MediaTech Law

By MIRSKY & COMPANY, PLLC

New DMCA Agent Registration Requirements: Action Required by all Online Service Providers

Providers of online services (including websites and apps that enable users to post content) must register an agent with the United States Copyright Office by December 31, 2017 using the Office’s new online system, which went into effect in December 2016. Those who don’t register risk losing valuable liability protections under Section 512 of the Digital Millennial Copyright Act (DMCA). Service providers can click here to begin the registration process and the Copyright Office has created a number of videos to guide users.

Service providers with agent information on file under the old, paper system must re-submit the information through the online portal. The agent information must be updated as it changes and the registration must be renewed or updated at least once every three years. There also is a new fee structure: $6 registration fee per designation of an agent.

As background, Section 512 of the DMCA provides a safe harbor from copyright infringement liability to online service providers, primarily to protect online services from situations involving copyright infringement arising from content posted by third party users. In order to qualify, a service provider must designate an agent to receive take-down notices from copyright holders who believe their rights have been infringed. In addition to posting the agent information online, the service provider is required to provide its agent’s information to the Copyright Office. Previously, agent information was provided to the Copyright Office on a paper form that was later scanned and posted online by the staff, but concerns arose regarding cost and whether this information was being properly updated.

While the Copyright Office reported that comments it received during the rulemaking proceeding demonstrated “widespread support for the creation of an electronic registration system,” that is only part of the story.

There are many benefits to the Copyright Office’s new online system (and some of the changes may be long overdue). As noted by Brandon Huffman, filing online will generally be easier and cheaper. However, some have criticized the new rules because of requirements that: (i) all service providers who previously registered through the paper system re-register via the new online system and (ii) all registrations must be renewed every three years (unless they were updated during that three-year period). A currently compliant service provider that does nothing risks losing its existing safe harbor protections.   So, for example, Elliot Harmon of the Electronic Frontier Foundation noted that large online service providers, such as YouTube and Facebook, will not have a problem complying, but “small companies, small nonprofits, and activist groups” with few resources are more likely to be at risk of losing their safe labor protections for non-compliance. Eric Goldman has been particularly critical of these requirements, going so far as to write that “This story has been like watching a train wreck in slow motion.” Professor Goldman suggests that the Copyright Office’s efforts to inform service providers about lapsed registrations could inadvertently help litigious copyright owners:

To ‘help’ service providers, the Copyright Office says they can reinstate lapsed registrations by paying the fee. But the Copyright Office will publicly display the periods when the registration lapsed, giving a useful roadmap to copyright owners who can easily just sue for the lapsed time period. So the public disclosure of the lapsed period will make a super ‘SUE HERE’ flag for litigious copyright owners, helpfully provided as a public “service” by the Copyright Office.

In the end, all online service providers need to take notice – and action.

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Pinterest: Fair Use of Images, Building Communities, Fan Pages, Copyright

When using Pinterest (and Flickr and YouTube and Facebook and on and on), what copyright, fair use, trademark and other issues weigh on building communities and fan pages and social media generally?  A hypothetical “Company” has plans for its Pinterest “community”, and in particular, wonders about these situations:

  • Using Images of Identifiable People
  • Fair Use and Images
  • Trademarks: When is a “Fair Use” Argument Strongest?
  • Why Attribution and Linking to Original Sources is Important

3 introductory questions:

Question #1: Someone used to be a paid Company sponsor or spokesperson.  They are no longer.  Can the Company continue to post a photo of the old sponsor to Pinterest?  Short Answer: If the contract with the sponsor expressly permits it, yes.  Ordinarily, the contract would specify engagement for limited time, and that would prohibit rights to use images beyond the contract period.  But it really depends on what the contract says.

Question #2: Can the Company post a photo of a fan of the Company?  Short Answer: Express consent is required, either through a release or the fan’s agreement (whenever the photo is submitted) to terms of service.  Exceptions are discussed below.

Question #3: Can the Company post a photo of a Coca-Cola bottle on its Pinterest page?  Short Answer: If the use of the image does not suggest (implicitly or explicitly) endorsement or association, then yes.

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Podcast #10: BitTorrent Copyright Infringement: Trouble for DMCA?

 

Today, I discuss BitTorrents, and a particular case in California challenging the copyright validity of what one service provider is doing.  BitTorrent has been in the (copyright) news lately – and not surprisingly – after the movie studios set their sites on bringing down yet the latest iteration of file-sharing technology.

Some of the issues I discuss are these:

  • What is the BitTorrent file sharing technology? And how is it different from Napster and its peer-to-peer progeny?
  • What are the 2 biggest distinctions between BitTorrent and peer-to-peer and, in particular, BitTorrent’s distributive approach to file-sharing?
  • Why is bitTorrent in the (copyright) news? I will particularly discuss a case in federal court in California, involving Columbia Pictures and other film studios who sued a bitTorrent company called isoHunt, together with its founder, Gary Fung.
  • What were the relevant legal issues in this case? Several important copyright arguments were made, but of most significance were 2 particular issues: inducement of copyright infringement, and the safe harbor for providers of “information location tools” under Section 512 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (the DMCA).
  • Why did Google get involved? I discuss how this case was an unusual instance where a court ruled that DMCA safe harbor protection was not available to a provider of “information location tools” who knew or should have known about potential or actual copyright infringement happening on its service.

Please click below for the podcast.

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BitTorrent Copyright Infringement: Trouble for DMCA?

BitTorrent has been in the (copyright) news lately – and not surprisingly – after the movie studios set their sites on bringing down yet the latest iteration of file-sharing technology.

2 great background sources on what BitTorrent is and how it works can be found here and here.  In short terms, BitTorrent is a file sharing technology, different from Napster and its peer-to-peer progeny in that it draws down pieces of large data files from multiple computers – rather than single computer to single computer peer-to-peer – based on a “community” structure of participating individual users.  The two biggest distinctions are (1) no single source for the compiled total file contributes more than a very small portion of the total file and (2) the distributive structure finesses the constant file-sharing problem of large data transfers demanding large broadband resources.

Why is bitTorrent in the (copyright) news?

BitTorrent is in the news not simply because Netflix’ CEO stated that “we’ve finally beaten bitTorrent.”  (“We”, by the way, presumably refers to Netflix’ full-file streaming capabilities.)

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