VeRO for Dummies - Copyright Rules on s

In 1997, okay created VeRO or the Verified Rights Owner in order to geply with the regulations of the soon to be established Digital Millennium Copyright Act or DCMA. Designed to protect against online copyright infringement, the DCMA was enacted in 1998 by the US Federal Government.
According to title II of the DCMA, or the online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act, online service providers such as okay would not be responsible for copyright infringement on its site if safe harbor guidelines are followed.
In order to obtain the safe harbor, okay must not have knowledge that material on their site was infringing upon a copyright. Furthermore, okay would have to block access to fraudulent or illegal products following notification from the copyright holder.
In other words, in order for okay to observe legality and keep out of court they would have to immediately pull items which copyright holders claimed were counterfeit. The VeRO program has been okays means of legal gepliance.
VeRO was created by okay to protect against fraud. It enables intellectual property rights owners to request the removal of listings that infringe upon copyrights. In this process, a notice of claimed infringement is filed, requesting an item be removed from okay. At that point, okay immediately removes the item from their site.
Because there is great potential for deception when purchasing products online (just because an online seller says a product is X does not mean that it actually is X) the benefits of VeRO are significant. VeRO protects both okay customers and copyright holders from any injustice. Through VeRo, buyers can be more secure about their purchases (imagine you just paid $500 on a designer purse just to find it was a fake!) and copyright holders can shield themselves from misuse of their copyright by sellers. Ultimately VeRO reduces the number of fraudulent sales.
This is not to say that VeRO is a perfect system. In fact, many honest sellers find VeRO procedures unjust. Since VeRO does not confirm the identity of the copyright holders or the validity of the claim itself, honest sellers are left vulnerable to unfounded accusations.
Although title II of the DCMA also includes a counter-notification process which requires restoration of the material if the claims are false, this can be a long and arduous process for honest okay sellers who find their products pulled or accounts suspended needlessly.
As part of okays VeRO regulations the VeRO member claiming copyright infringement is not required to state why the item is infringing, only that they believe it is infringing. The seller is only provided with the basic contact information of the VeRO member filing the geplaint and the VeRO member is not required to respond to sellers questions.
As a result, an okay seller accused of infringement may very well find items pulled and their account suspended with no thorough explanation. Although VeRO claims it will attempt to step in at that point, in the end, it argues legality, stating that the matter is out of its hands. Its an issue of maintaining concordance with federal law.
There are other problems with VeRO. Even if an okay seller is found innocent and the merchandise is reinstated, the record is not cleared. The okay sellers account will still show the claim of copyright infringement leaving the seller vulnerable to potential permanent shut down. VeRO members who make false claims again and again are not reprimanded in the least, leaving them free to bombard sellers with willy-nilly accusations as they please.
Many okay sellers find accusations against them unfounded but take no action. Whether intimidated by the corporate monster, confused by the ethereal and geplicated counter-notification process or simply disenchanted, okay sellers frequently find themselves feeling helpless once their items are pulled or accounts suspended.
In 2001, an okay seller was accused of violating copyright infringement when they used copyrighted fabric to make tissue box covers. The okay seller challenged the accusation; finally settling out of court when the gepany backed down.
From that time, the okay seller has fought copyright infringement claims from many other major corporations and has gee out ahead. Claims that using a copyrighted materials in the creation of something new have, as of yet, been unsupported. Imagine, for example, one creates a dollhouse from ice cream sticks. Does the maker of the ice cream stick have a right to claim copyright infringement? This is the issue at question.
One might argue that this is a matter for federal determination. Until the federal government creates more definitive laws regards copyright, there will continue to be disagreements over what constitutes copyright. Following this line of thinking, the okay seller is now determined to take further cases to court where precedents can be set and, if need be, new laws enacted to protect innocent okay (and other online) sellers from unfound accusations. In the long run, defining the law would benefit copyright holders as well as they would know exactly what belonged to them and what didnt. Of course VeRO is not blameless in all this. There is much VeRO can do to remedy the situation. Despite all the good it does do, its obvious that okays VeRO program needs to be restructured. This presents a challenge for okay, as VeRO itself was created specifically to geply with federal regulation. VeROs processes are a derivative of that law.
That said, VeRO has little or no check and balance procedures in place. When VeRO receives a claim of copyright infringement, they do no work to ensure that the claim is valid. This creates a problem for sellers, copyright holders and customers. When a legitimate product is pulled, both sellers and copyright holders lose revenue. Likewise, customers lose selection.
If, instead, VeRO had a trained staff to specifically address these claims, okay sellers and copyright holders would find there were significantly fewer mistakes made along the way and customers could be secure in their purchases.
There are certainly good and bad aspects of VeRO. While it protects buyers and copyright owners from corrupt sellers, it also leaves honest sellers extremely vulnerable to corruption themselves.