In recent years, intellectual property holders have expanded their efforts to deep linking and metatags. Now they’re pursuing search services, pay-for-play sites and Web libraries. Last month, the Church of Scientology sent a letter to the Internet Archive, persuading the site to pull down archived pages that were critical of the church’s beliefs.
Copyright holders also have gained additional ammunition to demand removal of material. The 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)–designed to update copyright laws in the digital age and assuage piracy fears–carved out protections for ISPs that remove alleged violations when asked, but didn’t require them to notify the site operator or to judge whether the claim is legitimate. The ISPs sought the protections so they wouldn’t be liable for policing their system.
