How To Send a DMCA Takedown Notice
Full Question: How do I send a DMCA notice to get infringing material taken down from a site?
Answer: Your DMCA notice should:
- include your signature or the signature of a person authorized to act on your behalf (your “agent”) (the signature can be either physical or electronic);
- identify the copyrighted work that is being infringed;
- identify the activity that is infringing and information reasonably sufficient to permit the service provider to locate the infringing activity on its site;
- include your email address and any other information to allow the service provider to contact you or your agent directly;
- include a statement that your or your agent has a good faith belief that the activity is unauthorized; and
- include a statement that the information in the notice is accurate and, under penalty of perjury, that your agent is authorized to act on your behalf.
For more information, see Elements of a Proper DMCA Takedown Notice in the Copyright Law Explained section of this site.
You should send your notice to the service provider who is responsible for the site. To send the takedown notice you will need to determine which service provider is hosting the site that is infringing your copyright(s). Sometime this is easy. For example, when the material is a link contained in a Google search or an auction posting on eBay, the service provider is Google and eBay, respectively. However, sometimes identifying the website host can be difficult. When the identity of the host is not apparent from the site itself, the host can often be determined by doing what is called a Whois Search.
Many service providers offer easy-to-use online tools to submit claims directly to the service provider through an online DMCA takedown form. For those service providers who do not offer these online tools or whose tools are difficult to find on their site, information about who to send the DMCA takedown notice to can be found on the U.S. Copyright Office website. The Copyright Office has created a directory of designated agents where you can look up the service provider to determine to whom and where to send the takedown notice.