Copyright Legitimacy vs. Defending Clients?

trmj asks: "I run a hosting company, and today I received an e-mail, claiming to be from an animation firm, about one of my clients hosting pirated information. As usual, before entertaining a claim of this sort, I researched the claim (there was a bit of legitimacy in it) and what the laws are governing this issue. After that, I replied in the appropriate manner, however, found that the original e-mail address was not valid, leading to the discovery that neither was the e-mail. As a hosting provider, how far should I go to protect the rights of my clients while upholding the law, and still verify every claim that comes in?"

Comments

Re:As far as I'm concerned . . .

[4of12]

you score points with me for not just whacking the user, no questions asked, like the major ISPs seem to be doing.

Amen. Kudoes to you for it.

Seems to me that the volume of specious email like the fabricated one you received is such that you can not practically afford to give an increasing fraction of your valuable time to sifting the claims submitted by email.

Has anyone come up with an auto-responder that ISP's can use that pretty much automate the task of

Dear Spammer:

Thank you for your email.
Unfortunately, no individual here will read it and nor is authorized to formulate the proper response that it deserves.

If you have a specific legal issue to raise, then please send a registered letter to the following address detailing the specific user and specific violation and dates of violations.

<insert address of home office>

I would imagine that would help cut down the volume to genuine concerns.

Re:Hmmm ... as far as I'm concerned ...

[nelsonal]

Your comment made me remember reading the cell phone manual. Have you ever read the FCC regulations for cell phone usage? You are not supposed to swear or use other obscene language on a cell phone. My hard line didn't come with a manual, but I would guess the rules are similar.