The Copyright Office yesterday issued a reminder, here, that their electronic system for “designated agents” of Internet service providers – those who are to receive notice of any claimed infringing content posted on a service provider’s site – is active and all services must register in that system by December 31 for such registrations to remain valid. The previous paper filings will no longer be effective as of the end of the year. Having a current and effective registration for the receipt of take-down notices is necessary for a service to claim a safe-harbor under Section 512 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act against claims of infringing content posted on the service by third parties.

We wrote more extensively about this new system here and here. The new system also imposed obligations on services to periodically renew and update the information that they provide. For any Internet site that hosts content posted by third-parties that could potentially be infringing on the intellectual property rights of others, registration is essential. So if you allow people outside your company to post music, video, pictures, poetry, articles or anything else that could potentially infringe on the intellectual property of others, be sure to register if you have not done so already, or update that registration if it is out of date or not yet in the Copyright Office’s electronic database.