Handsome Logic

Introduction: D-M-What?

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, or DMCA (view pdf), is a US Copyright law that protects against and outlines the penalties for copyright infringement on the Internet.

The DMCA provides you, as a webmaster or other content publisher, with a means to take action against anyone republishing your copyrighted content without permission or infringing upon your copyright(s) in any other way online. Protected content is not just limited to the text on your site. Multimedia content, if published under your copyright, is also protected.

I have personally served many DMCA notifications without ever involving a lawyer (either my own or a client’s). However, if you have a lawyer it never hurts to copy them on all DMCA-related correspondence just to show the recipient you mean business.

How Do I File a DMCA Complaint?

Whoa chief, not so fast. Understand that web hosts don’t like to be told that, under law, they have to disable access to their paying customers’ content. However, according to the DMCA…

Under the knowledge standard, a service provider is eligible for the limitation
on liability only if it does not have actual knowledge of the infringement, is not aware of facts or circumstances from which infringing activity is apparent, or upon gaining such knowledge or awareness, responds expeditiously to take the material down or block access to it.

Translation: Once you notify the provider that they are hosting content that infringes on your copyright, they potentially become liable. I say “potentially” because, in this basic guide, we’re not going to get into things like counter-notifications.
Some legal departments will request contact information for the party you’re filing the complaint against. So, your first step should always be to contact the offending party yourself and ask that they fix the situation.

If no contact info is available or if the offender isn’t cooperative, lock and load!

Step 1: Identify Your Target

Gather the URLs of all copied material on the offending site, or as many of the URLs as you feasibly can. In past situations, 1-2 examples coupled with a statement that the offending webmaster was responsible for removing all further infringing content has been enough for me to get entire hosting accounts suspended.

To find text that has been copied, try using a tool like Copyscape.

Also make sure you have gathered as much information as possible about the offending site — most importantly, their webhost (via Whois Lookup). In the event that their webhost is hidden by a DNS provider (like DNS Made Easy), then that provider should be the first recipient of your DMCA.

Once you determine who is hosting the infringing content, visit their site and look for “Legal”, “Abuse” or “Contact” links. If there is no contact information published for the legal/abuse department(s), call and ask who you would direct such correspondence to. Get as much info as possible (Name, E-mail, Fax, Telephone number, etc.)

Step 2: Identify Yourself

Make note of where on your site your copyright policy is stated, because you’ll want/need to include that in your notification. All copyright infringement notifications require you to include certain statements, such as…

I have a good faith belief that use of the copyrighted materials described above as allegedly infringing is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law.

and…

I swear, under penalty of perjury, that the information in the notification is accurate and that I am the copyright owner or am authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.

Step 3: Lock and Load

Now that you have gathered the required information, plug it into your DMCA Notification.

You can download a free sample DMCA template in MS Word (.doc) or Adobe PDF format and use that to speed the process along. Be sure to comb the language of the completed document and the DMCA itself before submitting, though. It helps to know the law in case a less-than-cooperative webhost tries to convince you it’s not their problem. Trust me, it happens.

Your document must be signed, either with your digital signature or by printing, signing, and then faxing or scanning the document.

Step 4: Fire When Ready!

Now that you have your completed, signed DMCA Notification, send it (perhaps along with a brief cover letter) to the target(s) identified in Step 1. Detail your previous attempts to resolve the situation, and explain that a collaborative effort between you and the offending webmaster will no longer be accepted as a viable solution.

Do not expect them to follow up with you, either. As mentioned earlier, hosts do not like being told that they are being legally forced to take action against their paying customers. Be aggressive and persistent, but not obnoxious. Do not listen to stories about how “the customer said they’d take it down when they get back from vacation”. Remember that it is your rights that have been violated and that it is their responsibility to fix it. If they drag their feet, mention to them that the language of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act specifically states that service providers must respond expeditiously to take the material down or block access to it.

The Aftermath

Hopefully within a few days of serving your DMCA Notification, you will have a satisfactory result. In some cases, legal action may be required, though I have never found it necessary.

The last DMCA I served was to the host of a site that had republished a number of a client’s photos without permission and then attempted to stonewall me when I contacted them about it. The result was a termination of their entire account with that host.

The best part was that all 18 of this multi-million dollar company’s sites were on the same account, and all came crashing down because of a few copied photos on one site.

Serving DMCA’s to Search Engines

If you want the pages on the offending site removed from the results pages of the search engines, you must contact each search engine individually. In addition to the information gathered above, be prepared to present the following information:

• The keywords or search terms that trigger the display of the offending page in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERP’s)
• The URL(s) of the SERP(s) that display the offending content

How Do I Send a DMCA to a Search Engine?

Below are the contact details and some brief instructions for the big search engines. For smaller SE’s, look for complaint/abuse/legal/copyright pages on the engine’s homepage.

Google DMCA Info

Google has a page regarding their copyright infringement policies and procedures located here.

Your complaints can be sent by email to removals@google.com, or in writing via snail-mail to:

Google, Inc.
Attn: Google Legal Support, DMCA Complaints
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View, CA 94043

…or, you can fax the documents to

(650) 963-3255

Attn: Google Legal Support, DMCA Complaints

Yahoo DMCA Info

Yahoo’s DMCA policies and procedures page can be found here.

Although submittal of a written request may still be necessary, you can contact them by phone at…

Yahoo Copyright Dept. Telephone Number: (408) 349-5080

Complaint and notification documents can be emailed to copyright@yahoo-inc.com, though it should be noted that this email box does not accept attachments.

If you would prefer to snail-mail your documents send them to:

Copyright Agent
c/o Yahoo! Inc.
701 First Avenue
Sunnyvale, CA 94089

…or fax them to

Yahoo Copyright Dept. Fax Number: (408) 349-7821

Ask.com DMCA Info

Ask.com has both a page detailing their copyright policies, and a web form for submitting complaints and notifications.

You can also mail your documents to Ask.com at…

IAC Search & Media
Attention: General Counsel
555 12th Street, Suite 500
Oakland, CA 94607

Microsoft (MSN, Live.com) DMCA Info

The Microsoft DMCA page provides information on their copyright infringement policies, but there is no web form given. Your DMCA documents must be sent to:

Microsoft Corporation/The Microsoft Network
Attn: J.K. Weston
One Microsoft Way
Redmond, WA 98052

Telephone: (425) 703-5529
Fax: (425) 936-7329
Email: jkweston@microsoft.com

AOL DMCA Info

If you need to submit copyright infringement notification to AOL, you can first view their copyright infringement policy page, and then submit your info via web contact form.

If you would prefer to send your documents by mail, they should be addressed to…

Dawn Palmer
Senior IP Counsel
AOL LLC
22000 AOL Way
Dulles, VA 20166

You may also contact them by calling…

AOL DMCA Telephone Number: (703) 265-0094

And thus concludes the SEO Guide to DMCA Warfare. As mentioned earlier, issues of counter-notifications or liability exemptions are not covered… perhaps in another post. Or, leave any questions you may have in the comments below.