DMCA Takedown Notice Generator

What a DMCA notice is

It is the letter a copyright owner sends to a host asking it to take down content that belongs to the owner. It takes its name from the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the US law that, since 1998, shields a host from liability provided it removes flagged content promptly. That bargain is what makes the letter work: the platform has nothing to gain by arguing.

So it applies to any platform subject to US law, which covers almost every tube site, social network and file host, including when their servers sit elsewhere.

The six required elements

The law lists them at 17 U.S.C. 512(c)(3)(A). A notice missing one of them compels nothing, and plenty of platforms use that to close the file. Here they are, in the order of the statute.

1. A physical or electronic signature of a person authorized to act.
2. Identification of the copyrighted work, or a representative list if several works from the same site are covered. Put one work per line, the tool switches from one form to the other on its own.
3. Identification of the material claimed to be infringing, with enough to locate it.
4. How to reach you: address, telephone number, and email address if you have one.
5. A statement that you have a good faith belief that the use is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law.
6. A statement that this information is accurate and, under penalty of perjury, that you are authorized to act on behalf of the copyright owner.

The last two are boilerplate sentences, and they are the ones people leave out. The tool writes them for you, word for word.

One detail matters on the sixth. What the law places under penalty of perjury is being authorized to act for the owner, not being the owner. So the tool uses the wording that covers both, the one the platforms themselves publish.

The counter-notification

This is the road back, and almost nobody documents it. If your content was taken down in error, section 512(g)(3) gives you a reply in four elements: your signature, identification of the material and of the location where it appeared, a statement under penalty of perjury that the removal was the result of a mistake, then your contact details together with consent to the jurisdiction of a federal court.

That last point is worth a pause. The sentence is not the same depending on whether your address is in the United States or elsewhere: in the first case you consent to the court for your own district, in the second to any district where the platform may be found. The tool switches on its own.

The timetable is set by section 512(g)(2). The provider forwards your counter-notification to the complaining party, then puts the content back online between ten and fourteen business days later. That delay falls away if the complaining party goes to court in the meantime and tells the provider.

A counter-notification is not a small step. It hands your name and address to the person who reported you, and it opens a window for them to take you before a judge. Send one only if you are sure of your rights.

Where to send it

Every platform designates an agent to receive these notices, and that designation is public. The register is kept by the US Copyright Office, at dmca.copyright.gov, and it is searchable by service name. The footer of the site in question usually leads to the same information.

Watch out, several services do not accept email and only look at what comes through their own form. Cloudflare and Reddit are among them. A perfect letter sent to the wrong place produces no takedown, so check the channel before you send.

We deliberately do not keep that list ourselves. A stale address in our tool would have you sending a letter into the void, and building a file of platforms to target is not our job.

European platforms

The DMCA is American. A tube site established in the European Union also falls under the Digital Services Act, whose article 16 sets out how illegal content is reported. Its requirements are not the same: it calls in particular for a statement that the information is accurate and complete, and for an explanation of what the claimed right rests on.

In practice, most large tube sites handle both routes in the same place, and a complete DMCA notice is accepted. If the service is European and turns yours down, that is where to look.

Common questions

Does the notice have to be in English?

Yes. The designated agent is almost always American, and a notice in any other language is rejected without being handled. That is why the tool always produces English text, whichever version of the site you are reading.

What if I am acting for someone else?

The statement produced covers both cases at once, because that is the wording the law puts under oath and the wording platforms publish. Fill in the "Copyright owner" field so the recipient knows who you are acting for.

Do I need a lawyer?

Not to send the letter, the law does not ask for one. Yes, from the moment the platform refuses, someone answers with a counter-notification, or a judge comes into it.

What happens if I lie?

Section 512(f) provides that anyone who knowingly and materially misrepresents that material is infringing is liable for the damages caused, attorney fees included. The statement under penalty of perjury is not decoration.

Can I target several copies at once?

Yes. That is in fact the most common case, when a tube site lifts a whole catalog. One work per line in the first field, one URL per line in the second. From two works on, the letter moves by itself to the representative list provided for at section 512(c)(3)(A)(ii).

One limit only, and it is strict: one letter per service. The representative list covers works reposted on one site, and a designated agent can only remove what it hosts. If your URLs point at several sites, the page tells you.

Is my information stored?

No. The page contains no submission form: the text is assembled by your browser, and it is gone when you close the tab. You can cut your connection before filling anything in, the tool still works.

Does it work for a photo, a text, a piece of software?

Yes. The mechanism does not look at the type of work, only at whether the right exists.