Copyright Definition

What happens when a third party end-user posts defamatory or copyright infringing content on your website? On February 1, 1996, the United States Congress passed the Communications Decency Act (CDA) as an amendment of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Under the CDA, an Internet Service Providers (ISP) are provided an exclusion from certain liability for information published by others. The computer service provider is afforded a certain level of immunity under law for information which originates with third party users of the service. Three factors are typically analyzed in determining whether or not a computer service provider is afforded section 230 protection. The first is whether or not the website owner is a provider of an “interactive computer service.” The second is whether or not the allegedly actionable content are entered into the system by someone other than the website owner. The third is whether or not the website owner can be considered a publisher or speaker of the third party content. In determining whether or not the website operator can be held accountable for the third party content depends on the degree of involvement and the design of the software which allowed the actionable content to be uploaded.

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