I am interested how copyright law works in the case of Rapidshare, Youtube and etc. Just hypothetically speaking, what if I create a website for uploading and sharing MP3 files, and some users start uploading songs in MP3 format that are protected by copyright laws.
Can I get sued for this? Knowing that it wasn't me who uploaded that content?
Thanks!
PS. also maybe there is some good source where I could read about law cavities related to copyright material?
You can not be sued for hosting content that other people upload, unless you receive a request to take something down and you don't follow it. also if your site does not discourage people from uploading copyrighted content you can get into a bit of trouble. like having a site saying 'upload your favorite songs here so everyone can enjoy them' would obviously get you into a lot of trouble. 'upload your songs here if you have the rights to them' would be ok.
As long as you take content down immediately after receiving a notice that it's copyrighted content you should be ok. (I am not a lawyer, i assume this is US law we're talking about)
As long as you take content down immediately after receiving a notice that it's copyrighted content you should be ok.
What xyious said is generally correct, but you are always responsible for what your users do, you need to spend a great amount of time and resources to remove copyright violations, otherwise you might get in trouble very easily, you can get your domain suspended for example!
