COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT ISP EUCD

Dear [ISP]:

Thank you for forwarding me the notice you received from [copyright claimant] regarding [content]. I would like to assure you that I am not hosting the claimed infringing materials, and furthermore, both the Digital Millennium Copyright Act's ("DMCA") and the European Union Copyright Directive (“EUCD”) safe harbors likely protect you from liability arising from this complaint. The notice is likely based upon misunderstandings about the law and about some of the software I run.

As you may know as part of the European Union Copyright Directive exceptions are provided per Article 5, these exceptions are mandatory for each member state. These exceptions allow for “Temporary acts of reproduction referred to in Article 2, which are transient or incidental and an integral and essential part of a technological process and whose sole purpose is to enable:
a transmission in a network between third parties by an intermediary”. These Laws protect both Internet Service providers and similar intermediaries who simply relay traffic.


The notification you received is certainly not proof of any copyright infringement; a notice claiming infringement is not the same as a determination of infringement. I have not infringed any copyrights and do not intend to do so. Therefore, you should continue to be protected under the EUCD Article 5  without taking any further action.

You may be curious about what prompted the faulty notice. It was likely triggered by a program I run called Tor. Tor is a software that helps users to enhance their privacy, security, and safety online. It does not host any content. Rather, it is part of a network of nodes called Relays that operate on the Internet and simply pass packets among themselves before sending them to their destinations, just as any Internet intermediary does. The difference is that Tor tunnels the connections such that no hop can learn both the source and destination of the packets, giving users protection from nefarious snooping on network traffic. The result is that, unlike most other Internet traffic, the final IP address that the recipient receives is not the IP address of the sender. Tor protects users against hazards such as harassment, spam, and identity theft. The Tor software is developed by the Tor foundation a non for profit organization, and run by community Relay operators. I hope, as an organization committed to protecting the privacy of its customers, you'll agree that this is a valuable technology.

Thank you for working with me on this matter. As a loyal subscriber, I appreciate your notifying me of this issue and hope that the protections of the EUCD put any concerns you may have to rest. If not, please contact me with any further questions.

Very truly yours,
Your customer, [User]