Your Website Owner Requirements Under OCILLA
- By Jane Dawson
- Published 07/27/2009
- Internet Law
- Unrated
As an online retailer, your responsibilities go beyond the usual product-driven responsibilities to your customers to provide a quality product at a fair price, fast shipping, reasonable return policy and so on.
To the extent that your site contains content that is produced by others, either on commission or in the form of user reviews, blogs, forum postings and so on, you are responsible for the appropriateness of that content.
WIPO and DMCA
In 1996, the World International Property Organization (WIPO) developed a treaty to normalize the rules for copyright and infringement globally. The United States implemented the WIPO directives through the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) in 1998. That act placed significant requirements on Internet Service Providers to police their sites in order to block attempted copyright infringement.
You may be thinking that none of this has anything to do with you because you are not an ISP. However, although your site may not act as a bona fide ISP, if you provide users the opportunity to exchange views, download information and otherwise provide for transmission of material that you have not specifically authored, you are close enough to the definition to take action to protect yourself against any problems. That is where OCILLA comes in.
U.S. Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act (OCILLA)
OCILLA not only protects copyright owners but also provides a safe harbor for online service providers and site owners like you that may inadvertently become a party to a copyright infringement episode. OCILLA basically says that as long as you follow its guidelines for policing your site with respect t
o possible copyright violation, then you will not be held responsible if a copyright violation is found to have taken place on your site.
OCILLA requires that you:
- Do not have knowledge of infringement;
- Upon learning of infringement, remove offending material;
- Do not benefit from the presence of infringed material;
- Identify an agent, which can be you, to receive notification of possible infringement.
What you should do
First, establish a site use policy that prohibits the use of any copyright protected material from being used on the site, except under acceptable fair use terms.
Now that you have a site use policy, make your users read and agree to the policy before accessing the site by posting the policy in click-wrap form, i.e., forcing the user to open the policy and scroll to the bottom to click agreement. This certainly does not guarantee that the user has read the policy but it gives you a document that says that the user has agreed to the terms.
Actively police your site and encourage others to report any possible violations to you.
If you receive a report of possible copyright violation, investigate promptly. You can:
- Test the material through copyscape;
- Ask the poster to demonstrate that the material is genuine or to explain any strong resemblance to other available material.
Remove material in violation. Of course, if you do not believe that material in question violates copyright, you can choose to disagree and not remove the material. But, recognize that you may have to defend your position in court.
Take the good sense to establish some protective measures to be sure that your e-commerce business is not interrupted by avoidable problems.
To the extent that your site contains content that is produced by others, either on commission or in the form of user reviews, blogs, forum postings and so on, you are responsible for the appropriateness of that content.
WIPO and DMCA
In 1996, the World International Property Organization (WIPO) developed a treaty to normalize the rules for copyright and infringement globally. The United States implemented the WIPO directives through the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) in 1998. That act placed significant requirements on Internet Service Providers to police their sites in order to block attempted copyright infringement.
You may be thinking that none of this has anything to do with you because you are not an ISP. However, although your site may not act as a bona fide ISP, if you provide users the opportunity to exchange views, download information and otherwise provide for transmission of material that you have not specifically authored, you are close enough to the definition to take action to protect yourself against any problems. That is where OCILLA comes in.
U.S. Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act (OCILLA)
OCILLA not only protects copyright owners but also provides a safe harbor for online service providers and site owners like you that may inadvertently become a party to a copyright infringement episode. OCILLA basically says that as long as you follow its guidelines for policing your site with respect t
OCILLA requires that you:
- Do not have knowledge of infringement;
- Upon learning of infringement, remove offending material;
- Do not benefit from the presence of infringed material;
- Identify an agent, which can be you, to receive notification of possible infringement.
What you should do
First, establish a site use policy that prohibits the use of any copyright protected material from being used on the site, except under acceptable fair use terms.
Now that you have a site use policy, make your users read and agree to the policy before accessing the site by posting the policy in click-wrap form, i.e., forcing the user to open the policy and scroll to the bottom to click agreement. This certainly does not guarantee that the user has read the policy but it gives you a document that says that the user has agreed to the terms.
Actively police your site and encourage others to report any possible violations to you.
If you receive a report of possible copyright violation, investigate promptly. You can:
- Test the material through copyscape;
- Ask the poster to demonstrate that the material is genuine or to explain any strong resemblance to other available material.
Remove material in violation. Of course, if you do not believe that material in question violates copyright, you can choose to disagree and not remove the material. But, recognize that you may have to defend your position in court.
Take the good sense to establish some protective measures to be sure that your e-commerce business is not interrupted by avoidable problems.
Jane Dawson
Source verified wholesale UK wholesalers, dropshippers, dropship and dropshipping suppliers and importers now. Browse dropshippers by country: Wholesale French wholesalers and Wholesale German wholesalers.
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