Website Owner Responsibility

[eladlavi]

Hello.
I wanted to know if the website owner is responsible for content stealing in case that the website enables files sharing and selling by the users and a user uploads a stolen content from a different website and tries to sell it as his own.
can the website owner be sued although he had nothing to do with the file ?

 

[divgradcurl]

Hello.
I wanted to know if the website owner is responsible for content stealing in case that the website enables files sharing and selling by the users and a user uploads a stolen content from a different website and tries to sell it as his own.
can the website owner be sued although he had nothing to do with the file ?

Potentially. There are provisions for contributory and vicarious liability for copyright infringement. On the other hand, there are safe harbors for website for website operators in certain circumstances as well. It all depends on the exact facts of your particular situation.

 

[eladlavi]

Potentially. There are provisions for contributory and vicarious liability for copyright infringement. On the other hand, there are safe harbors for website for website operators in certain circumstances as well. It all depends on the exact facts of your particular situation.

Ok, let me describe more the situation:
Website allows users to upload home videos (like YouTube) and sell them. The website is giving the service of connecting between a seller to a buyer and charging commision (like eBay). Now someone uploads a video that he just downloaded from another website with a similer service, and selling it (when the other site prohibit selling video that was downloaded from his website). There is no obvious way for the website to know that the video was downloaded from the other website (no watermark,etc.). The website owner can only verify that the content is legal(not adult or violent content). also, under the terms of use the website prohibit uploads of videos without full rights on the video.
is the website owner coverd legaly ?

 

[The Occultist]

The owner of the copyright would first need to submit a DMCA complaint to the offending website. Then, as long as the website owner cooperates with the demands, he is typically absolved of liability.