Legal Basics: What You Need to Know About the Digital Millennium Copyright Act

When the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) was created back in 1998, YouTube hadn’t yet been invented, and the words “content aggregation” weren’t commonly used. “The DMCA is a safe harbor for content aggregators,” explains Gary Adelman, a New York-based attorney with Davis Shapiro, who advises clients in a variety of copyright, trademark and entertainment matters.

The DMCA protects sites where users are encouraged to upload content such as music, video clips, recipes, and other creative material, while simultaneously providing content owners with a process to remove their content from a site to which they didn’t provide permission.

This often comes up with contests, where entrants are encouraged to upload content, such as an essay or photograph/video to enter. Any business that allows the uploading of content needs to have DMCA compliance language in its Terms of Use or Privacy Policy, Adelman says.

Who controls the content is key to whether DMCA protection applies, Adelman notes. A content provider cannot upload, edit, crop or change the content in any way, or they lose the “safe harbor” protection. Adelman notes that the DMCA originally was limited to service providers like AOL but courts have recently expanded the DMCA “safe harbor” protection to include content aggregators like YouTube. 

Here’s how it works: Before a user may upload content to sites like YouTube, they must state they own or have permission from the copyright owner to upload the content. If the copyright owner did not provide permission, they (the owner) may notify YouTube by sending a Copyright Infringement Notification or a “takedown” notice.

The notice contains specific information such as:
1) The electronic or physical signature of the copyright owner.
2) Identification of the copyrighted work.
3) A description of and link to the infringing content.
4) The owner’s name and contact information.
5) A sworn statement that he/she is the owner, and did not provide permission for the content to be uploaded to the site.

Once the notice is received, the site must take down the allegedly infringing content, and notify the party that posted the content of the infringement notice. The party that uploaded the content may then file a counter-notice requesting the content be reinstated (assuming they’re the owner of the content), and the content may be restored to the site.

The counter-notice must contain:
1) The electronic or physical signature of the person that uploaded the content.
2) Identification of the content that was removed and where on the site it appeared before removal.
3) A sworn statement that the content was mistakenly removed.
4) the uploader’s contact information.

If, in the example of a contest, the website owner receives a DMCA takedown notice, takes the content in question down and notifies the person who uploaded the content of the complaint, the website owner is DMCA-compliant and the DMCA is an affirmative defense to a copyright infringement claim, Adelman explains.

“It comes down to who controls the content,” Adelman says. “If you do, the courts have been very clear that you don’t get these protections.” So, a word to the wise: if you’re planning a contest or promotion where you’re asking users to upload content, take a good look at the DMCA or, better yet, speak with a copyright attorney, as the law in this area is evolving.

Related: Use Photos in Advertisements? Take These Steps to Avoid a Lawsuit

Lindsay LaVine is a Chicago-based freelance writer who has worked for NBC and CNN. 

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3 Tools to Simplify Your Digital World

You're a small-business owner, or maybe a serial entrepreneur. And, I'm guessing, you don't have a lot of time on your hands because you wear too many hats and juggle too many tasks.

In order to be really successful, you have to be efficient. Your mind should be free of mundane tasks and dedicated to creativity, innovation, and execution.

The three areas in which I spend the vast majority of my day are communicating, reading and looking for information. If you're anything like me, you're over-connected and inundated with information. Streamlining the management of information is the key to efficiency.

Earlier, I wrote about how I streamline my inbox. Below are three tools I use to help manage the fire hose of digital information and not become overwhelmed.

1. Boomerang for scheduling emails.
If you are well-versed in email marketing, you know that there is an optimal time to send an email, depending on who is getting it. In order to ensure your email is actually read, you need to send it when the recipient is most likely to read it.

I'm doing a disservice to my team when I send an email late in the evening to have something taken care of the next day. I'm sending it to get it off of my mind and to-do list, but in doing so, I create a problem. First, if unread that evening, it's likely to be buried in emails the following morning, and possibly overlooked. Second, if it is read, I'm unnecessarily driving up my employee's anxiety level with an email from the boss at night.

The solution is to crank out the email, and then queue it up with Boomerang to send first thing in the morning. I no longer have to remember to send the email in the morning, have less concern that the email will be buried in the employee's inbox, and don't ruin anyone's evening with an email request from the boss.

2. Pocket to stay organized.
At least 95 percent of my news and daily information consumption is online. I live and breathe a digital life, and yet, I have a serious challenge keeping up with the overflow of content. Every morning and evening, I go through my queue of content in Flipboard, Feedly, and Zite. Each article fits into one of three levels of valuation for me.

I read the headline, and if it's written well, even though I don't have an interest in the piece, I'll have enough information to acknowledge in conversation that I am aware of the topic. It's like knowing your baseball team won last night, but having no clue who had the game-winning hit. If my interest is piqued, I scan or read the article for more details. 

Third, and most valuable, is an article I need to commit to memory. Unfortunately, my brain has limited capacity, so like the days of clipping newspaper articles, I need to store the piece for future retrieval. For this, I use Pocket, which is part personal archive, part digital memory and extremely effective. My content is tagged with terms like "infosec," "leadership," or "media trends" and simple keyword searches allow me to refer back to my digital memory without having to recall specific details.

3. CloudMagic to find and retrieve information.
If you don't work for one of the five million organizations currently using Google Apps, then you're without the inbox search capabilities of Gmail. Too many people use their inboxes as catch-all storage repositories, only to find the search and retrieval process cumbersome, if not impossible. How frustrating is it knowing that you stored some digital notes about a client meeting, but you have no idea where. With CloudMagic, you have one interface to search through all of your personal data repositories like Gmail, Outlook, Evernote, Dropbox, Aol, and more.

Let me add one caveat. If you're one who worries about your digital privacy, this service might not be for you. Make sure you read and are comfortable with their privacy policy before proceeding.

The amount of information created will continue to grow exponentially. Without tools and technologies helping you cut through the digital noise, you will damage your ability to innovate and grow your business.

Don't let yourself to get bogged down. Organize and improve the structure of your digital communications with these three tools.

Tom Cochran is Chief Technology Officer at Atlantic Media, based in Washington, D.C. Prior to that, he was Director of New Media Technologies at The White House. 

The author is an Entrepreneur contributor. The opinions expressed are those of the writer.

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