DMCA compliance, handled by procedure.
Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a communications service provider can be held liable for what its customers do with copyrighted material. The protection is procedural: notify the subscriber, document the process, and act on repeat infringers. Subsentio runs that process on your behalf.
Safe harbor from copyright litigation, too.
Under the DMCA, communications service providers may be held liable when their customers use copyrighted material online without permission. Providers are required to follow strict procedures notifying customers of violations, and a failure to issue takedown notices to offenders can carry stiff financial penalties.
In December 2015 a major internet service provider was fined $25 million — in the court's words, because the company did not "reasonably implement" a policy to terminate repeat infringers. The exposure is not the individual claim. It is the absence of a process that can be shown to work.
A claim arrives. Here's what happens.
Six steps, the same six every time. Simple and straightforward is the point — a process only protects you if it is applied consistently enough to be evidenced later.
Claim received
A DMCA claim is received by the provider and forwarded to Subsentio by email.
Case opened
A corresponding case file is created in the work-management system, so the claim has a record from the moment it lands.
Subscriber identified
An analyst accesses your systems to retrieve the subscriber records the claim points to, and validates them.
Notice sent
The analyst prepares and sends a DMCA notification letter to your subscriber — from you, on your behalf.
Notified, not exposed.
Subsentio never releases subscriber information to a third party. The subscriber is notified of a potential copyright infringement and nothing more. If they are not actually infringing, they have the right to file a counter notice.
The subscriber faces no legal ramifications from the DMCA process itself — though they may of course face action from the claimant. That distinction is the whole reason to run this by procedure: the provider satisfies its obligation without becoming the party that hands over a customer.
The same analysts, a different statute.
DMCA handling is an extension of the records-production practice, not a separate company. Subsentio expanded its records-production services to include validating takedown notices and notifying subscribers because customers asked for it — the process, the systems and the people were already there.
Specialists in legal compliance
A team that does nothing else — analysts with years of experience validating and extracting customer records, supporting communications service providers across the country.
Privacy as the constraint
Responding to legal process while protecting customer privacy rights is necessary, and typically not a core competency for providers.
Trust as the real cost
Fines and lawsuits are the visible risk. Providers lose customers when they lose trust, and that damage is harder to undo.
DMCA, answered.
What is a DMCA agent service?
A service that acts as, or supports, a provider's designated agent under 17 U.S.C. § 512(c)(2): the registered contact copyright owners send notices to. A DMCA agent service receives and processes those notices so that a registration is not just current but acted on. Subsentio processes the notices; the registration with the Copyright Office remains the provider's to file and renew every three years.
What is a DMCA takedown service for an ISP?
For an access provider there is nothing to "take down" — the provider does not host the material. A DMCA takedown service for an ISP means DMCA notice management: validating the notice, matching it to the subscriber account through the IP address and timestamp, notifying the subscriber, applying the repeat-infringer policy, and keeping the record — without releasing the subscriber's identity to the claimant.
What does DMCA compliance for ISPs require?
A registered designated agent, a documented and reasonably implemented repeat-infringer policy that subscribers are informed of, and a process that acts on valid notices and records what was done. DMCA compliance for ISPs is a condition of the § 512(a) safe harbor; ISP copyright notice handling is the day-to-day work that proves the policy is implemented, not just adopted.
How much does DMCA compliance cost?
It scales with notice volume and with how much of the work is manual. DMCA compliance cost for a provider handling notices in-house is mostly people and time; as a service it is a predictable per-notice or per-month figure. Subsentio quotes it for a specific provider after seeing the volume, not as a list price.
What is copyright infringement notice management?
The end-to-end handling of DMCA notices: intake, validation against § 512(c)(3), subscriber identification, notification, the counter-notice path, the repeat-infringer count, and the monthly report. Copyright infringement notice management is what Subsentio provides as a DMCA compliance service provider — and DMCA notice processing outsourcing is the same service described from the provider's side.
What is a repeat infringer policy?
The policy § 512(i) requires as a condition of every DMCA safe harbor: adopted, reasonably implemented, and communicated to subscribers, providing for termination in appropriate circumstances of subscribers who are repeat infringers. The statute leaves the definition of "repeat" and the steps to the provider — and then judges the provider on whether it followed what it wrote.
What is the DMCA safe harbor?
The limitation on liability in 17 U.S.C. § 512 for a service provider whose users infringe copyright — one for transitory communications (§ 512(a), the access-provider safe harbor), one for storage (§ 512(c)), and others. Each depends on conditions: the repeat-infringer policy for all of them; the designated agent and notice-and-takedown process for the storage safe harbor.
Send us the notices.
Tell us the volume of DMCA claims you receive and how they arrive today. We will show you what the process looks like once it is off your desk.