Under section 512 of title 17, the Office is required to maintain a “current directory” of agents that have been designated by service providers to receive notifications of claimed infringement. Since 1998, service providers have submitted paper designations to the Office, which the Office then scanned and posted on the Office’s website to make them available to the public. To modernize its practices, the Office has created a new fully-electronic online system through which service providers can more efficiently submit and update, and the public can more easily search for and find, designated agent information. The adopted final rule governs service provider use of the new system and updates what is required of service providers to remain compliant with section 512(c)(2).
Any service provider (within the meaning of 17 U.S.C. 512(k)(1)) seeking the safe harbor protections of section 512. Related or affiliated service providers that are separate legal entities (e.g., corporate parents and subsidiaries) are considered separate service providers, and each must have its own separate designation.
Any service provider that has previously designated an agent with the Office will have until December 31, 2017 to submit a new designation electronically through the new online registration system. Until that time, an accurate designation in the old paper-generated directory will continue to satisfy the service provider’s obligations under the DMCA. After that time, the designation will expire and become invalid, which could result in the service provider losing the section 512 safe harbor protections.
Anyone the service provider authorizes to act on its behalf. This can be an employee of the service provider or a third party like a DMCA agent service or law firm. The new system is flexibly designed to allow multiple service provider designations to be managed through a single registration account. Meaning, for example, that a third party can manage several unrelated service providers through one account. Or, as another example, an employee of a parent company can manage the parent company’s designation as well as the designations of its subsidiaries through one account. Separate service provider and designated agent contact information can be provided for each individual service provider, even when managed through the same account.
A designated agent may be an individual (e.g., “Jane Doe”), a specific position or title held by an individual (e.g., “Copyright Manager”), a specific department within the service provider’s organization or within a third-party entity (e.g., “Copyright Compliance Department”), or a third-party entity generally (e.g., “ACME Takedown Service”). Only a single agent may be designated for each service provider.
Please view the video tutorial entitled “Designating an Agent for a Service Provider,” available at http://www.copyright.gov/rulemaking/onlinesp/NPR/, which provides step-by-step instructions.
Please view the video tutorial entitled “Creating a DMCA Designated Agent Registration Account,” available at http://www.copyright.gov/rulemaking/onlinesp/NPR/, which provides step-by-step instructions.
Please view the video tutorial entitled “Managing a Designation (Amendments and Termination),” available at http://www.copyright.gov/rulemaking/onlinesp/NPR/, which provides step-by-step instructions.
Please view the video tutorial entitled “Renewing a Designation,” available at http://www.copyright.gov/rulemaking/onlinesp/NPR/, which provides step-by-step instructions.
Please view the video tutorial entitled “Managing a Designation (Amendments and Termination),” available at http://www.copyright.gov/rulemaking/onlinesp/NPR/, which provides step-by-step instructions. Please note that terminating a designation will cancel it, leaving the service provider without an active designation in the Office’s directory.
Please view the video tutorial entitled “Managing an Account,” available at http://www.copyright.gov/rulemaking/onlinesp/NPR/, which provides step-by-step instructions.
Please view the video tutorial entitled “Managing an Account,” available at http://www.copyright.gov/rulemaking/onlinesp/NPR/, which provides step-by-step instructions. Please note that terminating a registration account will also terminate all service provider designations managed through the account. This will leave such service providers without active designations in the Office’s directory unless new designations are made through a different account.
The new fee is $6 per designation, amendment, or resubmission. There is no separate fee to renew per se because each time you amend or resubmit, and pay the $6 fee to do so, you are fulfilling the renewal requirement. There is no longer an additional fee for alternate names.
A service provider is required to supply its full legal name, physical street address (not a post office box), any alternate names used by the service provider, and the name, organization, physical mail address (street address or post office box), telephone number, and email address of its designated agent.
Alternate names are all names that the public would be likely to use to search for the service provider’s designated agent in the Copyright Office’s online directory of designated agents, including all names under which the service provider is doing business, website names and addresses (i.e., URLs), software application names, and other commonly used names. Separate legal entities are not considered alternate names.
Yes, but only with prior approval of the Copyright Office, which will only be given upon written request and in exceptional circumstances, such where there is a demonstrable threat to an individual’s personal safety or security, such that it may be dangerous to publicly publish a street address where such individual can be located. To obtain a waiver, the service provider must send a signed letter, addressed to the “U.S. Copyright Office, Office of the General Counsel” and sent to the address for time-sensitive requests set forth in 37 C.F.R. 201.1(c)(1), containing the following information: (1) the name of the service provider; (2) the post office box address that the service provider wishes to use; (3) a detailed statement providing the reasons supporting the request, with explanation of the specific threat(s) to an individual’s personal safety or security; and (4) an email address and/or physical mail address for any responsive correspondence from the Office. There is no fee associated with making this request. If the request is approved, the service provider may display the post office box address on its website and will receive instructions from the Office as to how to complete the Office’s electronic registration process.
The first name, last name, position or title, organization, physical mail address (street address or post office box), telephone number, and email address of two representatives of the service provider who will serve as primary and secondary points of contact for communications with the Office, and a telephone number and email address for the service provider. The primary and secondary contacts are attached to the registration account, as opposed to the service provider’s designation. This means that these individuals are the primary and secondary contacts for all service provider managed by a single account. This is in contrast to the service provider and designated agent contact information which is specific to each service provider and which may be different from the primary and secondary contacts’ information.
No. While the Office recommends that the contact information given for the primary contact, secondary contact, service provider, and designated agent all be different so as to ensure that important notices and reminders sent by the Office promptly reach the correct individuals, it is not required. The only requirement is that the information for the primary and secondary contacts be different. For example, the same person can act as both the primary contact and designated agent. Or, if the service provider is run by a single person who will be managing the service provider’s account and acting as its designated agent, then it would be okay for the contact information for the primary contact, service provider, and designated agent, to all be the same.
A service provider’s designation will expire and become invalid three years after it is registered with the Office, unless the service provider renews such designation by either amending it to correct or update all relevant information or resubmitting it without amendment to confirm the designation’s continued accuracy. Either amending or resubmitting a designation through the online system begins a new three-year period before such designation must be renewed, from the date of renewal. For example, if a service provider registers a new designation on January 1, 2017, and thereafter makes no amendment to that designation, it must renew the designation (by amending or resubmitting it) prior to January 1, 2020. But if that service provider instead amends its initial designation on March 1, 2019 to update it with new information, the three-year renewal clock is reset, and March 1, 2022 becomes the date prior to which the service provider must renew the designation. If the service provider then resubmits its designation without amendment on February 25, 2022 to satisfy the renewal requirement, then the three-year clock is reset again, and February 25, 2025 becomes the next date prior to which the service provider must renew again.
Yes. To help ensure that no service provider accidentally forgets to renew its designation, the new system will automatically email reminders to the primary and secondary contacts, service provider, and designated agent at 90 days, 60 days, 30 days, and 1 week prior to each service provider’s renewal deadline.
An amendment is when a change is made to update a designation. A resubmission is when a designation is refiled with the Office without amendment in order to confirm its continued accuracy. A renewal occurs whenever an amendment or resubmission is made.
As explained in the Federal Register notice accompanying the Office’s original interim regulations adopted in 1998, it was always the Office’s intention to require re-registration of designations once the interim regulations were replaced with final regulations, as they now have. Furthermore, the Office has found the old paper-generated directory to contain significant inaccuracies and outdated information. Although service providers are required to update their designations with the Office as information changes, an examination of a large sample of designations found that 22% were for defunct service providers, while approximately 65% of non-defunct service providers’ designations had inaccurate information (when compared to the information provided by service providers on their own websites). Requiring service providers to re-register their designations in the new directory will enable the new directory to start fresh—without inaccurate and outdated information. This is necessary to ensure that members of the public have easy and fast access to current and accurate designated agent information. There were also logistical issues in having the Office transfer the information from the old directory to the new directory.
The Office has found the old paper-generated directory to contain significant inaccuracies and outdated information. Although service providers are required to update their designations with the Office as information changes, an examination of a large sample of designations found that 22% were for defunct service providers, while approximately 65% of non-defunct service providers’ designations had inaccurate information (when compared to the information provided by service providers on their own websites). The renewal requirement will help ensure that the directory stays up to date, and additionally will assist service providers in retaining their safe harbor protections by reminding them to keep their information current.
Service providers risk losing the safe harbor protections of section 512 of the DMCA, leaving them potentially vulnerable to certain types of claims of copyright infringement.
Please view the video tutorial entitled “Searching the DMCA Designated Agent Directory,” available at http://www.copyright.gov/rulemaking/onlinesp/NPR/, which provides step-by-step instructions. While service providers transition to the new directory, which they have until the end of 2017 to do, you may need to search the old paper-generated directory of designated agents if the service provider does not yet have a designation in the new electronically-generated directory. The old directory will not be phased out until December 31, 2017, and until that time, an accurate designation in the old directory will continue to satisfy the service provider’s obligations under section 512(c)(2). The old directory can be found at http://www.copyright.gov/onlinesp/list/a_agents.html.