NEEDED A URL Or Google won't accept a DMCA takedown notice. You don't want your distressing image on the web? Step one: Man up and put another copy on the web.
An authorized copy is not viewable publicly on the web. The images were taken without knowledge or consent from social media (Instagram) that requires a login/password and user permission none of which were given.
I am attempting to expunge threatening, abusive and libelous material place on the web by someone stalking and harassing a young woman.
The police have been contacted, a formal DMCA takedown notice has been issued to approximately 20 different addresses including Google's from 'whois'. Contact me if you want the formal notice listing the various domains and providers involved.
The takedown notice is legitimate. The complainant is the original creator and copyright holder of the images in question and they were obviously not authorized since they are literally being used to threaten the copyright holder.
I appreciate that you should be reluctant to comply with DMCA takedown requests. This request is about the health and safety of a frightened, vulnerable young woman being victimized by an unknown stalker.
This is about health and safety, not about preventing people access to information.
Re: a copy of each legal notice may be sent to the Lumen project -- I get why this should be done in many, perhaps most instances. This is NOT one of those instances. It is specifically disclaimed and forbidden. Strictly speaking, since you have made it a required input in the only DMCA notice mechanism you seem willing to acknowledge, it cannot possibly be legal defensible and any lawyer involved in creating this ought to be sanctioned. You can't tack on and 'I promise you a billion dollars' as a mandatory checkbox to an input form and expect a court to order somebody to pay you a billion dollars. Same thing here. Additionally, doing so with any type of information that identifies the individual involved puts that person at further risk. That, in turn strictly contravenes existing Canadian legislation involving a case such as this.
This material, along with another copy of the formal takedown notice will be sent to the only Email addresses that seem to be available. Your 'legal contact' stuff does not work.
Friday, January 6, 2017
DMCA Takedown
This documents an actual DMCA takedown notice sent to a large number of domain owners and hosting services and search providers.
Note that this is particular to the case where a young person is being harassed using images that they own copied from social media sites.
[Note: A pdf file with the same text is attached.]
WITHOUT PREJUDICE
2016-01-06 To: [principals at 20 domain addresses listed at end of note]
My name is [Your Name] and I am acting on behalf of a young person named
[redacted name here].
TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE as this young person is in danger of imminent
harm and only rapid action on behalf of all parties will allow the
threatening material to be removed.
A website that your company hosts is infringing on at least one
copyright owned by [redacted name here].
This is a formal 'DMCA takedown' notice according to an understanding
of the requirements as outlined in the U.S. Copyright Office Summary
of the THE DIGITAL MILLENNIUM COPYRIGHT ACT OF 1998 here:
https://www.copyright.gov/legislation/dmca.pdf
The act requires immediate compliance or response and hence it is
listed here first. However, the chief concern is for the safety of the
young person this affects. The copyrighted material is conjoined with
damaging, false, libellous and defamatory statements that invite
victimization and harm to an entirely innocent and vulnerable young
person. They and their family are distraught because it continues to place
them in harms way. As long as the material remains accessible they are in
immediate peril of harm, physically, mentally and financially.
This, then, is also a notice of additional harassing or threatening
material that contravenes the Criminal Code of Canada, and a formal
request to either take all the relevant material down or block access
to it.
This is the section of the Criminal Code used to prosecute on-line harassment.
http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/C-46/section-264.html:
[Criminal Code, Federal laws of Canada, laws-lois.justice.gc.ca]
This is general legislation with respect to aiding and abetting
criminal behavior:
http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/C-46/section-21.html
In particular: "Every one is a party to an offence who (a) actually
commits it; (b) does or omits to do anything for the purpose of aiding
any person to commit it; or (c) abets any person in committing it."
The relevant legislation provides for imprisonment for up to five
years upon conviction and Canada has extradition treaties with most of
the countries involved.
At least one image created and owned by [redacted name here] was copied onto
your servers without permission. The original photo(s), to which [redacted name here] owns the exclusive copyrights, are not and were not available
for general publication.
Unauthorized and infringing copies can be found specifically at:
[List of offending primary URLs]
https://web-beta.archive.org/web URL of archived content
Either the defamatory illegal material or the copyrighted images or
derivatives are found at or linked to by the following sites owned or
operated by recipients of this notice:
[Offending primary domains]
Those appear to be the original source sites for the infringing and
defamatory material and they contain numerous references to [redacted name here].
As of this writing, the following search URL on Google returns
additional references to [redacted name here]:
https://www.google.ca/search?q=%22firstname+lastname%22+site:[URL]&num=100
Search engines return various references and cached copies using
variants of searches for:
[List of search terms] e.g. firstname lastname
We have found infringing material either at or through the following domains:
http://google.com
http://google.ca
http://bing.com
http://yahoo.com
http://duckduckgo.com
http://dogpile.com
http://yandex.com
http://aol.com
http://webcrawler.com/
http://contenko.com/
http://alhea.com/
http://infospace.com/
http://excite.com
This letter is official notification under Section 512(c) of the
Digital Millennium Copyright Act (”DMCA”), and I seek the removal of
the aforementioned infringing material from your servers. I request
that you immediately notify the infringer of this notice and inform
them of their duty to remove the infringing material immediately, and
notify them to cease any further posting of infringing material to
your server in the future.
Please also be advised that law requires you, as a service provider,
to remove or disable access to the infringing materials upon receiving
this notice. Under US law a service provider, such as yourself, enjoys
immunity from a copyright lawsuit provided that you act with
deliberate speed to investigate and rectify ongoing copyright
infringement. If service providers do not investigate and remove or
disable the infringing material this immunity is lost. Therefore, in
order for you to remain immune from a copyright infringement action
you will need to investigate and ultimately remove or otherwise
disable the infringing material from your servers with all due speed
should the direct infringer, your client, not comply immediately.
I am providing this notice in good faith and with the reasonable
belief that rights [redacted name here] owns are being infringed. Under penalty
of perjury I certify that the information contained in the
notification is both true and accurate, and I have the authority to
act on behalf of the owner of the copyright(s) involved.
Note that TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE. In order to successfully remove
access to this material on the web, all sources need to be removed
before new copies are made.
As you may appreciate this is a very labor intensive effort. I would
ask that you do your best to work with what I have supplied here.
However, should you need my help or wish to discuss this with me
please contact me directly.
Thank you.
[Name]
[Street Address]
[City, State/Province]
[Postal/Zip Code]
Phone: [phone]
Cell: [phone]
E-mail: [email address]
Note: due to the large number of actors involved, the need to act
quickly, and specific provisions in submission forms that are contrary
to the DMCA, this is being sent to contact information found using
'whois' searches on related domains. Given the urgency of the request
and imminent danger to the individual involved, we ask that all
recipients make a good faith attempt to act as quickly as possible to
either put this in the correct hands or to act upon the requests.
Sent to: [list of relevant Email addresses from 'whois' and provider's online information]
Note that this is particular to the case where a young person is being harassed using images that they own copied from social media sites.
[Note: A pdf file with the same text is attached.]
WITHOUT PREJUDICE
2016-01-06 To: [principals at 20 domain addresses listed at end of note]
My name is [Your Name] and I am acting on behalf of a young person named
[redacted name here].
TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE as this young person is in danger of imminent
harm and only rapid action on behalf of all parties will allow the
threatening material to be removed.
A website that your company hosts is infringing on at least one
copyright owned by [redacted name here].
This is a formal 'DMCA takedown' notice according to an understanding
of the requirements as outlined in the U.S. Copyright Office Summary
of the THE DIGITAL MILLENNIUM COPYRIGHT ACT OF 1998 here:
https://www.copyright.gov/legislation/dmca.pdf
The act requires immediate compliance or response and hence it is
listed here first. However, the chief concern is for the safety of the
young person this affects. The copyrighted material is conjoined with
damaging, false, libellous and defamatory statements that invite
victimization and harm to an entirely innocent and vulnerable young
person. They and their family are distraught because it continues to place
them in harms way. As long as the material remains accessible they are in
immediate peril of harm, physically, mentally and financially.
This, then, is also a notice of additional harassing or threatening
material that contravenes the Criminal Code of Canada, and a formal
request to either take all the relevant material down or block access
to it.
This is the section of the Criminal Code used to prosecute on-line harassment.
http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/C-46/section-264.html:
[Criminal Code, Federal laws of Canada, laws-lois.justice.gc.ca]
This is general legislation with respect to aiding and abetting
criminal behavior:
http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/C-46/section-21.html
In particular: "Every one is a party to an offence who (a) actually
commits it; (b) does or omits to do anything for the purpose of aiding
any person to commit it; or (c) abets any person in committing it."
The relevant legislation provides for imprisonment for up to five
years upon conviction and Canada has extradition treaties with most of
the countries involved.
At least one image created and owned by [redacted name here] was copied onto
your servers without permission. The original photo(s), to which [redacted name here] owns the exclusive copyrights, are not and were not available
for general publication.
Unauthorized and infringing copies can be found specifically at:
[List of offending primary URLs]
https://web-beta.archive.org/web URL of archived content
Either the defamatory illegal material or the copyrighted images or
derivatives are found at or linked to by the following sites owned or
operated by recipients of this notice:
[Offending primary domains]
Those appear to be the original source sites for the infringing and
defamatory material and they contain numerous references to [redacted name here].
As of this writing, the following search URL on Google returns
additional references to [redacted name here]:
https://www.google.ca/search?q=%22firstname+lastname%22+site:[URL]&num=100
Search engines return various references and cached copies using
variants of searches for:
[List of search terms] e.g. firstname lastname
We have found infringing material either at or through the following domains:
http://google.com
http://google.ca
http://bing.com
http://yahoo.com
http://duckduckgo.com
http://dogpile.com
http://yandex.com
http://aol.com
http://webcrawler.com/
http://contenko.com/
http://alhea.com/
http://infospace.com/
http://excite.com
This letter is official notification under Section 512(c) of the
Digital Millennium Copyright Act (”DMCA”), and I seek the removal of
the aforementioned infringing material from your servers. I request
that you immediately notify the infringer of this notice and inform
them of their duty to remove the infringing material immediately, and
notify them to cease any further posting of infringing material to
your server in the future.
Please also be advised that law requires you, as a service provider,
to remove or disable access to the infringing materials upon receiving
this notice. Under US law a service provider, such as yourself, enjoys
immunity from a copyright lawsuit provided that you act with
deliberate speed to investigate and rectify ongoing copyright
infringement. If service providers do not investigate and remove or
disable the infringing material this immunity is lost. Therefore, in
order for you to remain immune from a copyright infringement action
you will need to investigate and ultimately remove or otherwise
disable the infringing material from your servers with all due speed
should the direct infringer, your client, not comply immediately.
I am providing this notice in good faith and with the reasonable
belief that rights [redacted name here] owns are being infringed. Under penalty
of perjury I certify that the information contained in the
notification is both true and accurate, and I have the authority to
act on behalf of the owner of the copyright(s) involved.
Note that TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE. In order to successfully remove
access to this material on the web, all sources need to be removed
before new copies are made.
As you may appreciate this is a very labor intensive effort. I would
ask that you do your best to work with what I have supplied here.
However, should you need my help or wish to discuss this with me
please contact me directly.
Thank you.
[Name]
[Street Address]
[City, State/Province]
[Postal/Zip Code]
Phone: [phone]
Cell: [phone]
E-mail: [email address]
Note: due to the large number of actors involved, the need to act
quickly, and specific provisions in submission forms that are contrary
to the DMCA, this is being sent to contact information found using
'whois' searches on related domains. Given the urgency of the request
and imminent danger to the individual involved, we ask that all
recipients make a good faith attempt to act as quickly as possible to
either put this in the correct hands or to act upon the requests.
Sent to: [list of relevant Email addresses from 'whois' and provider's online information]
Welcome to Online Reputation Repair
This blog is being set up to document steps necessary to repair malicious damage to your reputation online.
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