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Originally Posted by Barefootsies
Off the top of my head, I do not believe 'valid contact information' is a part of the Safe Harbor.
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Preemptive disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer, and so obviously the text below should not be considered "legal advice."
For solid legal advice on this subject, you must retain an attorney who is highly familiar with this area of law. (Just any old attorney who has passed the bar exam and hung a sign
will not do.... trust me on that much.)
Having said that... the requirements for Safe Harbor with respect to how/where you are required to identify your 'designated agent' fall under § 512(c).
Here's the pertinent portion of the statutory language:
Quote:
(2) Designated agent. ? The limitations on liability established in this subsection apply to a service provider only if the service provider has designated an agent to receive notifications of claimed infringement described in paragraph (3), by making available through its service, including on its website in a location accessible to the public, and by providing to the Copyright Office, substantially the following information:
(A) the name, address, phone number, and electronic mail address of the agent.
(B) other contact information which the Register of Copyrights may deem appropriate.
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That's just one part of what is required of ISPs/OSPs under § 512, though; the full requirements for receiving safe harbor under DMCA are actually quite a bit more complicated than most people realize -- including, IME, many people who are relying heavily on the protection of that safe harbor, should the shit ever hit their particular fan.... ;-)
The good news for ISPs/OSPs is that your compliance with DMCA doesn't matter much until or unless someone takes you to court, and you find yourself in the position of having to litigate the question of whether your site/service is compliant with the Act.
The bad news for ISPs/OSPs is that if you
are taken to court for alleged copyright violation, and you haven't done the basic, "black letter law" things you need to do under DMCA in order to receive the safe harbor protection..... well, you are going to find yourself in a mighty disadvantaged position when the courtroom action kicks up.
There are non-DMCA defenses available to ISPs/OSPs as well, of course, but those defenses are a whole lot trickier to rely on than is the safe harbor protection.
As for why many non-U.S.sites/services endeavor to comply with DMCA even though they aren't located in the U.S. -- a U.S. court can (and often will) assert jurisdiction over foreign entities, if and when that entity has a "U.S. nexus" to it.
In other words, if you're a foreign website operator, but you do business within the U.S. market, accept payments from American consumers, host your sites on servers in the U.S., and/or other things along those lines, you
can be held to account in a U.S. court.
BTW -- it's also worth noting that (in theory at least), the FBI can assert similar "extraterritorial jurisdiction" with respect to 2257, if there's a similar sort of U.S. nexus with respect to a foreign 'producer.'
So far as I'm aware, the FBI has never conducted an inspection of a non-U.S. producer/records-holder, but when I interviewed Chuck Joyner (the head of the FBI's 2257 inspection team) a few years back, he was pretty clear about the fact that the FBI
is legally empowered to conduct such an inspection, if and when the circumstances merit it.