Digital Millennium Copyright Act
It is our policy to respond to clear notices of alleged infringement. This page describes the information that should be present in these notices. It is designed to make submitting notices of alleged infringement to us as straightforward as possible while reducing the number of notices that we receive that are fraudulent or difficult to understand or verify. The information specified below is consistent with the form suggested by the United States Digital Millennium Copyright Act (the text of which can be found at the U.S. Copyright Office Web Site, http://www.copyright.gov) but we will respond to notices of this form from other jurisdictions as well.
Host Capitol requires DMCA notices to be filed via email. The complaint must include full contact information in the complaint (including phone number). We will call and verify. If we have received what appears to be a possible DMCA complaint, but one or more of the following are missing: (a) the complaint does not contain sufficient information (b) the format of the complaint is inconsistent with the requirements of the DMCA (c) the complaint has been submitted without proper authentication (d) full contact information is missing. We will need you to re-submit your claim, using the proper format, including sufficient details. Instructions on how to do so are listed below.
To file a notice of infringement with us, you must provide a written communication that sets forth the items specified below. Please note that you will be liable for damages (including costs and attorneys’? fees) if you materially misrepresent that a product or activity is infringing your copyrights. Accordingly, if you are not sure whether material available online infringes your copyright, we suggest that you first contact an attorney.
Regardless of whether we may be liable for such infringement under local country law or United States law, we may respond to these notices by removing or disabling access to material claimed to infringe and/or terminating users of our services. If we remove or disable access in response to such a notice, we will make a good-faith attempt to contact the owner or administrator of the affected site or content so that the owner or administrator may make a counter notification.
We may also document notices of alleged infringement on which we act. As with all legal notices, a copy of the notice may be made available to the public and sent to one or more third parties who may make it available to the public.
In order to ensure that copyright owners do not wrongly insist on the removal of materials that actually do not infringe their copyrights, the safe harbor provisions require service providers to notify the subscribers if their materials have been removed and to provide them with an opportunity to send a written notice to the service provider stating that the material has been wrongly removed. [512(g)]
If a subscriber provides a proper “counter-notice”? claiming that the material does not infringe copyrights, the service provider must then promptly notify the claiming party of the individual’s objection. [512(g)(2)] If the copyright owner does not bring a lawsuit in district court within 14 days, the service provider is then required to restore the material to its location on its network. [512(g)(2)(C)]
If it is determined that the copyright holder misrepresented its claim regarding the infringing material, the copyright holder then becomes liable to the OSP for any damages that resulted from the improper removal of the material. [512(f)]