Hosting Companies Hit With $32.4 Million Dollar Verdict in Trademark Infrigement Case

[SpareDomains]

Hosting companies held liable for customers content? Guess webhosts will now have to police every single site on their servers or take quick action if a complaint is received.

Hosting Companies Hit With $32 Million Dollar Verdict In Trademark Infringement Case | The Domains

 

[SeanPreston]

ouch, However if the Contributory Trademark Infringement is in place why aren't large warez community owners being taken to court, at the end of the day they know that the service they provide is being used for warez, along with the datacenter that hosts there servers.

This law makes sense in my opinion.

 

[enlytend]

Wow.

Are hosting companies supposed to become experts in intellectual property law now? And how will they discriminate between valid and invalid or even malicious complaints? There's obvious infringement and there are situations where it isn't so clear. In the event of a complaint, will hosting customers be assumed guilty (and have their sites shut down) until proven innocent?

 

[ldcdc]

Like one of those commenting in the blog, I too hope that this nonsense decision will be overturned.

If the hosting company supposedly stops hosting a site because it sells counterfeit products, it would stand within reason that the customer could sue for any damages to their business. So the host would have to always have a perfect case ready and be able to prove that the customer was doing illegal stuff. With hosting companies having tens of thousands of customers with hundreds of thousands of websites, it's one hell of a job to establish beyond any reason of doubt, in every single case of a complaint from a third party, that the customer is or isn't involved in say trademark infringement. It's ridiculous.

 

[~ServerPoint~]

Like one of those commenting in the blog, I too hope that this nonsense decision will be overturned.

If the hosting company supposedly stops hosting a site because it sells counterfeit products, it would stand within reason that the customer could sue for any damages to their business. So the host would have to always have a perfect case ready and be able to prove that the customer was doing illegal stuff. With hosting companies having tens of thousands of customers with hundreds of thousands of websites, it's one hell of a job to establish beyond any reason of doubt, in every single case of a complaint from a third party, that the customer is or isn't involved in say trademark infringement. It's ridiculous.

I agree with Dan. But I believe the end users can do nothing about that

 

[CrazyTech]

I do admit that this decision concerns me a bit. The burden of proof is on the host both ways now, and they can be held liable for not moving just as they can easily be held liable for moving. Unfortunately, this is going to result in higher costs as maintaining proper legal protection will emerge as a priority.

Having worked with two fair-sized hosting firms, I've seen legal departments in action. If these folks knowingly ignored what was going on, that is one thing. Guess I need to go through the case, but my question is did the firm ignore/overlook something, or simply by virtue of having hosted the copyright violators did they get caught up?

 

[PHATnames]

Should be overturned without question

 

[ldcdc]

Guess I need to go through the case, but my question is did the firm ignore/overlook something, or simply by virtue of having hosted the copyright violators did they get caught up?

Under the DMCA (which we can expect the host to uphold), if the hosting customer refutes the third party's copyright infringement, the account can eventually be unsuspended if the plaintiff doesn't provide a document to prove that it is now pursuing the matter legally (against the hosting customer).

But that's about copyright. If we put the hosts in the middle for trademark issues now, what's next? Patents? "Hey, that guy there is using my <<web form>> patent, take his site down?"

Typically there is a contract between the host and its customer, with an indemnification clause a mile long. It'll probably become 10 miles long now.

 

[SiberForum]

Having worked with two fair-sized hosting firms, I've seen legal departments in action. If these folks knowingly ignored what was going on, that is one thing. Guess I need to go through the case, but my question is did the firm ignore/overlook something, or simply by virtue of having hosted the copyright violators did they get caught up?

I suppose they are lazy and that's why they ignore the points. And that depends on the web hosting firm itself and it's organization.

 

[rumsfo]

Each web hosting service is unique by the organization. I assume that explains a lot of things