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.

Moving forward

Several times on this blog I have stated that I wanted to investigate DMCA take-down notices. The idea originated with Dr. Tomas Lipinski during various conversations and lectures. Today, with Dr. Lipinski's support, my colleague Su-Yu Lin has agreed to collaborate on the research. The initial stage is development and design of a research methodology.

The initial stage will be done in a few months. Followed, hopefully, by the investigation of the topic. If there is a particular point of data that people would like to be included in the methodology, we are more than welcome to entertain suggestions.