Digital Millenium Copyright Act

When Copyright Law was passed in 1976, the Internet did not exist. The context of the Internet and the increasing amount of digital content prompted Congress to pass the DMCA in 1998 to address copyright issues in the digital domain.

It is important to understand that although the DMCA potentially alleviates the culpability of OSPs, it does not protect the service users! For this reason, it is imperative that students and faculty adhere to copyright law with regard to posting materials on the web and/or peer-to-peer file sharing.

Although the DMCA addresses a number of topics, the one most relevant for our purposes is Title II: ONLINE COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT LIABILITY LIMITATION which limits the liability of online service providers (OSP), such as Liberty University’s network system, for certain infringements provided that we “(1) adopt and reasonably implement a policy of terminating in appropriate circumstances the accounts of subscribers who are repeat infringers; and (2) accommodate and not interfere with ‘standard technical measures’ (i.e., measures that copyright owners use to identify or protect copyrighted works).’ (“The DMCA of 1998,” U.S. Copyright Office); (3) designate and register a copyright agent who can be contacted for alleged infringements.

In addition, the following stipulations apply:

• "Conduit activities" that are largely automatic activities of computers connected to the Internet and for which there is no explicit requirement to register an agent to obtain the law's protections:
  • transmitting or routing material through a system or network controlled by or for the service provider;
  • providing connections for material through such a system or network;
  • intermediate and transient storage of that material in the course of transmitting, routing or providing connections
  • intermediate and temporary storage of material on a system or network controlled or operated by or for the service provider ("system caching")
• Long-term storage of information on the service provider's system or network, for which you must register an agent to obtain the law's protections:
  • storage at the direction of a user of material that resides on a system or network controlled or operated by or for the service provider
  • referring or linking users to an online location containing infringing material or infringing activity, by using information location tools, including a directory, index, reference, pointer, or hypertext link
• Taking material down based on an allegation of infringement or knowledge of facts or circumstances from which infringement is apparent or putting it back up based on as assertion of misidentification or mistake on the complainant's part
   

Content adapted from “Copyright in the Library,” University of Texas System. Used under a Created Commons license.