ISP Reg Not Maint

Acts for the Millenium: Part 3

DMCA: Limitations of Liability for ISP's, Maintenance Providers

ISPs need to comply with these basic rules and MUST REGISTER their Designated Agent for the notice of infringement with the copyright office.

Forms and complete instructions are available at the Copyright Office. Go to: Links> U.S. Government > Copyright Office to get the forms.
The REGISTRATION of a DESIGNATED AGENT to receive the notice can be done on downloadable forms.
For attorneys: There are forms available in "*.pdf" (Adobe Reader 3.0+) format at the Copyright Office On Line.

COPYRIGHT OWNERS MAY HAVE INFRINGING MATERIAL REMOVED BY THE ISP. No longer need the owner of a piece of text, GIF, JPEG or MUSIC, SOUND, MPEG or other copyrightable matter chase down a man times unidentified infringer. They may send a NOTICE to the ISP to have it removed.
The NOTICE must be WRITTEN "Notification Of Claimed Infringement" must be duly served on the AGENT NAMED in the REGISTRATION with the Copyright Office.

The NOTICE to be effective must include: the name, address, phone number, and electronic mail address of the agent. other contact deemed appropriate…`

COMPUTER MAINTENANCE WAS A RISKY BUSINESS.

Several courts gave what some saw as outrageous but "logical" interpretations of the 1976 Copyright Act when computer maintenance companies were accused of infringement for making necessary copies of their client's software not allowed by the software licenses. THE OVERRULING of the Mai case is now complete.

Plaintiff had been a manufacturer of computers and a designer of the system software. Defendant was a third party hardware maintenance company. In order to service a customer’s equipment it was often necessary for defendant's employees to operate the hardware and "copy" for a few hours onto its computers the operating system. Plaintiff sought relief for copyright infringement and claimed that the copy made for maintenance was willful misuse and went beyond the permissions contained in the customer’s software license. The district court granted a preliminary injunction precluding defendant, inter alia, from "maintaining any MAI computer system wherein: (a) ``maintaining`` was defined as the engaging in any act, including, without limitation, service, repair, or upkeep in any manner whatsoever, that involves as a part of such act, or as a preliminary or subsequent step to such act, the use, directly or indirectly, of [the system software] . . . .`` and ``Use`` was defined to include loading any of plaintiff's software from magnetic or ROM storage into the memory of the CPU. See MAI vs. Peak, 991 F.2d 511; 61 USLW 2633; 26 U.S.P.Q.2d 1458.

This author believed it in error holding liable for infringement a maintenance service provider who had to temporarily download and use a "copy" of the Peak software. Without the use MAI could not compete with Peak and maintain a client’s system. See article discussing the case - Copyright Basics

Congress as part of the DMCA have now overruled this and several similar cases, and have provided in AMENDED Section 117 of the Copyright Act that, "`(a) MAKING OF ADDITIONAL COPY OR ADAPTATION BY OWNER OF COPY- Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106 (exclusive rights), it is not an infringement for the owner of a copy of a computer program to make or authorize the making of another copy or adaptation of that computer program provided:…"
…and many conditions are placed on this major limitation on the liability for a computer maintenance business under this section.