How To File Notification of Infringement In Compliance With DMCA

Whether you are a blogger or sell digital products, in today's day and age you must know how to protect your copyright and fight copyright violators. Copycats can cost you not only your search engine ranking, reputation, but also money, and depending whether you are in the business of making money on the web or it is your substitute source of income, you need to know how to protect the little that you make.

If you have found someone stealing your digital works, here is an excellent post on how to protect your digital intellectual property.

I recently had an incident where I found someone selling my copyrighted materials on eBay using a free hosted site located on freewebs. After the initial contact with Freewebs abuse department I received the following response, so I am posting it here and if you are looking for detailed information on how to file DMCA in compliance with the law, here is the information and the format you will need:

Dear Freewebs User,

Thank you for contacting FreeWebs Corporation ("FreeWebs"). FreeWebs respects the intellectual property rights of others and we would be pleased to take action pursuant to the provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA") and/or FreeWebs established polices and procedures to assist you in the protection of the intellectual property rights held by you or your client.

However, your recent correspondence was insufficient to constitute an effective Notification of Infringement ("NOI") within the meaning of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA") and/or as required by FreeWebs policy. The elements required for an effective NOI, and the contact information for submitting a NOI to FreeWebs, are set forth below.

Please be aware that you may submit a NOI in response to this e-mail. To be effective within the meaning of the DMCA, a NOI must contain substantially the following:

1. A description of the copyrighted work or other intellectual property
that you claim has been infringed;

2. A description of the location where the material that you claim is infringing is located;

3. A statement by you that you have a good faith belief that the reported use is not authorized by the copyright or intellectual property owner, its agent, or the law;

4. Your address, telephone number, and, if available, e-mail address;

5. A statement by you, made under penalty of perjury, that the above information is accurate and that you are the copyright or intellectual property owner or authorized to act on the copyright or intellectual property owner's behalf; and

6. An electronic or physical signature by the person making the submission (i.e., you or such other person authorized to act on behalf of the copyright holder). If the submission is made electronically, to satisfy the signature requirement please designate the electronic signature by typing a forward slash before and after the name of the authorized person making the submission (e.g., /Jane Doe/) and follow this electronic signature with the typed name of the person. For example:

/Jane Doe/
Jane Doe

This format is intended to represent a signature and typed name as is customarily found within the signature block of business correspondence transmitted in hard copy.

Once FreeWebs has received a NOI containing each of the required elements detailed above, FreeWebs will expeditiously proceed to process your request.

We wish to thank you in advance for your cooperation and assistance. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions or we can further assist you in this matter.

Best Regards,
Freewebs