Liabilities of Online Service Provider

Now a day the growth to technology is increasing rapidly many of the organization uses online medium to grow the business and with this the issues and crime are also increasing. As the technology increases like as the growth of technology the issue of infringement of copyright and in digital environment is increases. This is intellectual property issue and for the protection of this issue the copyright Act is adopted. This Act gives the law to punish the infringers and also give the direction of fair dealing.

In this the service provider plays the important role they provide services to the user. Service provider provides the services in two modes one is online and other is offline. Service provider is not liable for every activity of their user. The U.S. government adopts Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to protect the service provider from the liability of infringement done by their users. In section 512 of DMCA it says about the Limitations on liability relating to material online.

 Service Provider:

 “As used in subsection (a), the term ‘service provider’ means an entity offering the transmission, routing, or providing of connections for digital online communications, between or among points specified by a user, of material of the user’s choosing, without modification to the content of the material as sent or received.” It is abbreviates as OSP, the work of online service provider is providing the services online. There are many companies and organization that provide the online services. The online services include discussion group, chat rooms, websites or it also provides the dial-up access to the internet.

Liability of service provider:

Digital Millennium Copyright Act protects the online service provider from the liability of infringement done by their subscribers. If the service providers were held liable for the activity performed by their users, then it will affect the growth of internet and accessibility. The main service of service provider is facilitating the transmission of data from one user to another. Service provider cannot modify content which is transmitted. Service provider are held liable –

1.      If the service provider initiates the transmission and modifies the content which is send by the user and if the service provider selects the recipient to whom the data is transmitted.

2.      If the service provider stores the material more than the time required then it is liable.

3.      If the material is available by the service provider and not by the person.

4.      If the service provider have the knowledge about the infringing material and it receives any financial benefit by it.

5.      The service provider will be held liable for referring or linking users to an online location containing infringing material.

Limitation of service provider:

According to DMCA the service providers are not liable if the person initiates the transmission other than the service provider and modification is done on the material which is send by the user and if the service provider had not selects the recipient to whom the data is transmitted and transmitted material is not modified by the service provider. During transmission service provider stores the material which is known as system caching and it cannot store the material more than the time it is required, service provider is not liable for any monetary relief if they do not have the knowledge about the infringing material. The material is temporarily stored to increase the availability and reduce the response time and bandwidth and the whole process is carried out through an automatic technical process. DMCA also provides the limitation of liability when non-profit educational institutes are a service provider.