Free for a Fee

The DMCA was enacted in 1998 to preserve “strong incentives for service providers and copyright owners to cooperate to detect and deal with copyright infringements that take place in a digital networked environment.”  As part of this implicit bargain, Title II of the DMCA offers safe harbors for qualifying service providers to limit their liability for claims of copyright infringement.  The Section 512(c) safe harbor protects storage providers (and has been the subject of the much litigation over the past decade).

Specifically, Section 512(c) applies to infringements that occur “by reason of the storage at the direction of a user of material” on a service provider’s system or network.  The statute does not define “user” and it seems, until recently, no court had interpreted the term.  Is a “user” simply anyone who uses an online storage platform, or should the definition exclude those persons who may have an independent contractor or similar relationship with the service provider?  In the typical situation, a website or app might offer to host content and facilitate online sharing and viewing of uploaded photos and videos.  But what if the online site only allows selected applicants to post content on the site on specific topics and offers financial incentives based upon the number of clicks?

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The content in this post was found at http://newmedialaw.proskauer.com/2015/05/11/who-exactly-is-a-user-under-the-dmca-safe-harbor/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NewMediaAndTechnologyLaw+%28New+Media+and+Technology+Law%29 and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com. Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post.