US Digital Copyright Law DMCA

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act is a copyright law passed in the United States in 1998 that criminalizes methods enabling people to get around legal measures that protect access to copyrighted works and materials. This includes technology, devices or services that assist an individual in bypassing measures that protect copyrighted works, and also includes an act of bypassing access control measures, regardless of whether actual copyright infringement has occurred. Lastly, the DMCA increases the severity of penalties levied on copyright infringement through or on the internet.

This Act provides a streamlined process which may be pursued to remove online copyright infringements.

The "Safe Harbor" provisions of the Act protect internet service providers who adhere to the DMCA established procedure for accepting and following up on notices of infringements from the copyright violations of their customers. Most internet service providers have responded to the DMCA by taking refuge in the "Safe Harbor" provisions and establishing a procedure for accepting notices and removing web pages containing alleged copyright infringements.

It your copyrighted material has been copied and published by another website without your permission you have a right to make on a claim and have the copied material removed under the DMCA. If your objective is to have the material removed, an infringement notice may be sent to the internet service provider publishing the offending material, as well as popular search engines such as Google and Yahoo, requesting the removal of the pages containing the infringing material.

You may also be able to seek damages in some jurisdictions and criminal prosecution of the infringing party.