The Digital Millennium Copyright Act

In 1998, Congress passed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which amended U.S. copyright law to address important parts of the relationship between copyright and the internet. The three main updates were (1) establishing protections for online service providers in certain situations if their users engage in copyright infringement, including by creating the notice-and-takedown system, which allows copyright owners to inform online service providers about infringing material so it can be taken down; (2) encouraging copyright owners to give greater access to their works in digital formats by providing them with legal protections against unauthorized access to their works (for example, hacking passwords or circumventing encryption); and (3) making it unlawful to provide false copyright management information (for example, names of authors and copyright owners, titles of works) or to remove or alter that type of information in certain circumstances.

In 2020, Congress passed the Copyright Alternative in Small-Claims Enforcement (CASE) Act of 2020, which established the Copyright Claims Board (CCB) within the U.S. Copyright Office. The CCB is a voluntary, alternative forum to federal court designed for all types of creators and users of copyrighted materials. Eligible claims include those for misrepresentations in notices or counter-notices under section 512 of the DMCA, as well as for copyright infringement and declarations of noninfringement.