Media Streaming Website DMCA Violation

I own a website (domain and hosting service are both under my name) that I was told was going to be used for streaming video games live to visitors, but I just received an email recently informing me that there have been movies streaming on the site - Disney movies in particular. I don't publish any ads on the site and I make no profit of any kind from it and I don't even visit the site, but apparently the users have been distributing Disney movies via live stream. I alerted the users of the site and they gave me their word that they would discontinue these movie streams immediately and go back to video games only - which I know is legal, but now I just want to wash my hands of the matter. I would like to transfer ownership of the domain to one of the users in particular who is a friend of mine, but the problem is that the law firm who contacted me asked me to shut down the site in the next 7 days. If I transfer the domain ownership to my friend right now and he doesn't shut down the site, is there any chance of me getting into legal trouble? On the off-chance that they don't discontinue streaming movies, is there any way for me to get in trouble even though I transferred ownership to someone else?

Thanks

You are stating that you chose not to remove the pirated content as instructed by Disney's lawyers, and instead made your users promise to stop distributing pirated content through your site?

I can't read the letter from where I'm sitting, and you haven't let us know if this is the first contact from Disney. Such a letter would normally first instruct you to remove all pirated material from your servers. Why would they want you to shut down the site, including any lawful streaming you perform? We would have no way of knowing.

Whether they would believe that you truly gave away the site to a friend, rather than simply nominally transferring the domain and pretending there was a change of ownership, should they decide to take further action? That again would be something we have no way of knowing.

What we do know is that when you mess with companies like Disney and Microsoft, you're playing with fire.

That's the thing, there is no pirated content on my servers. There is a page with a live stream player embedded on it, and the player only shows what a user is currently broadcasting at the time. It is completely run by the users and what they broadcast is out of my control. What I need to know - if I just hand off ownership to one of those users instead of shutting down the site, I can't still get in trouble for anything the users have done or will do right?

And sure they can think I'm lying but don't they have to investigate and prove that in order to take legal action against me

For information on a recent federal court ruling on streaming services, read this. You can evaluate for yourself how well your enterprise lines up with Vimeo, and whether you want to try to litigate the issue in court should Disney take you there. You haven't told us if you've registered to even be eligible for safe harbor protections.

As Mr. K is telling you, YOU are responsible for what is streaming from your site. It doesn't matter that you just open the site up to allow other infringers to use it. The OCILLA provisions of the DMCA provide the safe harbor for sites like yours. Slapping the wrists of the infringing customers isn't sufficient to protect you. Google the abbreviations above and come back if you have further questions (rather than arguments).

To take advantage of the safe harbor provisions, you must register a designated agent. Read this.

Quote:

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Quoting 17 U.S. Code § 512(c)(2)

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The limitations on liability established in this subsection apply to a service provider only if the service provider has designated an agent to receive notifications of claimed infringement described in paragraph (3), by making available through its service, including on its website in a location accessible to the public, and by providing to the Copyright Office, substantially the following information:....

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