[Foundation-l] Deleting blatant copyright violations from the database

Ray Saintonge saintonge at telus.net
Mon Aug 13 04:43:43 UTC 2007


Anthony wrote:
> On 8/12/07, Brian <Brian.Mingus at colorado.edu> wrote:
>   
>> http://www.chillingeffects.org/dmca512
>>> In order to qualify for safe harbor protection, an OSP must:
>>>
>>>    - have no knowledge of, or financial benefit from, the infringing
>>>    activity
>>>    - provide proper notification of its policies to its subscribers
>>>    - set up an agent to deal with copyright complaints
>>>
>>> Reverting a copyright violation seems to violate the first point.
>>>       
> Only if you have actual knowledge that the version is indeed a
> copyright violation, which would require at the very least knowing
> that the material is copyrighted, knowing that it is being used
> without permission, and knowing that it is not fair use.
>
> <blockquote>Actual knowledge is not an opinion about infringement i.e.
> "I think this is infringing" or "this is copied from another site,
> therefore it is infringing".</blockquote> - [[OCILLA]]
I strongly agree.  While there are reasons and times times when it is 
prudent to act on suspicion the important factor remains the need to 
have standing.  From that same chillingeffects site: "[OCILLA] protects 
online service providers (OSPs) from liability for information posted or 
transmitted by subscribers if they quickly remove or disable access to 
material identified *in a copyright holder's complaint."  *That last 
factor is especially important.  There is more to determining whether 
there has been copyright infringement than simply identifying two 
identical passages.

Ec



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