Creative Commons DMCA Notice & Takedown Procedure

Creative Commons DMCA Notice & Takedown Procedure

Creative Commons abides by the federal Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) by responding to notices of alleged infringement that comply with the DMCA and other applicable laws. As part of our response, we may remove or disable access to material residing on a site that is controlled or operated by Creative Commons (such as creativecommons.org or sciencecommons.org) that is claimed to be infringing, in which case we will make a good-faith attempt to contact the person who submitted the affected material so that they may make a counter notification, also in accordance with the DMCA.

Creative Commons does not control content hosted on third party websites, and cannot remove content from sites it does not own or control. If you are the copyright owner of content hosted on a third party site, and you have not authorized the use of your content, please contact the administrator of that website directly to have the content removed.

Before serving either a Notice of Infringing Material or Counter-Notification, you may wish to contact a lawyer to better understand your rights and obligations under the DMCA and other applicable laws. The following notice requirements are intended to comply with Creative Commons’ rights and obligations under the DMCA and, in particular, section 512(c), and do not constitute legal advice.

Notice of Infringing Material

To file a notice of infringing material on a site owned or controlled by Creative Commons (such ascreativecommons.org or sciencecommons.org), please provide a notification containing the following details:

  1. Reasonably sufficient details to enable us to identify the work claimed to be infringed or, if multiple works are claimed to be infringed, a representative list of such works (for example: title, author, any registration or tracking number, URL);
  2. Reasonably sufficient detail to enable us to identify and locate the material that is claimed to be infringing (for example a link to the page that contains the material);
  3. Your contact information so that we can contact you (for example, your address, telephone number, email address);
  4. A statement that you have a good faith belief that the use of the material identified in (2) is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law;
  5. A statement, under penalty of perjury, that the information in the notification is accurate and that you are authorized to act on behalf of the owner of the exclusive right that is alleged to be infringed.
  6. Your physical or electronic signature.

Then send this notice to:

By Mail:

DMCA Agent: Diane Peters
P.O. Box 1866
Mountain View, CA 94042

By Email:

Email: dmca@creativecommons.org

Counter-Notification

If material that you have posted to a site controlled or operated by Creative Commons (such as creativecommons.org, sciencecommons.org) has been taken down, you may file a counter-notification that contains the following details:

  1. Identification of the material that has been removed or to which access has been disabled and the location at which the material appeared before it was removed or disabled;
  2. A statement, under penalty of perjury, that you have a good faith belief that the material was removed or disabled as a result of mistake or misidentification of the material in question;
  3. Your name, address and telephone number;
  4. A statement that you consent to the jurisdiction of the Federal District Court for judicial district in which your address is located or, if your address is outside of the USA, for any judicial district in which Creative Commons may be found and that you will accept service of process from the person who submitted a notice in compliance with the section (c)(1)(C) of the DMCA, as generally described above;
  5. Your physical or electronic signature.

Then send this notice to:

By Mail:

DMCA Agent: Diane Peters
P.O. Box 1866
Mountain View, CA 94042

Email: dmca@creativecommons.org

You may be able to find examples of counter-notifications at www.chillingeffects.org/dmca/counter512.pdf. Please note, however, that this is no substitute for legal advice and you should obtain legal advice to better understand your rights and obligations under the DMCA and applicable laws.