commit cd10fedd51e66b005d8fe043821c4c8748d6fdc8
Author: gus <[email protected]>
Date: Tue Apr 21 13:00:53 2020 -0400
Update Response template for Tor relay operator to ISP - 2020 edition
---
.../tor-dmca-response/contents.lr | 27 ++++++++++++++--------
1 file changed, 17 insertions(+), 10 deletions(-)
diff --git
a/content/relay-operations/community-resources/eff-tor-legal-faq/tor-dmca-response/contents.lr
b/content/relay-operations/community-resources/eff-tor-legal-faq/tor-dmca-response/contents.lr
index 1bbccb8..847ce19 100644
---
a/content/relay-operations/community-resources/eff-tor-legal-faq/tor-dmca-response/contents.lr
+++
b/content/relay-operations/community-resources/eff-tor-legal-faq/tor-dmca-response/contents.lr
@@ -6,15 +6,23 @@ title: Response template for Tor relay operator to ISP
---
body:
-Written by the Electronic Frontier Foundation ([EFF](https://www.eff.org/)).
Last updated May 31, 2011.
+Written by the Electronic Frontier Foundation ([EFF](https://www.eff.org/)).
Last updated March 27, 2020.
-Note to Tor relay operators: In this litigious era, anyone providing routing
services may face copyright complaints for transmitted content. Fortunately,
the Digital Millennium Copyright Act safe harbors should provide protections
from many of them both to you and to your upstream provider. If your Internet
host forwards a DMCA copyright complaint to you, you can use this template to
write a response, though you will need to customize it to your situation.
Please also ensure all the statements are true for you. (The Tor Project has an
[abuse collection of
templates](/relay/community-resources/tor-abuse-templates/) to help you respond
to other types of abuse complaints, too.) Before sending any response to your
ISP, you may want to seek the advice of an attorney licensed to practice in
your jurisdiction.
+Note to Tor relay operators: In this litigious era, anyone providing routing
services may face copyright complaints for transmitted content.
+Fortunately, copyright law should provide protections from many of them both
to you and to your upstream provider.
+If your Internet host forwards a copyright complaint to you, you can use this
template to write a response, though you will need to customize it to your
situation.
+Please also ensure all the statements are true for you.
+(The Tor Project has an [abuse collection of
templates](/relay/community-resources/tor-abuse-templates/) to help you respond
to other types of abuse complaints, too.)
+Before sending any response to your ISP, you may want to seek the advice of an
attorney licensed to practice in your jurisdiction.
-This template letter is for informational purposes only and does not
constitute legal advice. Whether and how you should respond when you or your
ISP has received a DMCA notice will turn on the particular facts of your
situation. This template is intended as a starting point, but you should tailor
it to your own circumstances. In addition, it's up to you to comply with your
ISP's terms of service. If you're not comfortable including so much legal
explanation, feel free to invite the ISP to contact EFF for a fuller discussion.
+This template letter is for informational purposes only and does not
constitute legal advice.
+Whether and how you should respond when you or your ISP has received a
copyright notice will turn on the particular facts of your situation.
+This template is intended as a starting point, but you should tailor it to
your own circumstances.
+In addition, it's up to you to comply with your ISP's terms of service.
+If you're not comfortable including so much legal explanation, feel free to
invite the ISP to contact EFF for a fuller discussion.
-If you do not believe the safe harbors apply to your particular situation,
don't use this template as a basis for your response. Specific information
about safe harbor qualification for "transitory digital network communications"
is provided on the Chilling Effects website
[here](https://www.chillingeffects.org/dmca512/faq.cgi#QID586) and also in the
template, below.
-
-Also, if you received this document from anywhere other than the EFF web site
or
[tor-dmca-response](/relay/community-resources/eff-tor-legal-faq/tor-dmca-response),
it may be out of date. Follow the link to get the latest version.
+Also, if you received this document from anywhere other than the EFF web site
or
[tor-dmca-response](/relay/community-resources/eff-tor-legal-faq/tor-dmca-response),
it may be out of date.
+Follow the link to get the latest version.
```
@@ -22,14 +30,13 @@ Dear [ISP]:
Thank you for forwarding me the notice you received from [copyright claimant]
regarding [content]. I would like to assure you that I am not hosting the
claimed infringing materials, and furthermore, the Digital Millennium Copyright
Act's ("DMCA") safe harbors likely protect you from liability arising from this
complaint. The notice is likely based upon misunderstandings about the law and
about some of the software I run.
-
-As you know, the DMCA creates four "safe harbors" for service providers to
protect them from copyright liability for the acts of their users, when the
ISPs fulfill certain requirements. (17 U.S.C. 512) The DMCA's requirements vary
depending on the ISP's role. You may be familiar with the "notice and takedown"
provisions of section 512(c) of the DMCA; however, those do not apply when an
ISP merely acts as a conduit. Instead, the "conduit" safe harbor of section
512(a) of the DMCA has different and less burdensome eligibility requirements,
as the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals held in RIAA v. Verizon (see
https://www.eff.org/sites/default/files/filenode/RIAA_v_Verizon/20030121-riaa-v-verizon-order.pdf)
and the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals confirmed in RIAA v. Charter (see
https://w2.eff.org/IP/P2P/Charter/033802P.pdf).
+As you know, the DMCA creates four "safe harbors" for service providers to
protect them from copyright liability for the acts of their users, when the
ISPs fulfill certain requirements. (17 U.S.C. 512) The DMCA's requirements vary
depending on the ISP's role. You may be familiar with the "notice and takedown"
provisions of section 512(c) of the DMCA; however, those do not apply when an
ISP merely acts as a conduit. Instead, the "conduit" safe harbor of section
512(a) of the DMCA has different and less burdensome eligibility requirements,
as the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals held in RIAA v. Verizon (see
https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=15815830240179540527) and the
Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals confirmed in RIAA v. Charter (see
https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=11547531128234336420).
Under DMCA 512(a), service providers like you are typically protected from
damages for copyright infringement claims if you also maintain "a policy that
provides for termination in appropriate circumstances of subscribers and
account holders of the service provider's system or network who are repeat
infringers." If you have and implement such a policy, and you otherwise qualify
for the safe harbor, you should be free from fear of copyright damages.
-As for what makes a reasonable policy, as the law says, it's one that
terminates subscribers who are repeat infringers. The notification you received
is certainly not proof of the "repeat infringement" that is required under the
law before you need to terminate my account. In fact, it's not even proof of
any copyright infringement; a notice claiming infringement is not the same as a
determination of infringement. I have not infringed any copyrights and do not
intend to do so. Therefore, you should continue to be protected under the DMCA
512(a) safe harbor without taking any further action.
+The copyright notice you received was likely triggered by a program I run
called Tor. Tor is network software that helps users to enhance their privacy,
security, and safety online. It does not host any content. Rather, it is part
of a network of nodes on the Internet that simply pass packets among themselves
before sending them to their destinations, just as any Internet intermediary
does. The difference is that Tor tunnels the connections such that no hop can
learn both the source and destination of the packets, giving users protection
from nefarious snooping on network traffic. The result is that, unlike most
other Internet traffic, the final IP address that the recipient receives is not
the IP address of the sender. Tor protects users against hazards such as
harassment, spam, and identity theft. Initial development of Tor, including
deployment of a public-use Tor network, was a project of the U.S. Naval
Research Laboratory, with funding from ONR and DARPA. (For more on Tor, see
https://www.torproject.org/.) I hope, as an organization committed to
protecting the privacy of its customers, you'll agree that this is a valuable
technology.
-You may be curious about what prompted the faulty notice. It was likely
triggered by a program I run called Tor. Tor is network software that helps
users to enhance their privacy, security, and safety online. It does not host
any content. Rather, it is part of a network of nodes on the Internet that
simply pass packets among themselves before sending them to their destinations,
just as any Internet intermediary does. The difference is that Tor tunnels the
connections such that no hop can learn both the source and destination of the
packets, giving users protection from nefarious snooping on network traffic.
The result is that, unlike most other Internet traffic, the final IP address
that the recipient receives is not the IP address of the sender. Tor protects
users against hazards such as harassment, spam, and identity theft. Initial
development of Tor, including deployment of a public-use Tor network, was a
project of the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, with funding from ONR and DA
RPA. (For more on Tor, see https://www.torproject.org/.) I hope, as an
organization committed to protecting the privacy of its customers, you'll agree
that this is a valuable technology.
+While the Tor node that I run may appear to be the source of material that is
alleged to be copyright-infringing, I do not host that material. I do not
select the material transmitted through the Tor node that I run, and I have no
practical means of either identifying the source of such material or preventing
its transmission. I do nothing to encourage or promote the use of the Tor
network for copyright infringement. For these reasons, I am not an infringer of
copyright in any materials that are transmitted through the Tor node that I
run, either directly or under a theory of contributory or vicarious liability.
Therefore, you should continue to be protected under the DMCA 512(a) safe
harbor without taking any further action.
Thank you for working with me on this matter. As a loyal subscriber, I
appreciate your notifying me of this issue and hope that the protections of
DMCA 512 put any concerns you may have to rest. If not, please contact me with
any further questions.
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