Opinion ID: 626721
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The DMCA Safe Harbors

Text: The DMCA was enacted in 1998 to implement the World Intellectual Property Organization Copyright Treaty, Universal City Studios, Inc. v. Corley, 273 F.3d 429, 440 (2d Cir.2001), and to update domestic copyright law for the digital age, see Ellison v. Robertson, 357 F.3d 1072, 1076 (9th Cir.2004). Title II of the DMCA, separately titled the Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act (OCILLA), was designed to clarif[y] the liability faced by service providers who transmit potentially infringing material over their networks. S.Rep. No. 105-190 at 2 (1998). But [r]ather than embarking upon a wholesale clarification of various copyright doctrines, Congress elected to leave current law in its evolving state and, instead, to create a series of `safe harbors[]' for certain common activities of service providers. Id. at 19. To that end, OCILLA established a series of four safe harbors that allow qualifying service providers to limit their liability for claims of copyright infringement based on (a) transitory digital network communications, (b) system caching, (c) information residing on systems or networks at [the] direction of users, and (d) information location tools. 17 U.S.C. § 512(a)-(d). To qualify for protection under any of the safe harbors, a party must meet a set of threshold criteria. First, the party must in fact be a service provider, defined, in pertinent part, as a provider of online services or network access, or the operator of facilities therefor. 17 U.S.C. § 512(k)(1)(B). A party that qualifies as a service provider must also satisfy certain conditions of eligibility, including the adoption and reasonable implementation of a repeat infringer policy that provides for the termination in appropriate circumstances of subscribers and account holders of the service provider's system or network. Id. § 512(i)(1)(A). In addition, a qualifying service provider must accommodate standard technical measures that are used by copyright owners to identify or protect copyrighted works. Id. § 512(i)(1)(B), (i)(2). Beyond the threshold criteria, a service provider must satisfy the requirements of a particular safe harbor. In this case, the safe harbor at issue is § 512(c), which covers infringement claims that arise by reason of the 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. Id. § 512(c)(1). The § 512(c) safe harbor will apply only if the service provider: (A) (i) does not have actual knowledge that the material or an activity using the material on the system or network is infringing; (ii) in the absence of such actual knowledge, is not aware of facts or circumstances from which infringing activity is apparent; or (iii) upon obtaining such knowledge or awareness, acts expeditiously to remove, or disable access to, the material; (B) does not receive a financial benefit directly attributable to the infringing activity, in a case in which the service provider has the right and ability to control such activity; and (C) upon notification of claimed infringement as described in paragraph (3), responds expeditiously to remove, or disable access to, the material that is claimed to be infringing or to be the subject of infringing activity. Id. § 512(c)(1)(A)-(C). Section 512(c) also sets forth a detailed notification scheme that requires service providers to designate[] an agent to receive notifications of claimed infringement, id. § 512(c)(2), and specifies the components of a proper notification, commonly known as a takedown notice, to that agent, see id. § 512(c)(3). Thus, actual knowledge of infringing material, awareness of facts or circumstances that make infringing activity apparent, or receipt of a takedown notice will each trigger an obligation to expeditiously remove the infringing material. With the statutory context in mind, we now turn to the facts of this case.