How to Protect Your Copyright with DMCA

One of the ways of having happiness in your online life is to know how to deal with people copying your work and using it without your permission. If you post a lot of things online, one day people will start noticing and start using your own without your permission.

Such events of other people copying and using your online work, without your permission, can make you upset or even affect your daily life. This is specially true if you do a lot of online things, like blogging, posting to Flickr, and so on.

There is an easy way to take care of such things, so that you can continue being more optimal. Simply file a DMCA notice with the company that hosts your work without your permission. This will allow you to try and protect your copyright.

You send a DMCA Notice, often called a Copyright Notice or Copyright Violations Notice, to the hosts of the websites where your work is being used or shown without your permission.

This will also allow you to simply keep doing what you want to do, without having to pause your focus or passion of writing online.

Let’s go through DMCA a little bit to help you get your DMCA skills up to date. Some real DMCA letters are also included below, that you are allowed to use for your own DMCA pursuits.

Jump to: What is DMCA? | Godaddy DMCA | HostMonster DMCA | Limestone Networks DMCA | Host Ignoring Your DMCA Notice? | Person Copying Your Work Replies Back with Non-Compliance? | Protect Copyright without Stress | Are You Protecting Your Copyright?

What is a DMCA Notice?

A DMCA notice, or a Digital Millennium Copyright Act notice, is basically a way of telling someone that your rights, under the DMCA, are being violated because someone used or shared your copyrighted work without your permission.

You can learn more about the DMCA and its controversial nature via the Wikipedia entry on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Even though DMCA is considered a very weak and ineffective law that many big companies actually use to stop people from talking about those companies, DMCA is your only real big legal bet against people who share your online work without your permission.

Since DMCA is a law, you can cite it legally to claim protection for your work.

Today we are going to focus on how you can send DMCA notices to let website owners or the hosts hosting those websites know that your content has been shared or used without your permission.

Your intended goal for such notices is to have the website owners remove your content, or to have the hosts force such website owners to remove the content.

While it is very tempting to send something like the following:

Your sites at

http://gogetthemsugarbabes.info/?p=1656

http://sugar-daddy-relationship.info/?p=1636

copied my content, without my permission, from http://eyeography.com/2009/01/15/the-chair-relationship-part-1-the-waiting-room/.

Per the DMCA law, I’m notifying you of this copyright infringement and asking that you remove all such content.

Waiting for your reply. Sincerely,

Bes Zain

You should realize that hosts are very sensitive about DMCA notices, whether it is to ignore them or to act on them. The above letter, while accurately depicting what is happening and what you want, will not be as effective as sending a DMCA letter that actually follows some of the legal rules that the DMCA states should be kept in mind.

The more legal your correspondence is when telling someone to obey the law, the better it is. DMCA is a law, and not a personal preference. Therefore, whenever you’re using it to your own advantage, you should stick with the legal definitions and terms so that that the corresponding host knows that you’re to be taken seriously. When you want to protect your copyright, you have to make sure each step you take is fully legal and effective.

Yes, sending a longer email with more confusing words is against what I always recommend in life about simplicity. However, when you’re dealing with legal stuff, you are allowed to forget simplicity a little bit if going the longer route is more effective. You can make the longer route extremely simple, however, by using any of my real DMCA letters, which I sent to hosts, as your own DMCA template.

Let’s go through 3 different copyright violation situations I had to pursue in the last 3 months with 3 separate hosts. This will show you how you can do the same if you find out any website online using your work without your permission.

Jump to: What is DMCA? | Godaddy DMCA | HostMonster DMCA | Limestone Networks DMCA | Host Ignoring Your DMCA Notice? | Person Copying Your Work Replies Back with Non-Compliance? | Protect Copyright without Stress | Are You Protecting Your Copyright?

Godaddy and DMCA

Sending a DMCA notice to Godaddy is pretty easy. The Godaddy Trademark Terms page which outlines everything.

Skip reading that page, unless you like reading such stuff. Instead, send your DMCA notice to CopyrightClaims@godaddy.com or TrademarkClaims@godaddy.com, or both.

Godaddy response time on DMCA Copyright Notice emails is also very fast. I got an actual human response from them within 24 hours.

Story: I recently had someone scrapping off my photos and content from my Eyeography website.

Godaddy was fast in reacting to my emails and disabling the websites of such webmasters. While it’s scary to wonder whether Godaddy actually looked at my complaint first, checked the links and then disabled the copycat website OR if Godaddy simply disabled the website automatically, it was still good for me in this case because the sites, which were copying my content, were down within 48 hours of my first DMCA notice.

I sent the following email to Godaddy. You will notice all the legal language in the letter. Feel free to use this email or letter template yourself by changing my information below to your info.

To whom it may concern:

As required under Sections 512(c)(3) and 512(d)(3) of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (17 U.S.C. §§ 512(c)(3) and 512(d)(3)), I hereby give notification of possible copyright infringement.

1. The original copyrighted material is listed at the URL(s) below:

http://eyeography.com/2009/01/15/the-chair-relationship-part-1-the-waiting-room/

2. The following URL(s) are infringing upon this copyright:

http://gogetthemsugarbabes.info/?p=1656

http://sugar-daddy-relationship.info/?p=1636

Additional Information:

I [Zain] created, wrote and published the article myself on my site Eyeography on January 15th, 2009. The infringing 3rd party scrapped, copied it and used my copyrighted work and image without permission on their site on November 11th, 2011.

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. 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.

Please expeditiously remove or disable all access to the infringing material listed above. Should you require any further information regarding this matter, please contact me at the address, telephone number or email address indicated below:

Digitally Signed,
Bes Zain

Bes Zain
PHYSICAL ADDRESS GOES HERE

PHONE NUMBER GOES HERE
EMAIL ADDRESS GOES HERE

You can see there is a lot of words being used which are not necessary. Long legal labyrinth, though it works.

In the end, you have to use legal forms of such DMCA in order to get results, or to take further action. The above template should help you copy paste anything you want anytime someone copies and uses your work without your permission.

I sent 3 separate DMCA notices to Godaddy in a month regarding over 20 different websites.

In the end, Godaddy shut down each and every one of the websites I had told them about in each email.

Jump to: What is DMCA? | Godaddy DMCA | HostMonster DMCA | Limestone Networks DMCA | Host Ignoring Your DMCA Notice? | Person Copying Your Work Replies Back with Non-Compliance? | Protect Copyright without Stress | Are You Protecting Your Copyright?

HostMonster and DMCA

HostMonster also seems to be fast in taking care of DMCA notices. Again, I’m not sure if HostMonster actually verifies that there has been a DMCA violation or not. They do take action fast, which is good.

The very long HostMonster Terms of Service has the Copyright violations section explained in there. Again, no need to read it unless you want to be extra sure.

Send your DMCA notice to legal@hostmonster.com and you’ll receive a reply within 48 hours.

Here is the actual DMCA notice I sent to HostMonster, minus my contact info. Again, feel free to change my information below to yours.

You’ll notice that it is almost a copy paste of my Godaddy DMCA notice. That’s right: be efficient in your DMCA emails also. Have one template ready, fill in the info, and send that email, all within 2 minutes.

Such templates are what enable you to apply simplification to the DMCA process.

To whom it may concern:

As required under Sections 512(c)(3) and 512(d)(3) of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (17 U.S.C. §§ 512(c)(3) and 512(d)(3)), I hereby give notification of possible copyright infringement.

1. The original copyrighted material is listed at the URL(s) below:

http://thereasoner.com/articles/5-signs-of-narrow-minded-selfish-friends-that-can-hurt-you

2. The following URL(s) are infringing upon this copyright:

http://www.repostpost.com/2012/01/14/warning-signs-of-selfish-people/

Additional Information:

I [Zain] created, wrote and published the article myself on my site The Reasoner on August 14th, 2007. The infringing 3rd party scrapped, copied it and used my copyrighted work without permission on their site on January 14th, 2012.

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. 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.

Please expeditiously remove or disable all access to the infringing material listed above. Should you require any further information regarding this matter, please contact me at the address, telephone number or email address indicated below:

Digitally Signed,
Bes Zain

Bes Zain
YOUR PHYSICAL ADDRESS

YOUR PHONE NUMBER
YOUR EMAIL

As simple as that. 5 days later, the plagiarized content was removed.

Jump to: What is DMCA? | Godaddy DMCA | HostMonster DMCA | Limestone Networks DMCA | Host Ignoring Your DMCA Notice? | Person Copying Your Work Replies Back with Non-Compliance? | Protect Copyright without Stress | Are You Protecting Your Copyright?

Limestone Networks and DMCA

Limestone Networks has ignored my DMCA notices completely.

Limestone Networks Terms of Service lists their DMCA policies. You should read this, since it actually lists the process Limestone Network says it goes through when going after their customers who plagiarize content.

Even though the entire terms of service are there to outline the DMCA policies, Limestone Networks has so far, in my experience, not taken any action on any such DMCA notices.

The Limestone Networks Abuse Report Form allows you to submit an online abuse form report. You can also send an email to abuse@limestonenetworks.com with your report.

Limestone Networks hasn’t taken action on my submitted DMCA Abuse Report or my DMCA email.

Following is the email I sent to Limestone Networks:

To whom it may concern:

As required under Sections 512(c)(3) and 512(d)(3) of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (17 U.S.C. §§ 512(c)(3) and 512(d)(3)), I hereby give notification of possible copyright infringement.

1. The original copyrighted material is listed at the URL(s) below:

2. The following URL(s) are infringing upon this copyright:

http://slodive.com/inspiration/pictures-of-hearts/

Additional Information:

I [Zain] took the copyrighted photograph on September 6th, 2004 and published the photograph myself on Flickr with All Rights Reserverd on September 30th, 2006. The infringing 3rd party scrapped, copied it and used my copyrighted work without permission on their site in January of this year, 2012.

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. 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.

Please expeditiously remove or disable all access to the infringing material listed above. Should you require any further information regarding this matter, please contact me at the address, telephone number or email address indicated below:

Digitally Signed,
Bes Zain

Bes Zain
YOUR PHYSICAL ADDRESS HERE

YOUR PHONE NUMBER HERE
YOUR EMAIL HERE

I got an automated reply, stating that my DMCA notice was received. I thought Limestone Networks would also take action quickly, just like Godaddy and HostMonster.

I was wrong. Here’s the automated reply:

Hello Bes Zain,

We have successfully received your abuse complaint regarding the IP/Hostname http://slodive.com.

Our Abuse department processes all requests sent using our online form or emailed to abuse@limestonenetworks.com . Please allow up to 48 hours for resolution and please understand that a personal reply to your complaint may only be sent if more information is necessary.

Thank you for your help in keeping the Internet clean,

Abuse Department

However, that was it: Limestone Networks has not contacted me at all after that. They also took no action from their part regarding my DMCA notice to them.

When a host ignores your DMCA notice completely, you can either go cry in a corner, forget the whole thing, stress out and try to take more action, or relax and try to take more action to protect your copyright.

I recommend relaxing and trying a few more things, while keeping in mind that you may not get the result you want at all without actual physical legal action.

Let’s go through some things you can do if a host ignores your DMCA notices, like in the case when Limestone Networks ignored my DMCA notices.

Jump to: What is DMCA? | Godaddy DMCA | HostMonster DMCA | Limestone Networks DMCA | Host Ignoring Your DMCA Notice? | Person Copying Your Work Replies Back with Non-Compliance? | Protect Copyright without Stress | Are You Protecting Your Copyright?

What to Do if a Host Ignores Your DMCA Notice?

There will be many times when a host will simply ignore your DMCA, or not take action. For example, Limestone Networks did not responded to my 2 DMCA notices at all, nor took any action on them.

So what would you do in such cases? Well, you have a few options then.

• Send a legal letter via mail to the company with a tracking number.

  Let the host know you mean business, and that you’re going to treat any response or non-response as something that can be brought up in court by you.

• Contact the offending party yourself. I recommend doing this only if the host does not take DMCA notices seriously.

  This worked for me. A week after Limestone Networks did not do anything about my DMCA noticed, I contacted the admin of the site directly.

  This is the exact email I sent that admin. I also CC’ed Limestone Networks abuse department, so that the person would know I was contacting their host also.

  Hello.

  I was notified that one of my Flickr images http://www.flickr.com/photos/besz/256788051 was used without permission on your site at

  http://slodive.com/inspiration/pictures-of-hearts/

  Could you please remove my copyrighted image from your site completely?

  Waiting for your reply. Thanks!

  It’s a very simple email, though it’s very clear about the “was used without permission on your site” part. Notice how when I’m contacting the person directly, I didn’t follow the DMCA protocols.

  You can go with the above personal template OR the DMCA notice. I went the personal route as I realized sending that simpler email directly to the person who copied my content would result in the person understanding the gravity of the situation faster and would not become too defensive.

  The admin actually replied to me within an hour, saying

  Hi Bes,

  Thank you for your email.

  We can taken down your image if you want, but for the fact we are not making users download directly from our site, neither we are hotlinking the images. We were just trying to get your artwork more exposure. Hope you understand. Looking forward to your reply. Thanks.

  –
  Cheers!
  Bhanu

  http://slodive.com/

  I was pleasantly surprised to get a reply, though bored to see yet another feeling of hesitancy in the person to double confirm that I really wanted the image removed. So I replied back

  Hi Bhanu,

  Thanks for the reply. Please take down my images completely from your site, thanks.

  Remember, there’s no point in being online if you get mad at the small or the big things unless you absolutely cannot avoid it. He replied back within the hour with:

  Hi Ben,

  Cool. Your image has been taken down, sorry for any trouble that might have been caused due to this. If anything, please let us know.

  I was Ben, all of a sudden. Then within a few minutes another email came in:

  Sorry for emailing again but I for to mention that it will take some time for cache to regenerate the new page. Please let me know in 12 hours if the image is still showing up and we will purge that page out of the cache. Thank for understanding. Good day.

  I checked, and my photograph was taken down from his site. He stopped using my photograph on his site.

  Awesome!

  So for me, when the host Limestone Networks ignored my direct DMCA email and my DMCA report filed through their website, I turned directly to the people who copied my work. They took it down once they found out, via my emails, that I knew about it and that I wanted them to stop.

• Contact search engines like Google to have the plagiarizing site removed from the search index and results.

  John in the comments below offered this excellent tip: if the host won’t help you, and the person who copied your content won’t stop, you can contact search engines like Google to have the plagiarizing websites removed from search indexes and results.

  This is, in my view, one of the best routes to take. In fact, you can take this route right in the beginning, even when you file the DMCA.

• Call the host’s phone number and ask for DMCA status info over the phone.

  Many hosts avoid talking about DMCA over the phone since the entire topic of DMCA is of a legal nature. However, it is worth noting to anyone from the host on the phone that you are following up on your DMCA and that you have not yet been replied to. Get things moving and have people looking into the situation.

  Companies are less likely to ignore phone call inquiries than email inquiries, since you’re going to have an actual person on the line who has to react to your questions on the spot.

• Contact the host directly and publicly via social media.

  Almost every modern web hosting company has a Twitter and a Facebook account. Interact with them via these networks publicly. Your comment or complaint, about your DMCA being ignored for example, can get removed or deleted via Facebook, but on something like Twitter, it will live on and gain attention. If a host is intentionally or unintentionally not reacting to your DMCA, posting it publicly for millions to see will get them to react.

  This route can create a lot of attention and defensive reaction from the host, so be careful when going this route. For example, I could have pointed out to my 13,000+ Twitter followers that @LimestoneInc hosting ignores DMCA requests. However, I went the more peaceful and relaxing route.

  Amazing how the person plagiarizing my work was more responsive to my communication than the company hosting that plagiarizer.

• Ask the world for help.

  Yes, this is the best thing to do if everything else doesn’t work. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and other places have millions of people reading everything that gets posted. Ask the social media world for help. Ask what others would do, ask if anyone knows a special email or contact info for a certain host, and so on. Chances are, you mentioning the very name of the host and the nature of your message will get either someone out there to offer some advice or the host itself to jump in to get things under control.

Jump to: What is DMCA? | Godaddy DMCA | HostMonster DMCA | Limestone Networks DMCA | Host Ignoring Your DMCA Notice? | Person Copying Your Work Replies Back with Non-Compliance? | Protect Copyright without Stress | Are You Protecting Your Copyright?

What to Do if the Person Copying Your Work Replies Back with a Non-Compliance Rebuttal?

Sometimes, the person who copies your work may reply back to you or their host to “disagree” with your DMCA notice.

When I filed the HostMonster DMCA, the person who copied my entire The Reasoner article actually replied back to me and their host with the following email:

According to this lawsuit http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowlny/reposting-aggregation-fair-use_b38173
I have not broken any laws. I did not copy the entire articale and I even direct my readers to finish reading the article on the originating site. How is it illegal for me to promote some that I found useful?

At first I wanted to react to it, letting them and the host know how the DMCA is an actual United States copyright law, and that the lawsuit is one small example of a case where the entire specifics of the case are not known. I also wanted to let HostMonster know that they have to tell me legally if they choose to ignore the DMCA request.

However, I decided not to react at all, which was the awesome thing to do. I ignored the email completely.

Within 5 days of my DMCA and 4 days of that email, the content was removed. Of course, this new text now appears in place of my original content on http://www.repostpost.com/2012/01/14/warning-signs-of-selfish-people/ :

Warning Signs of Selfish People
by ADMIN on JANUARY 14, 2012
in PSYCHOLOGY, RELATIONSHIPS
This articale has been removed at the copyright holders request

Laws such as the DMCRA are to broad and far reaching ristricting common “fair use” that has been a common practice. This articale was not published to deprive anyone of their rights but, because I found it useful and relevant to promote.

You won’t always be lucky if you ignore such replies. However, always try to work with the host first, and then reach out to the actual person who copied your work as a second step. After that, go through all the steps in the What to Do if a Host Ignores Your DMCA Notice? section above.

Jump to: What is DMCA? | Godaddy DMCA | HostMonster DMCA | Limestone Networks DMCA | Host Ignoring Your DMCA Notice? | Person Copying Your Work Replies Back with Non-Compliance? | Protect Copyright without Stress | Are You Protecting Your Copyright?

Protect Your Copyright without Stress

The above points and templates should give you a good idea of what DMCA is and how you can use it when someone copies and uses your work without your permission.

Make DMCA and copyright pursuits a pleasant experience for you. Avoid stressing out: it is so easy to right click on any image to save it, copy paste text, and use other people’s content online without permission. When your work gets copied, just relax and carry on with the above DMCA thoughts and procedures.

Have a plan and a single template ready. Customize that template for any DMCA notice you send out.

The entire point of the DMCA in my view should be like everything else in life: while you’re trying to get something done because of someone abusing you or your work, like getting some of your copied content removed, you don’t ruin your life by stressing over it.

Since there is something like the DMCA to help you protect your copyright, use it to your advantage and relax, instead of panicking and stressing out when someone copies your online work.

Jump to: What is DMCA? | Godaddy DMCA | HostMonster DMCA | Limestone Networks DMCA | Host Ignoring Your DMCA Notice? | Person Copying Your Work Replies Back with Non-Compliance? | Protect Copyright without Stress | Are You Protecting Your Copyright?

What do You Think of DMCA? How are You Protecting Your Copyright?

Have you ever had your work copied? Have you ever filed or dealt with the DMCA? Have you ever had an unfair DMCA filed against you? Who is your host, and what is their DMCA policy?

What do you think of Godaddy, HostMonster, and Limestone Networks based on their reaction to my DMCA notices?

Share your thoughts and ideas in the comments below.

If you’re reading this article anywhere other than in your feed reader with the Social Improve feeds or on the Social Improve website, chances are you are reading this content on a site which has copied the Social Improve article without permission. Let me know about it. I’ll take care of it then through a DMCA.

Thanks for reading!