Website Copyright Takedown Notice Lawyers

Website Copyright Takedown Notice Lawyers explain United Kingdom compared to United States Law and the DMCA Website Takedown Notice.

The legal issues involved in copyright licensing of a website, website terms and conditions, takedown notices and diversion of domain names are very complicated because there is often a global element to a dispute. So, for example, you are an attorney in the United States and have a client based in Russia that has two largely identical websites – one in the UK, one in the US, each hosted by country-specific subsidiaries of the same hosting company.

The host removed the UK site because of a spurious copyright infringement claim by your client’s former partner. You are then engaged to protect your clients US interests, including having the US site restored should US site be taken down under the DMCA take-down notice.

In the US if a host takes down a site under a DMCA notice, they must later restore the site under a DMCA response from the alleged infringer. Following the procedures provides a safe harbour for the ISP from liability for infringement. However, your client wants to know whether there are analogous provisions in the UK.

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What steps can be taken short of litigation to have a site that has been taken down restored?

The answer is:

Article 12-15 of the Electronic Commerce Directive 2000 parallels in no small part, safe harbours, introduced by the DMCA.

UK implementation took place in the:

Electronic Commerce (EC Directive) Regulations 2002.

ISPs have immunity from liability for copyright infringement provided that they do not have actual knowledge of infringement and they act expeditiously to remove infringing websites when informed that such sites are engaging in illegal activity. Notice is given to the ISP under:

Regulation 6(1)(c) of the Electronic Commerce Regulations 2002.

ISPs are not immune however to injunctive relief. An ISP is unlikely to bring down a website on the expositional evidence of one party. You would almost always require an injunction.

In some cases, competitors will seek to drive a rival out of the market by diverting the rival`s website address or domain name to a pornographic website leading to a court dispute.