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There seems to be a lot of confusion on who LeaseWeb is and how we handle abuse.
Please let me explain who LeaseWeb is:
LeaseWeb is a hosting company specialized in selling self-managed dedicated servers. We have one of the best networks available globally, due to our seize and scale we can offer a superior product for a very competitive price.
LeaseWeb has operations in 3 countries: Netherlands (via LeaseWeb BV), Germany (via LeaseWeb Germany GmbH) and United States (via LeaseWeb USA Inc). These are 3 seperate (legal) entities, all 3 engage in the same market: self-managed dedicated hosting.
How we handle abuse:
For the US based servers (sold via LeaseWeb USA Inc) we strictly adhere to the DMCA procedure as this is the jurisdiction where the servers are located in. For the European operations we are bound by the EU' E-Commerce Directive (the legal environment for those operating companies in The Netherlands and Germany).
The DMCA is not a valid instrument in Europe so we -cannot- disconnect a client based on receipt of a DMCA notice and tell him to sent us a count-DMCA before we reconnect him. This is, legally, not an option for our NL based operations. Under the E-Commerce Directive LeaseWeb is -not- liable for any perceived copyright infringements as we are a 'mere conduit' (we have no control over the content). Under the E-Commerce Directive the website itself is where you have to request a take down. So if LeaseWeb were to do nothing, legally it would be off the hook.
Our Corporate Social Responsability however mandates we also take into account the burden this would put on rights holders, therefore we do contact and escalate complaints we receive to our clients. We request them to take down obvious infringing content we have received notifictions for, and as far as we can see they always comply.
So a statement 'LeaseWeb is not DMCA respecting hosting provider' is not only factually incorrect (we do respect the DMCA in the US) but also does imply we do not care about copyrights at all. That is a gross misrepresentation of the way we deal with infringement claims. We do have a strict policy on copyright, we do suspend customers who are unwilling to remove content on the request of rights holders.
@moeloubani we refer CP complaints to the Vice Unit of the KLPD (National Police), as they are the experts on what is CP and what is not. For employee protection we do not asses the pictures ourselves, the reply you received is the result of the assesment the Vice Unit made.
Alex de Joode
Security Officer @LeaseWeb
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