Help! I Got a DMCA Notice! Now What?

It would be bad enough to wake up one morning and discover someone had stolen some of your online content and published it on their own site without your permission. But what if you were the one doing the stealing? Or at least, being accused of stealing? What then?

If you ever receive a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) Notice, dealing with it promptly and calmly is the only way to keep the situation from getting worse.

What is a DMCA Notice?

The DMCA was signed into law in 1998 as an addendum to United States copyright law, specifically to protect online content copyright. A DMCA notice can be issued by anyone who believes their content has been stolen, and their copyright violated.

So what do you do if you receive one?

Don’t Panic

Yes, a DMCA notice is essentially an accusation of theft, but no one is going to show up at your door with handcuffs, so just take a deep breath and remain calm. Then ask yourself a question:

Did you steal someone’s content?

If the answer is yes, comply with the DMCA notice immediately, and then take it as a lesson you should have already known—stealing is wrong, and you shouldn’t do it.

With the way the Internet works, and with as many tools as are available for people to monitor their content and be alerted if it appears anywhere but on their own site, stealing content is just a DMCA notice waiting to happen. You will eventually get caught. So just do everyone, especially yourself, a favor and create your own content.

Remove the Content

Now let’s give the benefit of the doubt, and assume that you didn’t mean to steal someone else’s content. Maybe you didn’t know it was copyrighted, or you didn’t understand how copyright works. Maybe you mistakenly thought the content was available for republication and sharing. Maybe someone gave you permission to republish, but you didn’t realize the person who gave you that permission wasn’t actually the original creator of that content, and permission wasn’t theirs to give.

Or maybe, just maybe, someone is pulling a fast one and claiming ownership to content that isn’t really theirs. If a few years spent on the Internet has taught you anything, it should be to take everything you see there with a grain of salt until you can confirm its veracity through authoritative means.

Even if it was an accident, that won’t matter until the situation can be resolved, and until that happens, you need to remove the content. Immediately.

Yes, even if you believe you didn’t steal it, you must remove it. Until you can confirm ownership and get the situation settled, removing the content in question will protect you from any further action from either the person claiming to own the content, or from your Internet Service Provider (ISP).

Confirm Ownership

If you receive a DMCA notice, and you really don’t believe you stole content, try to confirm ownership of the content in question.

It’s highly likely that anyone who issues a DMCA notice to you will also issue that notice to your ISP. Upon receiving that notice, your ISP is required by law to notify you that they’ve received it, and to provide you with a copy of it. The notice should contain some important information:

• contact information for the complainant
• information about the works in question
• information about the original works

If you find the information about the original content is accurate, and it really was published elsewhere before you put it on your site, you’ve already removed the content so all that’s left is to notify your ISP that it has been removed to avoid having your service suspended.

Some ISPs may go so far as to suspend service upon receipt of a DMCA notice, and before they provide you with a copy of it. If this happens, the same procedure applies—remove the content, and then notify the ISP of its removal in order to have your service reinstated.

Contact the Complainant

If the DMCA notice is wrong—and it does happen from time to time—and you either posted the content without realizing it was copyrighted, or the content really is yours, you can try contacting the complainant and explaining the situation. It may truly just be a misunderstanding, and the complainant has the ability to retract the DMCA notice.

Issue a Counter-Notice

However, if the complainant responds badly, or if it seems it won’t be possible to work things out reasonably, you have the ability to file a counter-notice. In order to be valid, the counter-notice must:

• be written.
• contain your signature.
• identify the content you removed, and where it appeared before removal.
• contain a statement of good faith, made under penatly of perjury, that you believe the content in question was published and/or removed as the result of an error or misunderstanding.
• contain your contact information, including your name, address, phone number.
• include a statement that you consent to the jurisdiction of the Federal District Court for your judicial district.

Upon receiving your counter-notice, the complainant then has two options—retract their notice, or file a copyright lawsuit. Hope for the first option, but be prepared for the second. The possibility of a lawsuit is all the more reason to make sure you have all your ducks in a row before you file a counter-notice. Try to confirm content ownership on your own first. Issuing a counter-notice out of anger or spite may just lead you to even more trouble, not to mention legal fees.

Get Legal Help

If the situation is particularly sticky, though, or you just don’t feel comfortable tackling it yourself, you may want to consider contacting a copyright lawyer and letting them handle it for you.

It shouldn’t bear repeating, but it does—don’t steal content. Write your own. If you can’t or don’t want to write your own, hire a copywriter. If you can’t or don’t want to hire a copywriter, then consider another line of work because stealing other people’s content for your website is not a sustainable business model. And did we mention it’s just wrong?

But if you’re innocent and you receive a DMCA notice, just know that you have recourse, and that while it may be uncomfortable or frustrating to get it all sorted out, you eventually will, and then can go back to the business of creating original, quality content, and helping to make the Internet a better, more informative—and more honest—place.