Re: lots of DMCA request's... (1/day)

[Roger Dingledine <arma@xxxxxxx>]

On Thu, May 15, 2008 at 11:56:30PM +0100, tara@xxxxxxxx wrote:
> Hi everyone, I run an exit node (nickname: swopusa), and now I'm
>averaging 1 DMCA request per day for TV shows, movies and the like,
>from paramount, NBC universal, etc.
> 
> I do BW limiting @ 100k/sec -- 2GB/day.  Otherwise it's the default
>configuration.
> 
> I'm really not all that smart about tor, I've never even used it as
>a client. I don't mind occasional DMCA requests but 1 a day is starting
>to piss off my ISP (linode.com) and frustrate me.
> 
> Any one have thoughts, besides NOT running an exit node?

My first thought is to have a conversation with the linode person
handling the takedowns, and encourage him/her to learn more about the
legal requirements. As I understand from
https://www.torproject.org/eff/tor-dmca-response.html.en
your ISP can discard all of the DMCA complaints directed toward your Tor
relay -- they don't need to answer them. Whether they *want* to answer
them, or hassle you, is another story, and practically speaking I agree
it's a relevant one, but step one is distinguishing legal requirements
from actions they are opting to take on their own.

My second thought is that if you want to reduce the frequent of DMCA
notices in particular, you might switch from the default exit policy,
which permits most ports and denies a few, to an exit policy that permits
a few popular ports and denies the rest. For example, a node that permits
only *:80 and *:443 would still be useful for many Tor users, but might
attract less file-sharing traffic.

My third thought is to take a look through
https://wiki.torproject.org/noreply/TheOnionRouter/TorGuideUniversities

Hope that helps,
--Roger