Protection from Copyright Infringement
It seems as though most of the problems that are on the Internet relate to the content. As a hosting provider It’s important to protect your company and yourself from copyright and trademark infringement. The U.S. government has put some policies in place that help to protect hosting providers but the protection isn’t “guaranteed” unless one takes all the necessary steps. Even after the proper steps are taken, protection still isn’t guaranteed. However, if your company appears to have taken all the necessary precautions, you’re better off.
Besides copyright and trademark issues, there’s the whole issue of illegal content. I would suspect that Illegal content would be easy to see. Then again, what is illegal content? Objectionable content is subjective. Like a judge once said about pornography, you can’t really define objectionable content, but you know it when you see it. Web hosts are put in a sticky situation if they think there might be illegal content on their network. When does a hosting company have to step in and play cop? Some things to keep in mind about objectionable content: some types of pornography may be a form of protected speech and therefore are not illegal. Obscenity, though, s not protected speech and is illegal. 6
In this section I discuss the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and how it can help protect the hosting provider. I also discuss network monitoring and how it might help your organization avoid copyright problems.