Internet Service Provider Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation

As a platform and intermedium for network information communication, Internet Service Provider plays an extremely important role for the normal operation and development of the Internet. Just because such an important role, ISP has been involved in disputes of copyright infringement frequently. The traditional copyright law mainly to protect the right of copyright holders, so in the early judicial practice, whether at home or abroad, if the network users are infringers, copyright holders requested ISP liability, the court often recognized. As a result, ISP will take a very strict responsibility, they become cautious in business development, information industry is limited; in addition, it is unfair for ISP to take responsibility of others when unknown.As a leader in the information industry, the United States proposed such a view firstly:we should limit the responsibility of the ISP. In the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the United States established the safe harbor. Its core is "notice and delete"rules, as long as ISP meet the safe harbor conditions, they can immune from monetary liability and other liabilities except for certain injunctions. China has also promulgated the Right to the Protection of Information Network Dissemination of Regulations in May 2006 and made a similar provision.This paper take the Digital Millennium Copyright Act as an example, using theoretical analysis, case studies and comparative reference and other methods, analyzing the "safe harbor" in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of the generation process, applicable conditions and exceptions, comparing with the current law of our country, and then offering some suggestions. This paper consists of three parts:The first part defines what is the ISP, the authors consider that the internet content provider is not the narrow ISP; then illustrate the theoretical basis for the limitation of liability from form the responsibility principle, industrial development, technology and other aspect; finally, take a brief legal status of countries in the world.The second part is the core of the paper, firstly, with two well-known case in the United States, illustrate the production process of the "safe harbor", get this view:the responsibility of ISP in the United States was from strict liability standard to the fault liability standard; then take a detailed analysis that how the different types of ISP be applicable the "safe harbor"; it also discusses limitation on infringement liability for ISP, which mainly based on DMCA, introduces the rules of safe harbors and the exemption of it. The last part introduces the domestic situation, China has many laws and regulations which made the similar provision, but still inadequate, therefore, the author put forward some suggestions from the main paper, the program, and other aspect.