White paper on notice and take-down

The RightsWatch Project, a research project funded under the European
Commission’s Information Society Technology programme, produced a white
paper on notice and take-down of websites.

During a 2 year project RightsWatch tried to develop consensus between
providers, right holders and internet users about self-regulatory notice
and takedown (NTD) procedures. The attempts miserably failed, since
self-regulation requires at least some willingness to achieve consensus.
While right holders insisted on immediate take-down after any
(unsubstantiated) complaint, internet users objected against private
censorship by internet providers and internet providers dreaded their
position in the middle. European commission and parliament refused to
solve this problem in the directive on electronic commerce (2000/31/EC),
leaving it up to market forces to guarantee freedom of speech online, in
stead of referring these complex issues to independent courts.

White Paper (October 2003)
http://www.rightswatch.com