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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?"
. . . you score points with me for not just whacking the user, no questions asked, like the major ISPs seem to be doing.
One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.
First I would notify your client that (s)he is violating copyright (this takes care of your first problem), state what section of your use policy (you have one right?) (s)he is violating. State what your actions will be, removal, reporting, etc. Before the email you had the coverage of plausible deniability, now you don't (anon tip). In the end save your notice and forget it, if anything comes of it, you can state that you had informed him(her) and they removed it, then replaced it at a later date.
But, IANAL
NarraterDan
"If you're not confused by quantum mechanics, you really don't understand it." - Niels Bohr
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.
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.