Prince’s record label NPG records has filed a DMCA copyright complaint with Twitter over a series of videos containing Prince’s content that were posted to Vine, Twitter’s newest video platform, as The Next Web first reported.

The complaint asks Twitter to remove the eight video clips from Vine that contain Prince’s material. Twitter has not yet responded with any comment.

“These are unauthorized recordings and are unauthorized synchronizations. As such, I have a good faith belief that use of the copyrighted work described above is not authorized by the copyright owner (or by a third party who is legally entitled to do so on behalf of the copyright owner) and is not otherwise permitted by law. I hereby confirm that I believe the tracks identified in this email infringe my copyright.

We hereby request that you immediately remove our content 8 video clips from the vine.co platform, as accessible via the above links, as well as all other occurrences on the vine.co platform.”

While it’s unclear how much of an effect six-second videos might have on Prince’s music career, it’s somewhat of a validation for Twitter that serious musicians and celebrities would consider Vine a threat in terms of how media is distributed online. Twitter launched Vine back in January, allowing users to share short video clips and tweet them to the network, and you can now embed Vine videos on the web. It’s still uncertain how many users are sharing videos through Vine or how the startup will fit within Twitter’s ecosystem.

But it’s fair to say that if Prince has concerns about Vine, the rest of us should keep an eye on it too.

The NASCAR crash followed much the same pattern so many news events do now, in the age of real-time and social media: moments after the crash occurred, there were multiple eyewitness photos and videos of the incident, including one particularly horrific one captured by university sophomore Tyler Andersen, who was sitting just to the left of the section that was hit by the debris — including a tire that flew off the race car in question. Soon, a link to the video on YouTube was racing through Twitter and other channels.

In this case, Google decided to over-rule NASCAR

Suddenly, however, the video was no longer available, and in its place was a standard YouTube message about the content being removed because of a copyright claim by NASCAR. This raised a host of questions for those who were trying to access it, including: How could the racing entity remove the video so quickly? Why didn’t YouTube protest that it should be protected by the principle of fair use, since it was a news event? And how could NASCAR claim that it had copyright over a video that was created by a fan?

When debris hits the crowd, NASCAR's precious video rights should be superseded by the right of the crowd to tell their story.

—
Cory Bergman (@corybe) February 23, 2013

The latter question was answered hours later when YouTube reinstated the video and released a statement saying that partners such as NASCAR are only allowed to remove content that breaches their copyright, and the content in question didn’t pass that test (even though NASCAR asserts in the fine print when you buy a ticket that it owns everything fans produce while at an event). Said the YouTube statement:

“Our partners and users do not have the right to take down videos from YouTube unless they contain content which is copyright infringing, which is why we have reinstated the videos.”

The other two questions people had are even easier to answer. In a nutshell, Google provides its YouTube partners with an easy way to have content removed almost immediately: it’s a tool called Content ID, and it’s essentially a back-door to the YouTube content-management system. When a company like CNN or NBC or some other partner sees their TV shows or news clips being shared on YouTube without permission, they can submit a form and have it pulled down.

Copyright claims favor the owner, not the uploader

One of the main reasons why Google does this — and why it doesn’t bother (except in extreme cases) to protest or demand an explanation for takedown requests — is that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act or DMCA only gives services like YouTube “safe harbor” from copyright-infringement charges so long as the company acts quickly when it receives a takedown notice. In effect, there is virtually no leeway for protests or attempts to get a provider to defend their demands.

Prime example of DMCA abuse (which i lectured on today) mobile.theverge.com/2013/2/23/4022…

—
Jillian C. York (@jilliancyork) February 24, 2013

As a number of observers — including Jillian York of the Electronic Frontier Foundation — noted during the NASCAR incident, this is just one of the many ways in which the DMCA actually fosters bad behavior, or at least behavior that seems bad if you believe in free speech and freedom of the press. The fact that Google acted quickly to put the content back up is admirable, but it shouldn’t have to do this, and there are no doubt many other important cases in which it hasn’t that don’t involve something as attention-getting as a race-car crash.

And as Jason Pontin of MIT’s Technology Review pointed out in a recent essay on free speech in a digital era, our speech is to a large degree controlled by private corporations like Google and Twitter and Apple, and in many ways we are still coming to grips with what that means for us as a society.

Post and thumbnail images courtesy of Flickr user Petteri Sulonen

Twitter has made a significant shift in how it responds to copyright complaints. In the past, such complaints caused tweets to vanish without a trace but now people can see the place where a tweet once stood — and the reaction to its disappearance.

The new policy, reported in a tweet by a member of Twitter’s legal team, can be explained with an example. Let’s look at the Twitter account of @mikko, an executive with computer security firm F-Secure. This tweet appeared in Mikko’s feed on Saturday:

This Tweet from @mikko has been withheld in response to a report from the copyright holder. Learn more: support.twitter.com/articles/15795…

— Mikko Hypponen (@mikko) November 3, 2012

Mikko’s followers asked what happened:

[Update: As noted above, Mikko did not actually have a tweet removed. His tweet above can be considered an example at best or a hoax at worst. He wrote by email Tuesday morning:  "I read the Twitter support article about their new DMCA policy over the weekend. And just like you, I immediately tried finding an example of such a censored tweet. Since I couldn't find any, I decided to create one. So yes, my tweet was a joke." We apologize to readers.]

For the purpose of this story, Mikko’s prank is unfortunate but should not overshadow the bigger implication of Twitter’s new policy: tweets subject to a copyright notice no longer go down a memory hole. This is important to reporters and scholars who use Twitter as a news source and now have an explanation when a piece of news vanishes due to copyright reasons.

The tweet announcing the policy suggested it was in the name of “#transparency.” This is consistent with other efforts by Twitter to shine light on a copyright process that critics say is susceptible to abuse by content owners. In January, for instance, Twitter published 4,410 DMCA takedown requests it received in the previous year.

The DMCA refers to a law that gives internet companies like Twitter or Google immunity for copyrighted material posted by their users. To preserve this immunity, they have to take down users’ material when they receive a notice from a copyright owner; the target of the notice can then send a counter-notice saying the material should not be taken down.

In an email, a Twitter spokesman explained the change in policy this way:

[W]hen we get a valid DMCA request, we withhold the tweet until such time as we get (if we ever do) a valid counter-response from the user. In this case, if someone with the permalink tries to navigate to the tweet, they’ll see that it is being withheld for copyright reasons. We also send the requests to Chilling Effects for publication. Our prior policy was to delete the Tweet without any language explaining the takedown, then manually repost the Tweet if/when we got a valid counter response.

The new Twitter policy comes as both internet companies and copyright owners are growing frustrated with the existing DMCA regime. On one hand, content creators say it is too much effort to track and send DMCA notices for each infringement. On the other hand, rights owners may be growing trigger happy with notices; Google, for instance, is now receiving more than 1 million copyright requests a month, some of which are not justified and can create a “chilling effect” for users.

The giant education publisher spotted a teacher’s weblog powered by the Edublogs network had, in 2007, published its copyrighted Beck’s Hopelessness Scale, a questionnaire designed to diagnose pessimism.

Pearson in September served a DMCA takedown notice to Edublogs’ hosting company ServerBeach, which responded by freezing not just the individual blog in question but Edublogs’ entire network of 1.45 million teaching blogs.

The team behind WordPress-powered Edublogs, which also provides premium WordPress services and multi-blog support, has kicked up a stink. And now Pearson has provided paidContent with this statement:

“Pearson apologizes for any inconvenience caused to users and readers of blogs hosted by Edublogs this week.

 

“As a learning and information company, Pearson values the open and free exchange of ideas.

“However, we needed to address one post and one sensitive issue: the publication online of one of Pearson’s clinical tests. This particular test is used by clinical psychologists to assess people who may be at risk of suicide. Publication and any subsequent misuse of the test questions can compromise the integrity of the test results, and in turn the recommendations made by the qualified professionals.

“It is a matter of deep regret that, in responding to our request to address this single item, a server hosting company took much broader action.”

Amongst that contrition, Pearson appears to blame the hosting company for overreacting to its takedown request.

Yet Edublogs founder James Farmer has now sweetened on ServerBeach after its general manager contacted him directly to say: “My General Counsel and I are actively working together to revisit the escalation notification policies of our Abuse department in general”.

Edublogs is one of the most popular blog hosting suites powered by the multi-blog software branch formerly known as WordPressMU (“multi-user”).

The data arrived today as a new section in Google’s Transparency Report, a set of findings that show how governments — and now private actors — are removing pages from the internet.

Google’s senior copyright counsel, Fred von Lohmann, stressed in an interview that the vast majority of the takedown requests are legitimate and come in response to sites offering unauthorized copies of software, entertainment or pornography.

Here is a screenshot from the Transparency Report that shows who is ordering the take downs and which websites most commonly host  unauthorized content:

The screenshot also shows how the number of copyright requests is growing exponentially. Google did not say whether this spike is the result of an increase in piracy or instead is due to more sophisticated tools that make it easier for rights owners to detect when their content has been misappropriated. Google says it’s processing requests faster than ever and that its average response time to a takedown demand is now 11 hours.

The figures are sure to add grist to the debate about the prevalence and the reasons for online piracy. Content producers have long complained that internet companies don’t do enough to remove infringing material. On the other hand, journalists and civil libertarians have argued that copyright owners have been too aggressive in their enforcement tactics.

In a blog post on the findings, Google cites an example in which ”a major entertainment company” demanded the removal of a search result that linked to a review of a TV show despite the fact no copyright infringement had occurred. When sites are removed, Google places a notice in its search results and also forwards the information to Chilling Effects, a website run by the EFF and major universities that reports on activities that chill free speech.

But von Lohman added that requests like the one by the entertainment company are often simple errors rather than an attempt to repress criticism. He noted that Google complies with 97 percent of all requests using a combination of human and algorithmic reviews, and that the data is a validation of the current DMCA copyright regime in which internet companies are not liable for the actions of bad actors so long as they comply with notices by rights owners.

The new copyright elements of the Transparency Report may also help Google and other technology companies head off fresh attempts by Hollywood to pass legislation like the failed Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).

von Lohmann didn’t elaborate on Google’s strategic reasons for releasing the information but did say it will allow policy makers to “consider the data” when evaluating copyright law.

Update: Techdirt reports that Microsoft, which leads the list in takedown requests, did not remove many of the same offending links in its own Bing search engine.

According to TorrentFreak, Verizon has argued that the request for subscriber information is flawed for several reasons, including that an IP address may lead to a name, but that name may not be the alleged pirate, and that the request seemed like it was designed to harass subscribers rather than achieve any legitimate legal goal. With this argument, Verizon joins others, including judges, that are beginning to view the content industry’s efforts to flush our pirates as a type of extortion designed to get a settlement.

As my colleague Jeff Roberts wrote in November when one of these suits was filed:

The decision to sue “John Does” reflects the fact that John Wiley cannot immediately identify the actual names of the file-sharers. The publisher is therefore using a procedural tactic that permits it to amend the complaint later on in order to add the defendants’ real names which it can obtain from internet service providers.

John Wiley’s goal with the litigation is likely to force the defendants to agree to a settlement rather than go to a full-blown trial. The publisher has considerable leverage because the Copyright Act provides draconian penalties of up to $150,000 per infringement, meaning many defendants could be willing to pay a few thousand dollars to end the matter.

Verizon’s decision to stand up for its users probably has less to do with some chest-thumping love of online freedom, and more to do with its historical reluctance to become an arm of the law when it comes to policing users for illegal downloads. While many of the historical suits of this nature have focused on music and pornography, the publishing industry and others are seeing their chance to take a little back from online pirates.

If they are successful Verizon and other ISPs face a future of flushing out the John Does on their network and handing their names over to the content industry. That costs money and doesn’t exactly make your customers love you. For a sense of Verizon’s dilemma, check out this 2003 article for a reminder of the era when the RIAA was employing similar tactics to drag potential pirates into the bright lights of the courtroom:

[Sarah Deutsch, who was counsel for Verizon] had received dozens of subpoenas from RIAA and other entertainment trade groups, all of them fairly routine requests. But this one was different. Subscriber X wasn’t hosting illegal content on Verizon’s network; he was a Kazaa client that used Verizon for Internet access, and the disputed content was stored on his hard drive. Verizon had no way of verifying RIAA’s allegations. Deutsch refused to give up Subscriber X’s name.

“We’re not going to become the Internet police for RIAA,” Deutsch said. “There’s a delicate balance between copyright holders’ rights and our customers’ rights that needs to be preserved. RIAA crossed over the line.”

Looks like Verizon feels like Wiley is stepping over that line nine years later.

Updated:

In a complaint filed Friday in Manhattan, Perfect 10 claims Tumblr failed to remove unauthorized photos posted by its users. The company, which sells nude model photographs through a magazine and website, says Tumblr not only turned a blind eye to copyright infringement but that its staff uploaded images themselves to jumpstart the business.

Update: Perfect 10 President Norm Zada claims the company has sent 6 detailed takedown requests to Tumblr but did not receive any response.

“I’m not sure anyone’s checking that email,” said Zada. “Twenty-five other Internet Service Providers have taken down material that Perfect 10 has identified in our DMCA notices, Tumblr did not.”

The case is significant because lawyers have been waiting for a case to test the legality of popular new image sharing sites like Tumblr and Pinterest. It is also important because of the companies involved.

Tumblr is one of the web’s hottest social sites while Perfect 10 has a long history of fighting in court to control its images. The company sued Google in 2004 for using thumbnail images in its search results. In a famous 2006 decision, a court ruled that the search giant’s use of thumbnails was fair use under copyright law.

A similar fair use ruling is unlikely in the Tumblr case because pictures on the site are typically not thumbnails but full size images.

Ordinarily, sites that host user-uploaded content are protected from copyright lawsuits under “safe harbor” laws (these make a user liable but not the site itself).

Perfect 10′s complaint, however, appears crafted to attack a safe harbor defense by Tumblr. Websites can lose the safe harbor protection if they fail to remove infringing material or if they have an active role in hosting unauthorized images:

Upon information and belief, Tumblr employees have posted infringing content to Tumblr servers, to help start the business, including content which infringes upon Perfect 10′s Copyrighted Works [...] Tumblr’s services also permit its subscribers to search for images. An example of the search results of a Tumblr search for model Luba Shumeyko, which includes infringing copies of Perfect 10 Copyrighted Works [...]  Tumblr turns a blind eye to the extensive copyright infringement taking place through its services.

As Tumblr has gained prominence, some have argued that it must shake up its business model to rely less on pornography and unauthorized photos.

Others have directed similar questions at female-dominated Pinterest, another darling of the start-up set. Pinterest doesn’t have a reputation for porn but is being pressured by Getty Images and photographers to pay royalties.

The Tumblr lawsuit and the $1 billion acquisition of Instagram by Facebook are indications of how popular image sharing has become in recent years.

Update: Tumblr spokesman Katherine Barna declined to comment at this time.

Here’s a copy of the lawsuit:

Perfect 10 v Tumblr

Thumbnail image courtesy of Shutterstock user [jwblinn].

In recent months, Pinterest’s soaring popularity has led media outlets to dub it the “next Facebook.” The site, which already has millions of users, has also won a 2011 start-up of the year award and significant venture capital. (To see who is using Pinterest, see this excellent account by my colleague Laura Owen).

Unfortunately for Pinterest, all the hype has also brought attention from another quarter: angry copyright owners. On sites like iStock, photographers are complaining that their pretty pictures are being used without permission in users’ collages. And to judge by Pinterest’s voicemail, the photographers are not the only ones upset. When I called the number listed for copyright complaints, a recording said the mailbox was full.

Pinterest said by email that it doesn’t disclose how many copyright complaints it receives. The company added that it actively responds to notices sent by email, and that it’s “building more tools to make it easier for rights holders to file a report.”

In the bigger picture, the copyright questions echo disputes from an earlier era that pit legal rules against new forms of culture. These include a long-running lawsuit over a short flute sample in the Beastie Boys hit ‘Pass the Mic’ (the Beasties won) and a 2005 Supreme Court decision that shut down music-sharing site Grokster.

For Pinterest, the legal issues are not cut and dry. On one hand, its notification scheme should grant it a “safe harbor” under copyright law. It is this law that protects sites like Facebook or YouTube (NSDQ: GOOG) from being sued when a user uploads copyrighted material.

But on the other hand, Pinterest’s business is based almost entirely on using images without permission — something that could lead it to lose its safe harbor protection in the same way that Grokster did.

This does not mean, of course, that someone will sue. A spokesperson for Getty Images, which licenses a wide variety of pictures, informed me that the company is “aware of the issue and [is] discussing it with Pinterest.”

Copyright holders may also fear a public relations fallout that would come with a lawsuit. For content owners, it’s one thing to label hip-hop artists and music fans as “thieves.” But it’s quite another when the content involves food and dress pictures — even the most hardened copyright visigoth would pause at denouncing a 16-year-old who borrows pictures to make a collage of her future wedding.

As for Pinterest, the copyright issues present not just a legal problem but a business one as well. Even if the company can implement a YouTube-like takedown system, users will balk if their pretty image boards become spotted with copyright removal notices. Collages are not much fun with pieces ripped out.

The ultimate solution is likely to be a licensing scheme in which image owners will let Pinterest users post pictures in return for sponsored pics or a royalty payment. The good news is that cash is already rolling in at Pinterest. LL Social reported on Tuesday that the company is quietly collecting commission fees by skimming the affiliate links that give third parties a cut of online sales. Spreading some of that money around will make Pinterest popular with copyright owners in no time.

While technology companies always outgrow the laws that govern them, Twitter’s 140-character message system is proving to be particularly disruptive. At the same time, the microblog has been more aggressive in defending free speech than established companies like Facebook and Google.

Here are five examples that show how Twitter’s unique platform is creating a new set of media rules that are forcing the law to play catch up:

The Courtney Love Case: Twitter and Defamation

It’s never a good idea to falsely say someone is a drug-addled prostitute who lost their child. But bad-girl singer Courtney Love did just this in a Twitter rage, leading the target of the rant to turn around and sue her.

The case settled last year but it has since raised question about whether normal rules of defamation should apply to Twitter. Some say that tweets are more like an op-ed page than facts, and that they should be considered as mere opinion (which is a defense to defamation).

As one scholar has noted, it can be hard to tell from a 140-character message what parts are fact and what parts opinion. Twitter also raises questions about how to measure the harm caused by a tweet. Should the penalty be the same for Kim Kardashian who has 13 million followers as it is for a village gossip with five followers? And what about retweets?

In 2009, an Illinois judge dismissed a case after finding tweets were a form of “rambling hyperbole” but courts have yet to define for sure what, if anything, you can’t say on Twitter.

The Phone Dog Case: Twitter and Company Property

Last year, a blog called PhoneDog sued one of its former journalists, Noah Kravitz, who took his 17,000+ Twitter followers with him when he walked out the door. Phone Dog says the journalist obtained the followers only because he worked there. It added the followers were a company trade secret worth $2.50 a piece.

The court case is caught up in procedural snarls but has in the meantime gone viral as a social media parable. For now, the law is unclear about who should get the Twitter spoils in a digital divorce between a company and its employees.

The PhoneDog case will surely lead other companies to amend their employment contracts. As for the parties, Kravitz is enjoying his day in the sun and PhoneDog, which tell its side of the story here, appears to be doing just fine without him.

The Religious Leader Case: Twitter and the First Amendment

In a story that should have received more attention than it did, the New York Times (NYSE: NYT) in December reported on a judge’s decision to dismiss cyberstalking charges against a Maryland man.

The man used Twitter to spray thousands of vulgar and threatening messages concerning a female Buddhist leader. They includes tweets like “”Do the world a favor and go kill yourself. P.S. Have a nice day”

The court found, however, that prosecutors applied the cyber-stalking law used to try the man in an unconstitutional fashion: “While Mr. Cassidy’s speech may have inflicted substantial emotional distress, [it is] protected speech: anonymous uncomfortable Internet speech addressing religious matters.” He compared Twitter to physical billboards used by pilgrims in colonial times and to an internet news board.

It’s unclear if these metaphors will gain traction. As in other legal situations involving Twitter, higher courts have yet to provide an answer of what type of speech is allowed. At the time, the woman’s lawyer said she was “appalled and frightened by the judge’s ruling.”

The WikiLeaks Case: Twitter and National Security

A year ago, Twitter made waves when it challenged federal demands that it hand over data about three account holders connected to Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.

Online media companies typically comply with these orders as a matter of course. Twitter, though, bucked this trend by suing to lift a gag order that prevented it from telling the account holders the government was after their data. The company succeeded which in turn allowed the Wikileaks subjects to challenge the government’s demands. The defendants ultimately lost but the case is still significant for media companies because, in the memorable words of Wired, “Twitter beta-tested a spine.”

Twitter became mixed up with another security and censorship controversy this week when it announced it has a tool to censor tweets at a national level.

The Tony La Russa Case: Twitter and Trademark

In 2009, the St. Louis Cardinals manager sued Twitter after a fake Tony La Russa account spat out tasteless tweets about dead pitchers and his DUI arrest.

The baseball manager, likely realizing he would strike out, quietly ended the case soon after. But the La Russa case became the first in a series of cases in which brand owners have tried to use trademark law to shut up Twitter users.

“Life settlement” agency Coventry First, for instance, sued to grab a Twitter account that was sending satiric messages about its ghoulish life insurance policies. Other big companies like BP appear to have decided its better to quietly tolerate fake accounts like @BPGlobalPr which continues to emit hilarious comments on BP’s efforts in the gulf (sample tweet: “Please, write your representatives and tell them you’ve forgotten about the Gulf of Mexico.”)

These type of trademark claims have since led Twitter to develop new ways to protect parody, in particular with its check mark system to authenticate famous people (but the system is not perfect as the wife of news baron Rupert Murdoch can attest).

What is the Significance of these Lawsuits?

If there is a common thread here (beyond Twitter’s ability to attract interesting lawsuits), it’s that established laws are not holding up under the weight of billions of 140-character messages.

Likewise, Twitter itself deserves some credit. In addition to protecting parody and challenging government security demands, the company this week decided to copy Google’s practice of displaying messages that are forced down by copyright law.

The bottom line is that Twitter is not just creating new forms of speech but helping shape rules for how that speech can be used.

Amazon’s plagiarism problem came to light again last week after Fast Company reported that many of the bestselling self-published “authors” in the Kindle store were actually copycats who uploaded other writers’ e-books under different titles. Using the Kindle Direct Publishing platform, the copycats are able to hijack the sales of the original authors by simply copying and reselling their works.

Spammy and stolen e-books — either plagiarized copies of copyrighted works by other authors, or books thrown together from “private label rights” (PLR) content, which can be bought very cheaply online and quickly formatted into multiple e-books — have long been a problem in the Kindle store. We don’t have data on how many of these titles are currently for sale or how widespread the problem is.

“We’ve found that the folks spreading PLR are also more likely to be plagiarists of real book content” as well, says Mark Coker, the CEO of e-book publishing platform Smashwords (a competitor of Amazon’s self-publishing platform). In many instances, Coker says, plagiarized and PLR content banned by Smashwords still appears in the Kindle and Nook stores. He says those stores don’t vet content as thoroughly as Smashwords does.

Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN) provides an e-mail address that plagiarism victims can use to demand that an offending e-book be removed. In response to our questions on plagiarized content in the Kindle store, the company provided the following statement:

Since the launch of Kindle, we have worked steadily to build processes to detect and remove books that either violate copyright or don’t improve the customer experience. Over time, we’ve rejected or removed thousands of such offending titles, and we expect to keep improving our approach to protect the service we provide to both Kindle readers and authors/publishers.

Update: When we submitted a list of questions to Amazon via e-mail, we asked them if they use screening software to screen for unauthorized copies. Instead of responding to the individual questions, the company provided the above statement. An Amazon spokeswoman called me this morning, however, and told me that Amazon does employ screening software. However, the company would not specify the kind of software it uses; whether it is screening for PLR or plagiarized content; or any other details. Amazon does not, however, employ software to screen for unauthorized copies — which is perhaps surprising given that

Amazon would not elaborate on what software it is using or if it resembles the electronic anti-plagiarism tools are used by nearly every university and by publishers as well. This type of software works by comparing a newly submitted document against a database of existing texts and flagging submissions that contain a high degree of overlap.

Robert Creutz, an executive with anti-plagiarism service Ithenticate, says his company’s software takes between 45 seconds and a few minutes to screen a text. Creutz says clients include book publishers like John Wiley and journal publisher Reed Elsevier (NYSE: RUK).

Screening software is also used by video sites like YouTube (NSDQ: GOOG) and by document sharing site Scribd.

But while it appears that Amazon could easily employ a filter to protect its authors’ works, it may be under no legal duty to do so.

The Kindle Store as Safe Harbor

Illegal copies are hardly unique to Amazon, of course. The Kindle store is just the latest in a long line of forums, from Grokster to YouTube, through which third parties have offered works without the creators’ permission.

Most times, the websites are not legally at fault. The law protects them by granting “safe harbor” status — a shield that helps internet companies avoid liability when a third party posts copyrighted material on their sites.

Websites can lose their safe-harbor status, however, if they are found to control and directly profit from the unauthorized activities. The meaning of these terms is not entirely clear, though, and is part of a high-profile court case between YouTube and Viacom (NYSE: VIA).

Hillel Parness, a copyright attorney at Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi, said that courts have found that a website has no duty to act unless it knows about a specific infringement. This means that Amazon is likely not responsible for the plagiarism unless an author can show the company knew a particular title was plagiarized. But Parness adds,

“If authors decide to challenge Amazon, they may choose to focus on the revenue Amazon enjoys on the sale of every e-book. Or perhaps they will question the fairness of placing the burden on authors to monitor Amazon’s e-book marketplace for books that infringe their own. Indeed, one may question if self-published authors even have the practical ability to do so.”

Amazon also stands out because it is a retailer making a direct commission from the unauthorized copies — unlike other safe harbor situations in which a site makes money indirectly via advertising.

In deciding if a site is shielded, courts will also look at its response to copyright complaints. Some plagiarized authors have reported Amazon was slow to take action — a situation that could place it on shaky ground.

Overall, Amazon’s response to the plagiarism problem reflects its status as a relative newcomer to the publishing game. This will no doubt change as the company continues to expand its presence from retailer to content creator.