DMCA disclaimer&#39;s impact on hosted material
<p>I've found a website that hosts a large number of data that is supposed to be publicly available. They've put this in their DMCA information page:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>&quot;The Eye (<a href="https://the-eye.eu/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://the-eye.eu/</a>) respects the intellectual property rights of others. It is, therefore, site policy to expeditiously process, investigate and address notices of alleged infringement, and to take appropriate action under the DMCA and other relevant intellectual property laws.</p>
<p>If you believe that your work has been copied in a way that constitutes copyright infringement by any content or material on the site, please provide the following information in writing to the-eye.eu's Copyright Agent at dmca (at) the-eye (dot) eu&quot;</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Is this just some sort of a safe exit in the case of them hosting an illegal file? Or can I be sure that if I download some data I won't end up in jail?
Because browsing through their catalog of books, I could find famous ones such as the &quot;For dummies&quot; series (old versions, &gt; 2018) or ones from the HumbleBundle website (there are which can be considered relatively recent too, 2016).</p>
<p>Do copyrights end after 2 or 3 years?</p>

<p>Duration of copyright depends on the jurisdiction, but in many, including the EU, they last for 70 years after the death of the longest living creator, or for 70 years after creation if no individual creator can be identified.</p>

<p>As for the notice you quote, this is just standard DMCA stuff. Basically, the DMCA provides safe harbor (i.e. immunity to prosecution) for a site owner for copyright infringement <em>until</em> he is noticed about infringement. The notice you quote is a declaration that says that the site owner intends to comply with the DMCA notice and take-down procedure. This notice has no effect on <em>your</em> right or liabilities if you choose to dowload works from the site.</p>

<p>As for being <em>punished</em> for infringing copyright by downloading stuff from the Internet (including the site you link to - but too specific legal advice is off-topic here):</p>

<p>In the EU, downloading a work from the internet constitutes an act of reproduction and needs the authorisation of the rights holders, even if it is for personal and private use (in other jurisdictions this may be different). If you download materials from an unlawful source (i.e. a source where the work has been made available for download without authorisation), you are infringing copyright. I am not able to locate relevant case law, but I do not think that "good faith" (i.e. you did not <em>know</em> about the unlawfulness of the source) matters.</p>

<p>In other words: Downloading protected works without permission is illegal and you can be punished if you do this (I doubt that they'll throw you in jail, but I fine is not unlikely if you are caught.)</p>

copyright dmca