Copyright Issues

[qfisher]

There was an interesting exchange in the Sponsored Web Hosting forum yesterday about copyright issues and the responsibility of the hosting company. I’m interested in hearing feedback from other hosting companies about there experiences and if client website materials have caused any issues for them as far as having to suspend accounts or forcing clients to remove materials that have been reported as infringements.

_____________________
Quinn Fisher
PSW Hosting info@pswhosting.com

 

[Blue]

I have only had to terminate one account so far for copyright violations.
I investigated the source of the complaint thoroughly before suspending the account.

 

[PVT-Jordan]

I suspended an account for hosting MP3's of popular songs. I kindly requested that the client either remove them, or use only a certain portion of the songs in order to comply with copyright regulations

 

[qfisher]

Thanks for the replies; it seems this issue will be a growing concern as our society becomes more sue happy. Hopefully customers will be cautious and not violate the law.

____________________
Quinn Fisher
PSW Hosting

 

[iblive]

If you clearly spell it out in your Terms and Conditions, then violations of that are clear.

 

[stoavio]

If you clearly spell it out in your Terms and Conditions, then violations of that are clear.

:thumbup: Protect yourself with your TOS and it will help prevent violations like the aforementioned from happening in the first place. Surely it won't get everything but it screens out some violations.

 

[dasp]

Definitely have some written policy posted. This won't stop copyright violations but you can point to the policy when a complaint is encountered. The longer you are in business, you will eventually face this issue at some point.

 

[nocturnalhostin]

I agree with the above - the basic thing is that you need to have a valid tos/aup (the best thing to do if you aren't good at writing such things and don't have a lawyer would be to base yours off of another large hosting provider (one of the nice large commercial ones that charge a ton of money)). As long as you have something to the effect of "we do not activly monitor for content, but talk all complaints seruiosly and will investigate any issues brought to our attention in an extremly quick time frame" is usually enough.

One of the large companies that I have worked for (national high speed ISP) has just that in the TOS - they don't look for violators, simply respond within 48 hrs to non-law enforcement complaints and within 4 hrs to any law enforcement complaint, unless its by phone in which case they give an immediate response - which usually involves shutting off the persons account.