Website Owners And Blog Owners -- Protect Yourself

I've only seen this on legal blogs...  Effective December 1st 2016, if you want Safe Harbor protection for your website or blog or app, you need to register your copyright agent information with the Copyright Office.

Otherwise, you don't get Safe Harbor protection if someone posts a hyperlink on your site or blog that links to infringing material.

Read more on this legal blog
http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=2d78785b-8083-46b6-89f3-2c725911aeea

Many thanks to Coe W. Ramsey of the lawfirm Brooks Pierce McLendon Humphrey & Leonard LLP
for his article on Lexology.

According to Mr. Ramsey, the copyright office has reduced the fee for registering an copyright agent to $6.00 but when this author looked at the LOC.GOV site it is still showing the old price (which is much more expensive).
http://www.copyright.gov/onlinesp/

Mark Whittow and Trevor M, Gates  of K&L Gates LLP share their perspective on the new rule, and
have more links and tables.
https://www.iplawwatch.com/2016/11/new-dmca-safe-harbor-copyright-agent-requirements-for-online-service-providers/

David J Wittenstein of Cooley LLP offers his own clear guidance on the new rules :
http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=d599720a-3b71-438e-94a7-48da57fb5586

Some of us blogging authors may not feel that we are "service providers", but there are blogs that appear to infringe on authors' copyrights and/or link to online file storage sites where infringing copies of ebooks are illegally made available for downloading. We've all seen them. This new rule appears to make it very clear that hyperlinking is infringement.

By the way, dear visitors, you may not hyperlink to other authors' ebooks, but you might need safe harbor protection if visitors or guests (or you yourself) snag and use photographs lifted from social media sites that someone else posted without the copyright owners' permissions.

http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=2284dee5-438d-43d5-b81e-1b207050ecc8&utm_source=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed&utm_medium=HTML+email+-+Body+-+General+section&utm_campaign=Lexology+subscriber+daily+feed&utm_content=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed+2016-10-24&utm_term=


If you are an author and wish to check that your copyrights are registered, go here:
http://www.copyright.gov/onlinesp/

You can enter either your books by title, or enter your own name for instance (Cherry Rowena) or even search by keyword.

All the best,


Copyright agent for this alien romances blog:

Rowena Cherry
rowena@rowenacherry.com

PO Box 7301
2211 South Telegraph
Bloomfield Hills
MI 48302