Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”)
The DMCA is a US copyright law which prohibits unauthorized access to a protected work by circumventing technological protection measures which are used to control access to that protected work.
It is our policy to respond to clear notices of alleged copyright infringement. This page describes the information that should be present in these notices. It is designed to make it as easy as possible to submit notices of alleged infringement to Google while reducing the number of notices that we receive that are fraudulent, difficult to understand or difficult to verify . The form of notice specified below is consistent with the form suggested by the United States Digital Millennium Copyright Act (the text of which can be found on the website of the U.S. Copyright Office, http://www.copyright.gov) but we will respond to notices of this form from other jurisdictions as well.
Regardless of whether we may be liable for such infringement under local country law or United States law, our response to these notices may include removing or disabling access to material claimed to be the subject of infringing activity and/or terminating subscribers. 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 he/she may make a counter notification. We may also document notices of alleged infringement upon which we act. Please note that in addition to being forwarded to the person who provided the allegedly infringing content, a copy of the legal notice may be sent to a third-party partner for publication and annotation. As such, your letter (with your personal information removed) may be forwarded to Chilling Effects (see further below).
Infringement Notification for Web Search and all other products
To file a notice of infringement with us, you must provide a written communication (by fax or regular mail and not by email, except by prior agreement) that sets forth the items specified below. Please note that you will be liable for damages (including costs and lawyers’ fees) if you materially misrepresent that a product or activity is infringing your copyrights. Indeed, in a recent case (please see http://www.onlinepolicy.org/action/legpolicy/opg_v_diebold/ for more information), a company that sent an infringement notification seeking removal of online materials that were protected by the fair use doctrine was ordered to pay such costs and lawyers’ fees. The company agreed to pay over $100,000. Accordingly, if you are not sure whether material available online infringes your copyright, we suggest that you first contact a lawyer.
To expedite our ability to process your request, please use the following format (including section numbers):
1. Identify in sufficient detail the copyrighted work that you believe has been infringed upon (for example, “The copyrighted work at issue is the text that appears at http://www.legal.co.uk/legal_page.html”) or other information sufficient to specify the copyrighted work being infringed (for example, “The copyrighted work at issue is “Touch Not This Cat” by Dudley Smith, published by Smith Publishing, ISBN #0123456789?).
2. Identify the material that you claim is infringing the copyrighted work listed in item No.1 above.
FOR WEB SEARCH, YOU MUST IDENTIFY EACH SEARCH RESULT THAT DIRECTLY LINKS TO A WEBPAGE THAT ALLEGEDLY CONTAINS INFRINGING MATERIAL. This requires you to provide (a) the search query that you used and (b) the URL for each allegedly infringing search result.
For example, suppose (hypothetically) that you conducted a search on google.co.uk using the query “google”, and found that the third and fourth results directly link to a webpage that you believe infringes the copyrighted text you identified in item No.1 above. In this case, you would provide the following information:
Search Query: google
Infringing web pages: www.infringingwebsite.co.uk
directory.infringingwebsite.co.uk
If you are sending a large number of URLs in one removal request, please also send an electronic copy of the notice to removals@google.com.
3. Provide reasonably sufficient information to permit Farmer Host to contact you (email address is preferred).
4. If possible, provide information sufficient to permit Farmer Host to notify the owner/administrator of the allegedly infringing webpage or other content (an email address is preferred).
5. Include the following statement: “I have a good faith belief that use of the copyrighted materials described above as allegedly infringing is not authorised by the copyright owner, his/her agent or the law.”
6. Include the following statement: “I swear, under penalty of perjury, that the information in the notification is accurate and that I am the copyright owner or am authorised to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.”
7. Sign the paper.
8. Send the written communication to the following address:
Farmer Host
Attn:Farmer Host Legal Support, DMCA Complaints
1815 Clarke St. #100
OR fax to:
[Fax No], Attn: Farmer Host Legal Support, DMCA Complaints
Please note that a copy of each legal notice we receive is sent to a third-party partner for publication and annotation. As such, your letter (with your personal information removed) will be forwarded to Chilling Effects (http://www.chillingeffects.org) for publication. You can see an example of such a publication at http://www.chillingeffects.org/dmca512/notice.cgi?NoticeID=861. A link to your published letter will be displayed in Google’s search results in place of the removed content.
Counter Notification
The administrator of an affected site or the provider of affected content may make a counter notification pursuant to sections 512(g)(2) and (3) of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. When we receive a counter notification, we may reinstate the material in question.
To file a counter notification with us, you must provide a written communication (by fax or regular mail and not by email, except by prior agreement) that sets forth the items specified below. Please note that you will be liable for damages (including costs and lawyers’ fees) if you materially misrepresent that a product or activity is not infringing the copyrights of others. Accordingly, if you are not sure whether certain material infringes the copyrights of others, we suggest that you first contact a lawyer.
To enable us to process your counter notification more quickly, please use the following format (including section numbers):
1. Identify the specific URLs or other unique identifying information of material that Google has removed or to which Google has disabled access.
2. Provide your name, address, telephone number, email address and a statement that you consent to the jurisdiction of Federal District Court for the judicial district in which your address is located (or Santa Clara County, California if your address is outside of the United States) and that you will accept service of process from the person who provided notification under subsection 512(c)(1)(C) or an agent of such person.
3. Include the following statement: “I swear, under penalty of perjury, that I have a good faith belief that each search result, message or other item of content identified above was removed or disabled as a result of a mistake or misidentification of the material to be removed or disabled or that the material identified by the complainant has been removed or disabled at the URL identified and will no longer be shown.”
4. Sign the paper.
5. Send the written communication to the following address:
Farmer Host
Attn:Farmer Host Legal Support, DMCA Counter Notification
1815 Clarke St. #100
San Leandro, CA 94577
Account Termination
Some Farmer Host products and services may not have account holders or subscribers. For Services that do, Farmer Host will, in appropriate circumstances, terminate repeat infringers. If you believe that an account holder or subscriber is a repeat infringer, please follow the instructions above to contact Farmer Host and provide information sufficient for us to verify that the account holder or subscriber is indeed a repeat infringer.
