The designated agent — registered, current, reachable.
The safe harbor that protects an ISP from its subscribers' copyright infringement has a paperwork condition most providers meet once and forget: a designated agent, registered with the Copyright Office, renewed every three years, and posted on the website.
No agent, no safe harbor.
Section 512 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act limits a service provider's liability for infringement by its users. For the storage safe harbor the statute is specific: the provider must designate an agent to receive notifications of claimed infringement, make that agent's contact information available through its service, and provide it to the Copyright Office.
Register
File the designated agent in the Copyright Office's online DMCA Designated Agent Directory. Pre-2016 paper registrations do not count.
Publish
Post the agent's contact information on the website where a copyright owner would look for it — the same details as the registration.
Renew
Renew the registration every three years. The Office does not keep an expired agent on the directory.
Act
Have a process behind the address: notices that reach an agent and go nowhere are the same as notices that reached nobody.
Designated agents, answered.
What is a DMCA designated agent?
The person or office a copyright owner sends infringement notices to. Section 512(c)(2) of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act requires a service provider that wants the storage safe harbor to designate an agent to receive notifications, make the agent's contact information available on its website, and register it with the U.S. Copyright Office.
Where is a designated agent registered?
In the U.S. Copyright Office's online DMCA Designated Agent Directory. Registrations made in the pre-2016 paper system are no longer valid; the online directory is the only one the Office maintains.
How often does the registration have to be renewed?
The Copyright Office requires a designated agent registration to be renewed every three years. A lapsed registration means no registered agent — and no registered agent puts the safe harbor at risk, however well notices are being handled in the meantime.
Can an outside company be the designated agent?
Yes. The agent can be an employee, an officer, or a third party that receives and processes notices on the provider's behalf. What matters is that the registration is accurate and current, the agent's contact information is on the provider's site, and someone is actually acting on what arrives.
What happens to notices that arrive after the agent changes?
Notices go to whatever contact is on file. If the registration is stale, notices reach nobody who is acting on them — which is the same as ignoring them. Changes of agent should be filed with the Office and reflected on the website the same day.
Registration is step one.
The notice-and-takedown process → · The repeat-infringer policy → · DMCA records production at Subsentio →