In response to the conventional requirement of protecting the right of communication to the public and the widespread online copyright piracy, copyright laws and policies among different jurisdictions extend infringing liability to internet service providers (ISPs) which induce or facilitate their subscribers’ infringing activities. Although safe harbor has been developed from judicial practices and been incorporated into legislations, proceedings such as notice and takedown, subpoena procedure and the graduated response policy would still suffocate information dissemination and infringe individual privacy. This paper intends to provide proposals for setting up certainty of ISP liability and alleviating current tendency to aggravate ISP liability in general, and recommend suggestions for China’s digital copyright reform on ISP liability by reviewing and analyzing existing copyright systems regarding ISP liability among different jurisdictions. The second part will examine the definition of ISP and the importance of establishing certainty and predictability of indirect liability. The third part will analyze the safe harbor rule and contributory and vicarious liability developed through American court judgments, as well as the authorization and joint tortfeasor liability developed from cases in Commonwealth jurisdictions. The fourth part will examine the statutory requirements regarding ISP liability and its limitation. The statutes reviewed in this part will be mainly from the United States, China, and Hong Kong, as the combination of statutory regulations in these jurisdictions represents a relatively complete regime for ISP liability. The fifth part will examine the “graduated response” policy, the new development on aggravating ISP liability through adding new conditions for safe harbor in some jurisdictions such as France. The sixth part will suggest proposals for adjusting current digital copyright laws on ISP liability in general and China’s digital copyright reform in particular so as to balance the interests among copyright owners, intermediaries such as ISPs and internet users and establish certainty for ISP liability.