This is a thread from Rahaeli@Twitter, co-founder of Dreamwidth, advising Mastodon instance admins about their liabilities for copyright and CSAM reporting as service hosters.
I asked permission to repost it here, so every post in the thread below is Rahaeli's, not mine.
reporting requirements as a website operator
Hey, US folks newly running Mastodon instances: do Future You a *huge* favor, mitigate your potential liability, and register with the copyright office and designate an agent to receive DMCA reports *right now*. https://copyright.gov/dmca-directory/
reporting requirements as a website operator
It costs $6 a year. Use a forwarding phone # and a PO Box or other address you check frequently, not your home address: it will be public. Without this registration, you WILL be held liable for any copyright violation on your instance.
reporting requirements as a website operator
I also strongly recommend that if you run an instance, incorporate as a LLC and -- this is the critical part -- take out an umbrella liability insurance policy with coverage of at least $2m per incident and covers attorney costs and fees.
(If you have homeowners or renters insurance, and you should, this should be a very cheap rider on the policy. 99% of the time it will be unnecessary and the other 1% it will save your ass completely.)
reporting requirements as a website operator
I am somehow not surprised that only two Mastodon instances have registered designated agents and one of them is the Lawprofs instance.
Also: you absolutely should also pre-register with NCMEC, because "I found someone on my instance posting CSAM" is not the time to have to learn the reporting process
reporting requirements as a website operator
But yeah, for copyright, feel free to steal our DMCA policy, it's CC-BY-SA. (Note that we willingly accept a level of potential risk around repeat offender account termination that may be outside your risk tolerance.) https://dreamwidth.org/legal/dmca
Our ToS and privacy policy are also CC, and you're welcome to use them, but they should be more customized for your individual situation than just "take this and change it to your contact info".
reporting requirements as a website operator
If you're on Mastodon and you know your instance admin, point them here. (Mastodon not warning instance admins that they have legal obligations in running a platform is one of the many problems I have with the project, sigh.)
reporting requirements as a website operator
I will be working on a detailed post for "stuff Mastodon instance admins need to know" in the next few days, because the more I think about it, the more I realize y'all probably don't know you should be doing to cover your asses
*don't know all you should be doing
reporting requirements as a website operator
oh man I need to introduce you all to Rozkom, too. the ritual response when you hear anyone mention Rozkom: *fuck* Rozkom.
reporting requirements as a website operator
Rozkom aka Roskomnadzor is the Russian state internet censorship bureau and if any of your users annoy the Russian government in the slightest you *will* hear from Rozkom wanting you to censor them. Unless you do what we do and blackhole their reports!
reporting requirements as a website operator
Oof, Mike reminded me of this dating bug with the copyright office registration, too:
reporting requirements as a website operator
Also, since I see people misunderstanding: this is for people who run their own servers, plain old users don't need to worry about any of this
reporting requirements as a website operator
reporting requirements as a website operator
"Also, don't renew your DMCA agent status immediately when the @CopyrightOffice@twitter.com sends you the reminder email 3 months before the end of the period you've paid up for... because they just lop off those last 3 months and start the clock again from your renewal date. But do renew."
reporting requirements as a website operator
The relevant section of copyright law is 17 USC §512 and you can read it here: https://law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/512 You are protected from liability for your users' copyright violations, but ONLY if you follow this process, and the process includes registering a designated agent.
I can't give you legal advice and none of this is intended as such, but if you're absolutely at sea and have never heard of any of this before, I can try to answer general questions.