Hey guys, I figured this was applicable to you. Recent court case about knowing what your clients are or are not doing. Figured you would appreciate the read. http://tinyurl.com/m9mfj4

Everybody in the hosting industry should read this and take note. Everybody here who resells should know their rights and OBLIGATIONS under DMCA. If you do not, read about them here:

http://usiia.org/legis/title2.html

Then go protect yourself by setting up your designated agency here:

http://www.copyright.gov/onlinesp/

I highly recommend usiia.org as a source of invaluable industry-related legislation information.

Greetings:

There are caveats to http://tinyurl.com/m9mfj4 and http://tinyurl.com/m54h83 in which that law firm actions do not equal court judgments, officer of the court statements, etc.

Just because one law firm may send a hosting provider a request to take down a site or page(s) does not mean the law firm is legally correct in what they are asking of the provider.

I remember years ago when I worked with a company that had their own law firm where the lawyer would write out legal documents threatening actions against others where the intent was to intimidate rather than having a legal foundation for justice.

I'm not a lawyer, and these two web posts do concern me in that web hosting providers may be forced to make decisions that only a court can make, and yet if the provider waits for the court decision may end up included in being punished.

Thank you.

What they are trying to do here is control an industry that allows the common man to become powerful. The FTC is doing something similar to affiliate marketers.

They are slowly trying to clamp down on the internet because it is the only way to easily attain wealth. What they want is a bunch of employees who present no threat to an upper ruling class. Through the internet, the common employee(or slave) can become the master. This is not something the people in the upper echelons want.

Coupled with ridiculous tax rates for small business, they are doing a wonderful job at clamping down the power that can be attained through the internet. It's really only a matter of time now...

I just posted some more thoughts on this subject here:

http://blog.servint.net/2009/09/04/psa-you-must-understand-dmca-safe-harbor/

I think that dynamicnet and dbbrock1 are slightly off on my posting. What you have to worry about here is your clients doing something illegal and you getting notified about that illegal action and not doing anything about it. Now, I don't know if this decision will hold under appeal, but there are a few things to look at.

1. The jury decided this and not a judge.
2. This isn't legislation, this is a court ruling...very different.
3. It seems to place some odd burden on web hosts as to validating the requests of a 3rd party...which appears onerous to me, and I am not sure how that got through the litigation process.

Great article! Everyone (web hosting related or not) if your dealing with IT companies online you should also read this article. Thank you for sharing!