Friday, September 11, 2009

DMCA Takedown notice research

Lately I have been able to do some of my preliminary work on DMCA take-down notices on higher learning campuses. As part of the initial work I have chosen to conduct a pilot study on University of Wisconsin system schools,which include two year and four year institutions listed here, and the Wisconsin Technical College System, whose institutions are listed here.

To my surprise, which hopefully I can explore in more depth when the pilot study is concluded, I discovered that few of the technical colleges have designated agents. In addition, there is one designated agent for all the UW System two year institutions and that same person also has domain over several of the UW System four year institutions. Since this pilot is limited to Wisconsin, my curiosity has been peaked and I wonder if this is similar in other states. Only time, and hopefully the support of a grant, will allow me to explore this in further detail and across a larger population. Until then, it looks like this pilot study will be very useful to test out the methodology that I have devised, see what data pertaining to DMCA take-down notices institutions capture, and how the various University of Wisconsin system institutions and Wisconsin Technical Colleges handle take-down notices.

4 comments:

Michael Zimmer said...

Very interesting. Does the single "designated agent" means there's literally only 1 person dealing with this issue, or that there's technically only 1 person who the rights holder is able to speak with?

Wyatt Ditzler said...

Technically that person is the contact point for the rights holders. To take advantage of the 'safe harbor' provision a service provider, in this case the institution, must have a designated agent.If anyone else works with the contact person on the matter will hopefully become known after the survey goes out. I am also hoping to get some historical data on the number of take-down notices and the policies that the institutions have in place with regards to take-down notices.

Anonymous said...

An Leaked Lady GaGa Hit was Unwrapped this evening with no traces of where it originated from.
Some say that it was found in GaGa's Record Label's headquarters.

More info at http://ladygagaunreleased.blogspot.com

Free Download of the single at http://tinyurl.com/gagaunreleased

Unknown said...

sangambayard-c-m.com