The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, or DMCA, is a legal act developed by the U.S. government to regulate the use of the content on the Internet.
If you think that we will proceed with its “legalese” language citing its provisions, then you should read further to understand how you can take down your opponent’s website or a clone of your own website.
As you may know, the biggest IT companies providing services on the Internet, such as Google and Apple, are incorporated and have their headquarters in the U.S. The same can be said for domain name registrars like GoDaddy and hosting providers like Cloudflare.
In the meantime, as you may understand, the Internet is borderless. Thus, any web source acting as a so-called intermediary between end users and content providers generally operates worldwide, including the USA.
Consequently, these platforms must adhere to DMCA provisions, even if they are incorporated in Australia, Africa, Europe or Asia, forcing everyone using their services to avoid violating these provisions. If a respective infringement takes place and is reported to them, the platforms are obliged to intervene and take the reported website down or remove it from their search results.
Let’s start from the very beginning. To operate a website, you must register a domain name and make it accessible to Internet users. Thus, the first step in your journey will be to find a domain name registrar for the website you want to take down. For this purpose, you may use a Lookup search provided by ICANN or the Whois database provided by GoDaddy, to name a few.
Next, you need to find the hosting provider of the infringing website. There are plenty of online solutions created for this aim, such as Hostingchecker.
If the registrar and/or hosting provider of the infringing domain name can be identified, you should visit their websites and find the internal forms to “report abuse” or email addresses for the same purpose. It is commonly formatted as abuse@theirtradename.
Additionally, you have the option of removing the infringing website and its content from lists on search engines, including Google, Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, etc. Nearly all of them have interactive forms for users to submit respective complaints, while some provide specific email addresses where the letters about copyright infringements should be sent.
Please pay attention to the detailed information about the requirements for your complaint to be accepted if you must submit it via email. Specifically, it must contain the following:
- your name, contact details, and electronic signature;
- identification of the infringing materials, including their URL(s), which may be specified by visual demonstration;
- sufficient information to identify the copyrighted works, including their URL(s), which may be specified by visual demonstration;
- a statement that you, as the complaining party, “have a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law,” which you may cite;
- a statement that you, as a complaining party, “confirm that the information in the notification is accurate, and under penalty of perjury, that the Complaining Party is authorized to act on behalf of the copyright owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly being infringed,” which you may cite.
You may also add the contact information of the infringing party if you have it.
Difficult? For better understanding, use this link to take a look at and, if suitable, utilize the template of one of the possible ways to submit a copyright infringement complaint under the DMCA via the email. However, remember that it is better to send your complaint from an email address created specifically for this purpose that reflects the name of the complainant.
Now, after you have submitted your complaint, please wait. It is likely that it will be accepted and the website will be taken down or removed. If not, you will typically receive a response letter from the respective platform explaining the reason for rejection. Even if you do not receive any response with clarifications, you will need to submit a claim again, adjusting your arguments to make them as strong as possible.
As you can see, submitting a complaint about a copyright infringement that interferes with your business affairs can be quite a straightforward procedure. However, the challenging part is choosing the right words to assure a platform (registrar or hosting provider) that the infringement has indeed occurred and that they must react. Therefore, if this is not an identical or almost identical clone of a website, the complaint may be rejected several times or may take several days to process, as there is NO precise timeframe defined in the DMCA regarding this matter. It should simply be handled “expeditiously”.
Alternatively, you may contact us and entrust this matter to legal professionals who will regularly submit complaints against content that infringes not only your copyrights but also other intellectual property rights belonging to you. We will monitor and manage this matter using various approaches on a case-by-case basis, saving you time and providing you with the respective results.
