The Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) has specific notice/counter-notice requirements, as well as take-down/put-up provisions. Absent compliance with the act, the ISP (who really is in the best position to prevent unwanted dissemination of the work), subjects itself to secondary liability for the infringement -- much deeper pockets I suspect, than the original infringer. Reading the act, it looks as if the form of the notice is as important as substance.
Additionally, the notice/counter-notice provisions allow the potential litigants to learn proper identification, so that service of process may be accomplished.
As one of the world's largest IPPs, this is an issue we deal with on almost a daily basis. Every IPP/ISP is required by the DMCA to post prominently on their site the name of the person designated as the agent to receive infringement notices. That info is also required to be filed with the U.S. Copyright Office, and those filings are available on their website.
Hope this helps in your analysis.
Matt
Matthew J. Cockman (mcockman[_at_]aitcom.net)
General Counsel
Advanced Internet Technologies, Inc. (http://www.aitcom.net/)
536 Ramsey Street
Fayetteville, NC 28301
Phone: 910-485-2383; 910-485-3377
Fax: 910-485-2831
N.C. State Bar # 18132
<mcockman[_at_]aitcom.net>
Received on Tue Jun 15 1999 - 13:46:50 GMT
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.2.0 : Mon Mar 26 2007 - 00:35:35 GMT