Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by shelf 4933 days ago
Despite being 99% illicit content, could somebody explain why this is not a case for Safe Harbour? Is this principle enshrined in any law at all, or is it just some neutrality idyll that we assume others share?

*Thought it was part of the DMCA
2 comments
ubernostrum 4933 days ago
The "safe harbor" includes more requirements than responding to take-down requests. In particular, the service provider must "not have actual knowledge that the material or an activity using the material on the system or network is infringing", and "in the absence of such actual knowledge, is not aware of facts or circumstances from which infringing activity is apparent".

In other words, though you don't have an active duty to police your site, if you do become aware, and don't take action, you're not protected. Similarly, if you set up something with the sole purpose of distributing copyrighted material, and try to hide behind a "gosh, we never knew that kind of thing was going on until you told us", you're probably not going to get a court to believe you.

link
shelf 4933 days ago
I was commenting on this sentence, in particular:

>Once this notice is completed we are left with an impossible task of policing our indexing bots. Even then it won't stop there, there will be follow-up notices etc.

This seems to me like they're being told to actively police automatically-indexed content after this notice is processed?

I'm not sure how provable that 'knowledge of infringement' clause is.

link
ubernostrum 4933 days ago
"knowledge of infringement" basically boils down to "you know damn well what you're running here". It's not that every site operator has to actively police every single submission for possible infringement; it's that if even a ten-second glance at your service reveals obvious massive presence of infringing content, you don't get to pull the "well, gosh, we never knew" and claim safe harbor (this is the "is not aware of facts or circumstances from which infringing activity is apparent" clause).
link
aes256 4933 days ago
Their safe harbor protection is not in question at the moment.

They have allegedly shut the site down because they lack the resources to handle the growing tide of takedown requests.

link