The High-touch Legal Services® Blog…for Startups!

© 2009-2021 Dana H. Shultz

DMCA Takedown: How Soon is “Expeditiously”?

Copy of takedown notice on Dana Shultz letterhead

A client’s former employee / co-founder departed to form a competing business. Violating the client’s copyrights, he posted dozens of the client’s images on his website and blog. I sent takedown notices to the website’s and the blog’s service providers (see “Terms of Use and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act [DMCA]”). I wondered how expeditiously the service providers would respond.

17 USC Section 512(c)(1)(C) provides a “safe harbor” incentive for service providers to remove, or disable access to, infringing works expeditiously. Unfortunately, “expeditiously” is not defined (see “Defining Expeditious: Uncharted Territory of the DMCA Safe Harbor Provision“).

(more…)