If your company hosts any type of user generated content on a website, then you should appoint and record a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”) agent with the Copyright Office to take advantage of safe harbor provisions set forth in the Copyright Act.

As we wrote in a post on November 2016, the Copyright Office has instituted a new online registration system for DMCA agents.  Paper filings are no longer accepted, and any DMCA agents that have been recorded with the Copyright Office on paper will cease to be effective as of December 31, 2017.  Therefore, any company that does not re-register its DMCA agent via the electronic registration system will lose its safe harbor protections.

If you cannot remember whether your company has a DMCA agent recorded with the Copyright Office or whether you have filed under the new online system, you can check here.  If you don’t find your company name, then there is no time like the present to make the electronic filing.