interference with commerce suit in return?
October 24th, 2005 at 2:48 pm
OOPS…it is still there! I do believe I will try again…by creating a new account.
January 4th, 2006 at 2:35 pm
[...] Read here, why we delete that stuff asap! [...]