[liberationtech] Advice in dealing with potential copyright infringement complaints

[Adam Fisk]

Hi Walid-

>
> Am I released from responsibility given the fact that I am merely a medium
> like the cables/technology used to access the Internet? Furthermore, I do
> not keep logs of my proxy server traffic at all, so I can't even track who
> did the download. So what is the legal situation in my case?

In the US I would say generally yes -- you're covered under the DMCA
safe harbors, specifically safe harbor (a) of section 512 --
http://goo.gl/ZDsiU

Given that most of the copyright holders raising complaints are based
in the US, I would say that's at least useful to reference in
responding to them.

That's all of course accompanied by all the usual "I'm not a lawyer,
this is not legal advice" stuff.

If you do run servers based in the US, and depending on your corporate
structure, it may also be useful to *register an agent* with the US
copyright office. Even though you should not be subject to DMCA
takedown notices as a proxy that can't take anything down, having a
registered agent is a prerequisite for qualifying for at least some of
the safe harbors -- definitely 512 (c). Registering an agent basically
involves sending them a letter if I recall correctly, and you can
probably do it all online at this point.

-Adam

>
> Any advice in this area would be highly appreciated.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Walid
>
> -----------------
>
> Walid Al-Saqaf
> Founder & Administrator
> alkasir for mapping and circumventing cyber censorship
> https://alkasir.com
>
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