Whois & Analysis for dmca.com

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is a United States copyright law that implements two 1996 treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).

It criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or services intended to circumvent measures (commonly known as digital rights management or DRM) that control access to copyrighted works.

It also criminalizes the act of circumventing an access control, whether or not there is actual infringement of copyright itself.

In addition, the DMCA heightens the penalties for copyright infringement on the Internet.

Passed on October 12, 1998, by a unanimous vote in the United States Senate and signed into law by President Bill Clinton on October 28, 1998, the DMCA amended Title 17 of the United States Code to extend the reach of copyright, while limiting the liability of the providers of online services for copyright infringement by their users.

Copy protection, also known as content protection, copy prevention and copy restriction, is any effort designed to prevent the reproduction of software, films, music, and other media, usually for copyright reasons.

Various methods have been devised to prevent reproduction so that companies will gain benefit from each person who obtains an authorized copy of their product.

Unauthorized copying and distribution accounted for $2.4 billion in lost revenue in the United States alone in the 1990s, and is assumed to be causing impact on revenues in the music and the game industry, leading to proposal of stricter copyright laws such as PIPA.

Some methods of copy protection have also led to criticisms because it caused inconvenience for honest consumers, or it secretly installed additional or unwanted software to detect copying activities on the consumer's computer.

Making copy protection effective while protecting consumer rights is still an ongoing problem with media publication.

An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides services for accessing and using the Internet.

Internet service providers may be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, non-profit, or otherwise privately owned.

Notice and take down is a process operated by online hosts in response to court orders or allegations that content is illegal.

Content is removed by the host following notice.

Notice and take down is widely operated in relation to copyright infringement, as well as for libel and other illegal content.

In US and European Union law, notice and takedown is mandated as part of limited liability, or safe harbour, provisions for online hosts (see the Digital Millennium Copyright Act 1998 and the Electronic Commerce Directive 2000).

As a condition for limited liability online hosts must expeditiously remove or disable access to content they host when they are notified of the alleged illegality.

In economics, a service is a transaction in which no physical goods is transferred from the seller to the buyer.

The benefits of such a service are held to be demonstrated by the buyer's willingness to make the exchange.

Public services are those that society (nation state, fiscal union, region) as a whole pays for.

Using resources, skill, ingenuity, and experience, service providers benefit service consumers.