Safe Harbor Case Mired In Confusion
from the competing-rulings dept
The latest legal ruling on the DMCA apparently contradicts an earlier ruling, meaning that we're going to have to wait until a higher court compares and contrasts for us. The issue is about whether or not online service providers have a "safe harbor" when people post materials online that they don't own the copyright to. In this case, the producer of a movie sued Amazon.com (among othes) for letting people sell illegal copies of his movie online. In the past, he had sued eBay for the same thing - but eBay won that case. This time, the judge ruled (with no details at all) that Amazon is liable, even though they're just the marketplace. The guy who brought the suit claims that once he's informed Amazon of infringements, they're now responsible for making sure it stops. eBay won their version of the case by having a "Verified Rights Owner" program that the guy refused to join - suggesting they had a process and made an effort. Amazon, apparently, had no such program. Of course, shifting the entire burden to an Amazon based on a single report of infringement seems a bit extreme as well.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
