Submitting a DMCA Takedown Notice

This guide describes the information that Real Artists needs in order to process a DMCA takedown request. If you have more general questions about what the DMCA is or how Real Artists processes DMCA takedown requests, please review our DMCA Takedown Policy.

Due to the type of content Real Artists hosts (mostly attachments) and the way that content is managed (with Ship), we need complaints to be as specific as possible. These guidelines are designed to make the processing of alleged infringement notices as straightforward as possible. Our form of notice set forth below is consistent with the form suggested by the DMCA statute, which can be found at the U.S. Copyright Office's official website: http://www.copyright.gov.

As with all legal matters, it is always best to consult with a professional about your specific questions or situation. We strongly encourage you to do so before taking any action that might impact your rights. This guide isn't legal advice and shouldn't be taken as such.

Before You Start

Tell the Truth. The DMCA requires that you swear to the facts in your copyright complaint under penalty of perjury. It is a federal crime to intentionally lie in a sworn declaration. (See U.S. Code, Title 18, Section 1621.) Submitting false information could also result in civil liability—that is, you could get sued for money damages.

Investigate. Filing a DMCA complaint against a project is a serious legal allegation that carries real consequences for real people. Because of that, we ask that you conduct a thorough investigation and consult with an attorney before submitting a takedown to make sure that the use isn't actually permissible.

Ask Nicely First. A great first step before sending us a takedown notice is to try contacting the user directly. They may have listed contact information on their public profile page or in the repository's README, or you could get in touch by opening an issue or pull request on the repository. This is not strictly required, but it is classy.

Code Is Different From Other Creative Content. Ship is built for collaboration on software code. This makes identifying a valid copyright infringement more complicated than it might otherwise be for, say, photos, music, or videos.

For instance:

A repository may include bits and pieces of code from many different people, but only one file or even a sub-routine within a file infringes your copyrights.
Code mixes functionality with creative expression, but copyright only protects the expressive elements.
There are often licenses to consider. Just because a piece of code has a copyright notice does not necessarily mean that it is infringing. It is possible that the code is being used in accordance with an open-source license.
A particular use may be fair-use if it only uses a small amount of copyrighted content, uses that content in a transformative way, uses it for educational purposes, or some combination of the above. Because code naturally lends itself to such uses, each use case is different and must be considered separately.
Code may be alleged to infringe, not because it is a direct copy, but because it is used to circumvent access controls.

This list isn't exhaustive, which is why speaking to a legal professional about your proposed complaint is doubly important when dealing with code.

No Bots. You should have a trained professional evaluate the facts of every takedown notice you send. If you are outsourcing your efforts to a third party, make sure you know how they operate, and make sure they are not using automated bots to submit complaints in bulk. These complaints are often invalid and processing them results in needlessly taking down content!

You May Receive a Counter Notice. Any user affected by your takedown notice may decide to submit a counter notice. If they do, we will re-enable their content within 10-14 days unless you notify us that you have initiated a legal action seeking to restrain the user from engaging in infringing activity relating to the content on Ship.

Your Complaint Will Be Published. As noted in our DMCA Takedown Policy, after redacting personal information, we publish all complete and actionable takedown notices at https://github.com/realartists/dmca.

Real Artists Isn't The Judge. Real Artists exercises little discretion in the process other than determining whether the notices meet the minimum requirements of the DMCA. It is up to the parties (and their lawyers) to evaluate the merit of their claims, bearing in mind that notices must be made under penalty of perjury.

Your Complaint Must ...

Include the following statement: "I have read and understand Real Artists' Guide to Filing a DMCA Notice." We won't refuse to process an otherwise complete complaint if you don't include this statement. But we'll know that you haven't read these guidelines and may ask you to go back and do so.
Identify the copyrighted work you believe has been infringed. This information is important because it helps the affected user evaluate your claim and give them the ability to compare your work to theirs. The specificity of your identification will depend on the nature of the work you believe has been infringed. If you have published your work, you might be able to just link back to a web page where it lives. If it is proprietary and not published, you might describe it and explain that it is proprietary. If you have registered it with the Copyright Office, you should include the registration number. If you are alleging that the hosted content is a direct, literal copy of your work, you can also just explain that fact.
Identify the material that you allege is infringing the copyrighted work listed in item #2, above. It is important to be as specific as possible in your identification. This identification needs to be reasonably sufficient to permit Real Artists to locate the material. At a minimum, this means that you should include the URL to the material allegedly infringing your copyright. Identify the specific file(s) or line numbers within a file that you allege infringe. If you allege that all of the content at a URL infringes, please be explicit about that as well.
Explain what the affected user would need to do in order to remedy the infringement. Again, specificity is important. When we pass your complaint along to the user, this will tell them what they need to do in order to avoid having the rest of their content disabled. Does the user just need to add a statement of attribution? Do they need to delete certain lines within their code, or entire files? Of course, we understand that in some cases, all of a user's content may be alleged to infringe and there's nothing they could do short of deleting it all. If that's the case, please make that clear as well.
Provide your contact information. Include your email address, name, telephone number and physical address.
Provide contact information, if you know it, for the alleged infringer. Usually this will be satisfied by providing the GitHub username associated with the allegedly infringing content. But there may be cases where you have additional knowledge about the alleged infringer. If so, please share that information with us.
Include the following statement: "I have a good faith belief that use of the copyrighted materials described above on the infringing web pages is not authorized by the copyright owner, or its agent, or the law. I have taken fair use into consideration."
Also include the following statement: "I swear, under penalty of perjury, that the information in this notification is accurate and that I am the copyright owner, or am authorized to act on behalf of the owner, of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed."
Include your physical or electronic signature.

How to Submit Your Complaint

You can send an email notification to copyright@realartists.com. You may include an attachment if you like, but please also include a plain-text version of your letter in the body of your message.

If you must send your notice by physical mail, you can do that too, but it will take substantially longer for us to receive and respond to it. Notices we receive via plain-text email have a much faster turnaround than PDF attachments or physical mail. If you still wish to mail us your notice, our physical address is:

Real Artists, Inc.
Attn: DMCA Agent
PO Box 1267
Palo Alto, CA 94302