[DMCA] Designating an agent with the US Copyright Office?

[skunker]

What is the name of your state? Texas

As mentioned on other threads in this forum, I'm busy fixing up my website so it covers all the legal bases. I have users that upload old historical photos (WWII) and, while many are in the public domain, there are some that could possibly be copyrighted by some foreign government or private source. I've updated my terms of service and forum rules and made the announcement to my members so they are aware that if they have something they don't own or have permission to use, then they need to delete it, etc.

With that said, I was reading over the excellent DMCA material (http://www.keytlaw.com/Copyrights/dmca.htm) that divgradcurl linked me and had a question about "Filing an appropriate notice with the US Copyright Office designating the owner's agent to receive notices of claimed infringement" that is stated on Section 512(c)(1).

Is this necessary? If so, where exactly on the US Copyright Office website do I find the submission information?

Thanks for any clarification.

 

[FlyingRon]

The US Copyright Office of the Library of Congress is at copyright.gov.

It only took about 15 seconds of looking at their FAQ page to find this entry:

http://www.loc.gov/cgi-bin/formprocessor/copyright/cfr.pl?&urlmiddle=1.0.2.6.1.0.175.35&part=201&section=38&prev=34&next=39

Give a man a fish he eats for a day,
Teach a man to fish and he'll spend all day in a boat drinking.

 

[skunker]

You rock FlyingRon. Do you really fly?

 

[FlyingRon]

Just one of my many interests.

 

[skunker]

Guys,
I printed out the "Interim Designation of Agent to Receive Infrigement Notification" paper and I am filling it out right now. However, the first part of it asks me for the "Full Legal Name of Service Provider". I am not sure what to put here. The website I am claiming safe harbor for is a hobby site of mine that has no official legal name. So, what do I put here? Just the name of the website?

 

[skunker]

Anyone know?

 

[divgradcurl]

It would be your name.

 

[FlyingRon]

If you have a corporation, you use the corporation name.
If you are an individual you use your legal name (possibly with a dba annotation for the name of your website).