Vimeo teams up with Chilling Effects to publicly track copyright complaints

Video sharing site Vimeo is getting more transparent about copyright complaints today with a new partnership.

The company has joined the Chilling Effects Clearinghouse project, which publicly tracks U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) requests and other cease and desist letters pertaining specifically to online content, it announced this morning in a blog post on its site. Already, Vimeo has logged its first DMCA take down notice with Chilling Effects.

Vimeo’s moderation manager, Sean McGilvray, noted in the blog post that participation in Chilling Effects is not an effort to shame those who have filed takedown requests — valid or invalid. Rather he sees it as an opportunity for education on copyright laws.

“We’re sharing redacted notices to help shed a little more light on a process that can sometimes be opaque and confusing — to both users and copyright holders,” he said.

What’s more, Vimeo won’t be sharing contact information for the people who file complaints.

Chilling Effects was brought to life with the help of law clinics at Harvard, Berkeley, Stanford, University of San Francisco, University of Maine, George Washington School of Law, Santa Clara University School of Law, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Vimeo joins Google and Twitter in taking part in the project.