Service provider

DMCA
Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA"), to qualify for immunity under the safe harbor provisions, a party must first meet the statutory definition of a service provider. The DMCA provides two distinct definitions, one applicable to the first safe harbor and the second applicable to all of the other safe harbors.

Under §512(a), the transitory communications provision, “service provider” is narrowly defined as “an entity offering the transmission, routing, or providing of connections for digital online communications, between or among points specified by a user, of material of the user’s choosing, without modification to the content of the material as sent or received.”

The remaining three subsections utilize a broader definition of “service provider,” applicable to “a provider of online services or network access, or the operator of facilities therefor.” For example, this definition encompasses providers offering “Internet access, e-mail, chat room and web page hosting services."

General
In general, there are many situations in which an entity will be referred to as a service provider, including:


 * Application service provider
 * Internet service provider
 * Network service provider
 * Online service provider