DMCA Takedown Notice Checklist: Statutory Elements, Counter-Notice, and Repeat-Infringer Policies

By Casey Scott McKay · 2023-10-09

An eleven-phase working checklist for the notice-and-takedown machinery of 17 U.S.C. 512, written to be run top to bottom by a practitioner with a real matter open. It moves from qualifying the instrument and the recipient, through proving ownership and authority to sign under penalty of perjury, capturing evidence before the file disappears, documenting the Lenz fair use consideration, locating the registered designated agent, drafting each of the six statutory elements of Section 512(c)(3)(A), sending and logging, and running the ten-to-fourteen business day put-back window from the claimant's side. It then turns the notice around for counter-notice triage and drafting, covers escalation to a Section 512(h) subpoena, a federal complaint, or a Section 512(f) misrepresentation claim at the Copyright Claims Board, and closes with the platform-side compliance program that keeps a Section 512(i) repeat-infringer policy defensible in discovery. Every phase names the fee, the form, the rule, the field names, and the specific way practitioners get it wrong, and one matter - a Montana field-guide publisher, a scanned PDF, a marketplace knockoff, and a Denver birding channel with a very good fair use defense - runs through all eleven phases with dates.

IP and Technology > Copyright | Checklist | Published 9 October 2023 - Updated 28 August 2025 | Casey Scott McKay - marksy.us

Summary. This is an eleven-phase working checklist for the notice-and-takedown machinery of 17 U.S.C. § 512, meant to be run top to bottom with a real matter open. It moves from qualifying the instrument and the recipient, through proving ownership and authority to sign under penalty of perjury, capturing evidence before the file disappears, documenting the Lenz fair use consideration, locating the registered designated agent, drafting each of the six statutory elements of § 512(c)(3)(A), and sending and logging — then runs the ten-to-fourteen business day put-back window from the claimant's side. It turns the notice around for counter-notice triage and drafting, covers escalation to a § 512(h) subpoena, a federal complaint, or a § 512(f) misrepresentation claim at the Copyright Claims Board, and closes with the platform-side compliance program that keeps a § 512(i) repeat-infringer policy defensible in discovery. Every phase names the fee, the rule, the field names, and the specific way people get it wrong.

Keywords: dmca takedown checklist · section 512(c)(3) elements · counter-notice · put-back window · designated agent registration · repeat infringer policy · section 512(f) misrepresentation · good faith belief statement · fair use consideration · copyright registration before suit · evidence capture and hashing · notice log · section 512(h) subpoena · copyright claims board · strike ledger · lumen database · expeditious removal · special handling expedited registration

What this checklist is for

The job. Getting infringing material off a service under 17 U.S.C. § 512 without creating liability for yourself, defending against a notice aimed at you, and — if you are the platform — keeping the harbor you are relying on. Phases 1 through 8 are the sending side, Phase 9 is the receiving side, Phase 10 is escalation, and Phase 11 is the standing compliance program a service provider runs forever.

Who should use it. In-house counsel and brand-protection managers who send notices in volume; solo and small-firm lawyers handling a single infringement for a creator; founders and general counsel of any product that lets a user upload a file; and litigators who inherit a matter and need to know what evidence should already exist in the log.

What you need before you start. The work, in the form it was published, with its creation and first-publication dates. Every transfer instrument in the chain of title, signed. The copyright registration number, or a decision about whether to file one today. The exact URLs of the material, one per line. A named human with authority to swear an oath on the owner's behalf. A capture tool and somewhere to store hashes. A notice log — a spreadsheet is fine, but it must exist before the first notice, not after the first subpoena.

What this checklist does not do. It does not re-teach the doctrine. Why red-flag knowledge does almost no independent work, what Viacom settled, and what the Supreme Court changed in Cox Communications, Inc. v. Sony Music Entertainment, No. 24-171 (U.S. Mar. 25, 2026), are worked through in The DMCA Safe Harbor. The reasoning behind each step, with model language, platform-by-platform mechanics, and cost tables, is in Sending and Fighting a DMCA Takedown. This is the operational distillation of both.

The worked example. Tenpenny Field Guides, LLC is a nine-person publisher in Missoula, Montana. Its flagship title is Birds of the Northern Rockies (2024) — 340 pages, 210 watercolor plates painted by Odalys Reyes, a contractor. In January 2026 three things happened at once: a scanned PDF of the entire book appeared on a Netherlands-registered file host; a print-on-demand seller, PineHollow Reprints, listed a spiral-bound knockoff on a marketplace; and Wren Alvarado, who runs a Denver birding channel, posted a ninety-second video using four plates in a side-by-side critique of how three publishers render the same warbler. Tenpenny's brand-protection vendor, Bitterroot Rights Services, sent notices on all three on 14 January 2026. Two were right. The third was a § 512(f) problem the vendor withdrew four days later.

| Phase | What you finish with | Typical elapsed | Typical cost | |---|---|---|---| | 1. Qualify the instrument and target | A decision that § 512 is the right tool and a named recipient | 30–60 minutes | Staff time | | 2. Ownership, authority, registration | A signer who can truthfully swear element (vi), and a filed application | 2–10 hours | $45–$865 in fees; $1,500–$4,000 in time | | 3. Verify and capture | Hashed captures, a certification, a canonical URL list | 15–45 minutes per item | Staff time | | 4. Fair use consideration | One reviewer line per item, stored with the notice | 90 seconds per item | Staff time | | 5. Locate the designated agent | A screenshot of the Directory record and an address the statute recognizes | 20 minutes | — | | 6. Draft the six elements | A single communication containing all of § 512(c)(3)(A)(i)–(vi) | 30–60 minutes | Staff time | | 7. Send, log, follow through | A notice ID, a log row, and removal | Hours to 7 business days | Staff time | | 8. Monitor the put-back window | Restoration, retraction, or a filed complaint before day 10 | 10–14 business days | $0 or $8,000–$25,000 | | 9. Counter-notice, both chairs | A retraction request, an appeal, or a § 512(g)(3) counter-notice | 1–3 hours | $500–$2,500 | | 10. Escalation | A subpoena, a complaint, a CCB claim, or a closed file | 6 weeks–24 months | $100–$400,000 | | 11. Platform compliance program | A registered agent, a published policy, a strike ledger | 1 week to build; annual to maintain | $6 every 3 years + staff time |

Phase 1 — Qualify the instrument and the target

[ ] Confirm the claim is copyright and nothing else.
- Why. Section 512 is a copyright statute. It does not reach trademark infringement, counterfeiting, right of publicity, defamation, or false advertising. A marketplace that accepts "DMCA complaints" about a logo is running a voluntary contractual program with no statutory elements, no perjury requirement, no counter-notice, no ten-day clock, and no § 512(f).
- Authority. 17 U.S.C. § 512; contrast 15 U.S.C. § 1125(a).
- Trap. Filing a copyright notice against a listing whose only problem is a copied word mark gets the listing restored and hands the seller a misrepresentation argument. Route brand problems through the Online Brand Protection Toolkit and, where the goods are fakes, the Anticounterfeiting Program Checklist.
[ ] Classify the recipient by function, not by company: conduit under § 512(a), cache under § 512(b), host under § 512(c), or index/link under § 512(d). Confirm notice-and-takedown even applies.
- Why. Notice-and-takedown attaches to §§ 512(b), (c) and (d). A conduit stores nothing you can ask it to remove. A "takedown notice" to a broadband ISP about a peer-to-peer transfer creates a timestamp and nothing else.
- Authority. 17 U.S.C. § 512(a)–(d); definitions at § 512(k)(1)(A)–(B).
[ ] Map the stack before you pick a layer: origin host, site operator, CDN or reverse proxy, domain registrar, search engine, payment processor. Note which have a registered agent.
- Trap. Noticing the reverse proxy instead of the origin usually produces a forwarded complaint and a disclosure of the origin host — useful, but a week later than if you had run a reverse lookup first.
[ ] Decide what outcome you are buying. A takedown removes a file. It does not produce money, an injunction, a licence, or a behavioral commitment.
- Why. If the client wants the competitor to stop, the instrument is a demand letter and then a complaint — see Sending an Effective Cease-and-Desist Letter and the Pre-Litigation Enforcement Checklist. If the problem is the domain rather than the file, branch to UDRP vs. Federal Lawsuit, Cybersquatting and the ACPA, and Filing a UDRP Complaint to Recover a Domain.
[ ] Send the notice and preserve the lawsuit. They are not alternatives.
- Trap. What forecloses the later case is not the notice. It is failing to capture the evidence before the file vanishes (Phase 3) and failing to register the work in time (Phase 2).

Tenpenny, 8 January 2026. Three targets, three different answers. The file host is a § 512(c) host with a registered agent — notice it. The marketplace listing is both a copyright problem (the scanned interior) and a trademark problem (the cover reproduces the TENPENNY word mark), so it gets a statutory copyright notice and a separate brand-registry complaint. The birding video is a § 512(c) host too — but the right question at Phase 1 was whether Tenpenny wanted anything from Wren Alvarado at all.

Phase 2 — Prove ownership, authority, and registration before you draft a word

[ ] Build a one-page ownership sheet with seven columns: work title; author(s); whether employee or contractor; creation date; first publication date; transfer instrument and date; registration number and date.
- Why. Element (vi) is sworn under penalty of perjury and it attaches to authorization, not to the merits of the infringement claim. You are certifying a chain, so the chain has to exist on paper.
- Authority. 17 U.S.C. § 512(c)(3)(A)(vi).
[ ] Resolve every contractor contribution. A commissioned work is a work made for hire only if it falls within one of the nine enumerated categories and the parties signed a written instrument to that effect.
- Authority. 17 U.S.C. § 101 (definition of "work made for hire"); ownership rules at § 201.
- Trap. Illustrations bought on a purchase order that says "all rights reserved to the publisher" and nothing more are not a work made for hire and are not assigned. See Who Owns the Work, with the cure in Transfers, Licenses, and Termination Rights and the Copyright Ownership and Chain-of-Title Checklist.
[ ] Confirm the signer owns an exclusive right, or is that owner's authorized agent, and that the right covers this use in this territory.
- Authority. 17 U.S.C. §§ 101, 201(d)(2), 501(b).
- Trap. An exclusive North American print licensee has no authority to notice a foreign-language ebook. A nonexclusive licensee has no authority to notice anything.
[ ] If a vendor sends on your behalf, paper the agency in one document: a Schedule A of covered works, express authority to make the § 512(c)(3)(A)(v) and (vi) statements, a bar on noticing anything off Schedule A, an obligation to record the fair use consideration for each notice, a four-year retention obligation, and a revocation right.
- Why. This is the highest-leverage single failure point in a volume program. A defective chain of authority makes every notice arguably non-compliant, and a non-compliant notice "shall not be considered" in deciding whether the provider had knowledge.
- Authority. 17 U.S.C. § 512(c)(3)(B)(i).
[ ] File the copyright application now, on this matter, before you need it.
- Authority. Registration (not mere application) is a precondition to suit. Fourth Estate Public Benefit Corp. v. Wall-Street.com, LLC, 586 U.S. 296 (2019). Statutory damages and fees are cut off for infringement commenced before registration unless registration issued within three months of first publication. 17 U.S.C. §§ 412, 504(c), 505.

| Filing | Fee | When it is the right choice | |---|---|---| | Single application (one work, one author, not for hire) | $45 | A solo creator with one photograph or one song | | Standard electronic application | $65 | The default for a corporate claimant | | Group registration of published photographs (up to 750) | $55 | Photographers who notice at volume | | Preregistration under § 408(f) | $200 | Pre-release leaks of films, sound recordings, or books in preparation | | Special handling (expedited) | $800 plus the filing fee | You may have to sue inside a put-back window; decided in roughly a week |

[ ] Decide today whether the matter could require suit within two weeks. If yes and the work is unregistered, budget special handling before the counter-notice arrives, not after.
- See. What Copyright Registration Actually Buys You, Registering a Copyright, and the Copyright Registration Checklist.

Tenpenny, 9 January 2026. Birds of the Northern Rockies was registered on 14 May 2024, U.S. Copyright Reg. No. TX 9-412-660 — three weeks after publication, so § 412 was satisfied and statutory damages were live. The plates were the problem. Odalys Reyes worked under a purchase order that said nothing about copyright, so on paper the 210 watercolours belonged to her. Tenpenny obtained a signed confirmatory assignment on 12 January and recorded it. Bitterroot's Schedule A, however, still read "all Tenpenny titles" — a phrase that means nothing when a lawyer asks which works the vendor was authorized to enforce on 14 January.

Phase 3 — Verify the infringement and capture the evidence before it disappears

[ ] Confirm the target material is your work and not an independent creation, a licensed use, a public-domain source, or unprotectable subject matter.
- Authority. 17 U.S.C. § 102(b) — no protection for ideas, procedures, systems, or methods of operation. A species list, a blank checklist form, and a short phrase are not protectable. The proof framework is in Proving Copyright Infringement.
[ ] Capture before you send, in this order: full-page screenshot with the URL bar and the system clock visible; the page saved as WARC or MHTML; the file itself downloaded; a SHA-256 hash of the downloaded file recorded in the log; for audio and video, a screen recording of playback with the platform chrome visible; for marketplace items, the seller identity, item or ASIN number, listing history, review count, and price.
- Why. The moment the notice works, the evidence is gone. A screenshot with no URL and no clock is worth very little two years later.
- Trap. Do not capture with a logged-in account that a later adversary can characterize as circumventing an access control, and never break a paywall or a DRM measure to obtain a copy. That is a Title I problem under 17 U.S.C. § 1201, not a Title II one, and it is the fastest way to turn a clean enforcement into a counterclaim.
[ ] Have the person who ran the capture sign a short certification at the time of capture describing the tool, the version, the machine clock source, and the hash.
- Authority. Fed. R. Evid. 901(b)(9) (process or system producing an accurate result); Fed. R. Evid. 902(13) and 902(14) (self-authentication of records generated by an electronic process and of data copied from a device, on a qualified person's certification). See the Evidence and Expert Witness Toolkit.
[ ] Reduce the target to a canonical URL list — one full URL per line, no wildcards, no "and similar pages," no bare domain.
- Why. Element (iii) requires information reasonably sufficient to locate the material. A provider that has to go looking has not been noticed.
[ ] Check whether the copy has had its copyright management information stripped — author credit, title block, embedded IPTC or XMP metadata, watermark.
- Authority. 17 U.S.C. § 1202(b) creates a separate claim with its own statutory damages of $2,500 to $25,000 per violation under § 1203(c)(3)(B). It is an independent cause of action, not a § 512 issue, and it often survives when the underlying infringement claim is contested.

Tenpenny, 10 January 2026. Bitterroot captured the file host page and downloaded a 214 MB PDF (SHA-256 recorded), captured the marketplace listing with seller history showing 1,340 units sold at $18.95, and captured the video with timestamps. The PDF's XMP metadata had been stripped of the Tenpenny copyright notice — a § 1202(b) claim nobody would have found six months later.

Phase 4 — Run the fair use consideration and write it down

[ ] Answer three questions in one line each, per item, and store the answers with the notice record: Purpose — is there visible commentary, criticism, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or parody wrapped around the use? Amount — whole work or excerpt, and is the excerpt the heart of it? Market — does this substitute for a sale or a licence the owner actually makes?
- Authority. Lenz v. Universal Music Corp., 815 F.3d 1145, 1151–55 (9th Cir. 2016), holds that fair use is a use "authorized by … the law" under § 512(c)(3)(A)(v), so a sender must consider it in subjective good faith before sending. The duty is to consider, not to conclude correctly. Id. at 1153. The four-factor analysis is in Fair Use After Warhol; the workflow is in Running a Fair Use Analysis and the Fair Use Risk Assessment Checklist.
- Trap. Outside the Ninth Circuit Lenz is persuasive, not binding — the District of Massachusetts declined to require pre-notice canvassing of affirmative defenses in Tuteur v. Crosley-Corcoran, 961 F. Supp. 2d 333, 343–44 (D. Mass. 2013). Do it anyway. Ninety seconds of typing is cheaper than explaining to a jury why you did not.
[ ] Route to a lawyer anything answering "commentary present / excerpt only / no market substitution." That is the Lenz profile and it is the only profile that produces § 512(f) exposure worth worrying about.
[ ] Configure automated matching to surface fair-use characteristics — short duration, low-resolution reproduction, presence of continuous voiceover — rather than raw match scores alone.
- Authority. Lenz expressly left open that a properly configured automated screen can satisfy the duty. 815 F.3d at 1154–55.
[ ] Retain the reviewer note, with the reviewer's name and a timestamp, for four years.
- Why. The Copyright Act's limitations period is three years from accrual, 17 U.S.C. § 507(b), and courts have generally applied it to § 512(f) claims. Four years is the cheap margin.
[ ] Audit the vendor quarterly with exactly two requests: show me the fair use notes for ten random notices, and show me the Schedule A version in force when each was sent.

Tenpenny, 13 January 2026. The full-book PDF: no commentary, entire work, direct substitute — send. The marketplace knockoff: entire work, commercial substitute — send. The Alvarado video: four plates out of 210, eleven seconds of screen time inside a nine-minute comparative review with continuous criticism, no substitution. That one should have stopped here. Bitterroot's image matcher scored a hit, no human opened the video, and the notice went out with the other two.

Phase 5 — Locate the designated agent

[ ] Search the Copyright Office's electronic DMCA Designated Agent Directory by every name the target uses: legal entity, every trade name, every app name, and the URL.
- Authority. 37 C.F.R. § 201.38(b) requires providers to list all alternate names the public would plausibly search, precisely so this works. Registration costs $6 and must be renewed every three years or it lapses. 37 C.F.R. § 201.38(c), (e).
- Trap. Providers register under holding companies nobody has heard of. Searching only the brand name and concluding "no agent" is the single most common research error in this area.
[ ] Screenshot the Directory record the day you send, with URL and timestamp visible.
- Why. It proves both the address you used and, if the registration later turns out to have lapsed, that the harbor was unavailable. Compare Ellison v. Robertson, 357 F.3d 1072, 1080 (9th Cir. 2004), where AOL changed its notice email address, never updated the registration, and never saw the notice.
[ ] Read the provider's own copyright policy. If it publishes a webform, use it — form submissions are processed faster at most large providers.
- Trap. If the webform omits a statutory element, do not assume the provider supplies it. Paste the missing language into a free-text field or attach a PDF containing the complete notice, and keep the submission confirmation.
[ ] Do not send to support@, a general contact form, or a named employee. A notice is effective only when "provided to the designated agent."
- Authority. 17 U.S.C. § 512(c)(3)(A).
[ ] If there is no registration, note that in the file and send anyway — to the registered agent for service of process and to abuse@ — with delivery proof.
- Why. The provider has no §§ 512(b)–(d) harbor for the lapse period, so your letter is not a safe-harbor trigger but ordinary actual notice.
[ ] For a cached copy, confirm first that the material has already come down from the originating site, or that a court ordered its removal, and say so in the notice.
- Authority. 17 U.S.C. § 512(b)(2)(E). Fire cache notices before dealing with the source and you have sent a defective notice.

Phase 6 — Draft the six statutory elements

Draft against the statute, in one document, and do not improvise language. The standard is substantial compliance, ALS Scan, Inc. v. RemarQ Communities, Inc., 239 F.3d 619, 625 (4th Cir. 2001) — but "substantially" modifies the individual elements, not the requirement that a single communication contain them all. You cannot assemble a notice from three emails. Perfect 10, Inc. v. CCBill LLC, 488 F.3d 1102, 1112–13 (9th Cir. 2007).

[ ] (i) Signature. A physical or electronic signature of a person authorized to act for the owner of an exclusive right. A typed /s/ block is fine. Name a human being, not a department.
[ ] (ii) The work. Identify the copyrighted work claimed to be infringed. Where multiple works at one site are involved, a representative list is expressly permitted. Include the registration number and attach the certificate.
- Why. Not required, but it converts an assertion into something the provider can verify, and it forecloses the "prove you own it" reply that costs a week.
- Authority. 17 U.S.C. § 512(c)(3)(A)(ii); ALS Scan, 239 F.3d at 625 (two newsgroups devoted almost entirely to the plaintiff's photographs substantially complied).
[ ] (iii) The material. Full URLs, one per line. For a marketplace, the item or ASIN number plus the URL. For a video, the watch URL plus the timestamps at issue.
- Trap. A demand that the provider police future uploads is not a notice at all. Wolk v. Kodak Imaging Network, Inc., 840 F. Supp. 2d 724, 744–46 (S.D.N.Y. 2012), aff'd sub nom. Wolk v. Photobucket.com, Inc., 569 F. App'x 51 (2d Cir. 2014); Hendrickson v. eBay, Inc., 165 F. Supp. 2d 1082, 1089–93 (C.D. Cal. 2001). There is no statutory notice-and-staydown, because § 512(m) imposes no duty to monitor.
[ ] (iv) Contact information. Name, address, telephone, email — a monitored mailbox. The provider must forward any counter-notice here, and a mailbox that bounces still starts the clock.
- Trap. Use the firm's address, not a home one. Many providers forward the entire notice to the uploader, and several publish it to the Lumen database, where it stays indexed and searchable.
[ ] (v) Good faith belief. Track the statute exactly: "I have a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law."
- Trap. Do not write "is infringing," "is willful," or "constitutes piracy." You gain nothing and you have made a broader assertion than § 512 requires — which is the sentence a § 512(f) plaintiff will read back to you.
[ ] (vi) Accuracy and authority. "The information in this notification is accurate. I swear, under penalty of perjury, that I am authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed."
- Why. Note where the perjury clause sits. It covers authorization, not the merits.
[ ] Add for caching only: the § 512(b)(2)(E) confirmation. Add for search and linking: frame the request as delisting under § 512(d)(3), and tell the client the page stays up.
[ ] Strip out every settlement demand, dollar figure, and threat of criminal referral. Send demands separately.
- Authority. Cox refused an entire vendor's notices because they carried settlement language, and that refusal ultimately helped sink Cox's own harbor — but the lesson for a sender is that mixing a demand into a statutory notice gives the recipient a reason to bounce it. BMG Rights Management (US) LLC v. Cox Communications, Inc., 881 F.3d 293, 303–04 (4th Cir. 2018). The structural difference is visible in the Trademark Cease-and-Desist Letter Template.
[ ] Read the finished notice once as though a hostile journalist and a declaratory-judgment plaintiff will both see it. An overreaching notice invites an action under 28 U.S.C. §§ 2201, 1338.

Phase 7 — Send, log, and follow through

[ ] Assign a notice ID in a stable format — YYYY-MMDD-NN works — and put it in the subject line.
[ ] Write one log row per noticed URL, not per notice, with these fields: notice ID; date and time sent; recipient entity; agent name and address used; work title; registration number; URL; capture file path; SHA-256 hash; fair use reviewer and note; date of removal; counter-notice received; restoration date; re-upload observed.
- Why. This table is the deliverable when a court, a client, or an opponent asks whether the program is run properly. It is also the willfulness exhibit against a repeat uploader.
[ ] Diary a seven-business-day follow-up.
[ ] If nothing has happened, send exactly one follow-up quoting the notice ID and noting that continued availability after notice bears on the provider's knowledge under § 512(c)(1)(A)(i). Then escalate a layer — the host above the site, or search delisting under § 512(d).
- Trap. "Expeditiously" has no fixed statutory meaning. Large platforms typically act in 24 to 72 hours and small hosts within a week; do not promise a client a number.
[ ] Track four numbers monthly: notices sent, removal rate, median time to removal, and recidivism (noticed URLs whose content reappears within thirty days).
- Why. Recidivism above roughly a third means you are noticing the wrong layer. Escalate to the host, the registrar, the payment processor, or a complaint.
[ ] Batch weekly rather than firing daily. One notice covering thirty URLs at one site is processed faster and rate-limited less than thirty notices.
- See. Empirical work on notice quality at scale — Jennifer M. Urban, Joe Karaganis & Brianna L. Schofield, Notice and Takedown in Everyday Practice (UC Berkeley Pub. L. Research Paper No. 2755628, 2017) — found that a substantial minority of sampled Lumen notices raised clear questions about their validity. Volume without review is where that comes from.

Tenpenny, 14–17 January 2026. Notice IDs 2026-0114-05 (file host), -06 (marketplace), and -07 (video). The file host removed the PDF in 31 hours. The marketplace pulled the listing in 4 days and issued PineHollow a seller strike. The video came down the same day and Alvarado's channel took a copyright strike, which is a contractual consequence, not a statutory one.

Phase 8 — Monitor the put-back window from the claimant's side

[ ] On receiving a forwarded counter-notice, diary three dates from the provider's receipt: day 0, business day 10, business day 14.
- Authority. 17 U.S.C. § 512(g)(2)(C) — the provider must restore "not less than 10 business days, and not more than 14 business days, following receipt of the counter notice," unless its designated agent first receives notice that the complainant has filed an action seeking a court order to restrain the subscriber.
[ ] Decide by business day 5, in writing, among three options: file suit, retract, or let the material come back.
[ ] If you will file, confirm the registration has issued, not merely been applied for.
- Authority. Fourth Estate, 586 U.S. 296. If it has not, file special handling ($800 plus the filing fee) on day 1 of the window, not day 6.
[ ] Make sure the complaint actually seeks an order restraining the subscriber. A damages-only complaint arguably does not satisfy § 512(g)(2)(C).
[ ] Serve the notice of filing on the designated agent, through the channel that receives notices, with proof of delivery, before day 10.
- Trap. "We intend to sue" does not stop the clock. Neither does an email to support. Neither does a complaint filed on day 11.
[ ] Price the decision honestly before you make it: the federal filing fee is currently $405, and outside counsel will quote $8,000 to $25,000 to draft and file a defensible complaint on a two-week fuse. See Filing a Copyright Infringement Complaint in Federal Court and, for emergency-motion mechanics, Moving for a TRO or Preliminary Injunction.
[ ] Note the venue point: the counter-notifier's consent gives you personal jurisdiction in their district but does not confine you to it. Copyright venue remains governed by 28 U.S.C. § 1400(a), jurisdiction by § 1338.

| Business day from provider's receipt | Provider | Claimant | Subscriber | |---|---|---|---| | 0 | Receives counter-notice | — | Files counter-notice | | 0–2 | Forwards a copy; states 10-day restoration | Receives it | — | | 1–5 | — | Decides: sue, retract, or let it restore | Prepares for either | | 1–7 | — | If unregistered and suing, files special handling ($800) | — | | 8–10 | — | Files complaint; serves notice of filing on the agent | — | | 10–14 | Restores unless notified of the filing | — | Content back up |

Trap for the claimant. Suing to stop restoration commits you to litigation you may not want. There is no "file and dismiss" that preserves the takedown — a voluntary dismissal restores the status quo and hands the other side a fee argument under 17 U.S.C. § 505.

Phase 9 — The other chair: triaging a notice and drafting a counter-notice

[ ] Run the triage tree before touching a form. Is the material yours? Do you hold a licence, and does its scope cover this territory, medium, duration, and attribution condition? Did you create it independently? Is it fair use? Is the claimed work protectable at all under § 102(b)? Does the claimant own anything — check the Copyright Office public catalog. Is the notice defective?
- Why. A defective notice imposes no removal obligation and cannot be used to show the provider's knowledge, 17 U.S.C. § 512(c)(3)(B)(i) — though a partly compliant one obliges the provider to go back to the sender for a fix, § 512(c)(3)(B)(ii).
- Trap. A CC-BY image used without attribution is unlicensed. So is a stock photo used outside the licensed channel. Pull the licence file before you argue about fair use.
[ ] Send one short, factual retraction request first. Timestamps, screen time, context, and a request to withdraw.
- Why. It costs nothing, consents to no jurisdiction, discloses no home address, and resolves a surprising share of disputes in days. See Responding to a Cease-and-Desist Letter for the same reflex in the letter context.
[ ] Use the platform's internal appeal first where one exists — a Content ID dispute, a seller appeal, a marketplace re-review. Contractual appeals carry no consent to jurisdiction and no perjury oath.
[ ] Only then draft the counter-notice, with all four § 512(g)(3) elements: (A) the subscriber's signature; (B) identification of the removed material and the location where it appeared before removal; (C) a statement under penalty of perjury of good faith belief that the material was removed or disabled as a result of mistake or misidentification; (D) name, address, telephone, consent to the jurisdiction of the federal district court for the district of the subscriber's address (or, for a subscriber outside the United States, any district where the provider may be found), and consent to accept service from the person who sent the notice.
- Trap. "Mistake or misidentification" is the statutory phrase and it is broader than it looks — a fair use position is properly framed as a mistaken conclusion by the sender. Track the statute; put the reasoning in a separate cover paragraph, not in the sworn text.
[ ] Have the subscriber sign, not counsel. The statute speaks of "the subscriber." Counsel signs the cover letter.
[ ] Brief the client on all four consequences before they sign: consent to personal jurisdiction; disclosure of name, street address and telephone number to the accuser; pre-waiver of service of process; and exposure to a mirror-image § 512(f) claim.
[ ] Diary business days 10 and 14 from the provider's confirmed receipt, and chase restoration on day 15 with a one-line email citing § 512(g)(2)(C).
- Trap. Providers miss restorations constantly, and a provider is under no obligation to contact a subscriber whose counter-notice is defective — the cure obligation in § 512(c)(3)(B)(ii) runs only to takedown notices. If yours is missing an element, nobody will tell you.

When not to counter-notice. The work is registered and the claimant is well funded, so statutory damages up to $150,000 per work are live and you have just told them where to serve you. The content earns less than the retainer. Your position is "I only used a little," which is not a defense. You are outside the United States and the provider is a large U.S. platform.

When to counter-notice immediately. You hold a written licence covering the use. The claimant does not own the work. The use is squarely commentary or criticism and the notice looks automated. The content is time-sensitive — a campaign ad, a news clip, a fourth-quarter listing — and two weeks offline is the entire loss.

Tenpenny, 16–18 January 2026. Alvarado's counsel did not counter-notice. She sent a four-paragraph email with the timestamps, a frame grab of the side-by-side comparison, and one question: which work on Schedule A authorized the notice? Bitterroot could not answer, because Reyes's assignment had been signed on 12 January and the plates had not been added. Tenpenny withdrew Notice 2026-0114-07 in full on 18 January, in writing, to the agent and to Alvarado, with no objection to restoration. That is what kept a § 512(f) complaint from being drafted.

Phase 10 — Escalate: subpoena, complaint, misrepresentation claim

[ ] To unmask an anonymous uploader on a host, apply to the district court clerk for a § 512(h) subpoena: attach a copy of a § 512(c)(3)(A) notification, a proposed subpoena, and a sworn declaration that the information will be used only to protect copyright rights. No lawsuit, no judge, no notice to the uploader.
- Authority. 17 U.S.C. § 512(h).
- Trap. It does not work against a conduit ISP, because no compliant notification can be drafted for material the conduit does not store. RIAA v. Verizon Internet Services, Inc., 351 F.3d 1229, 1233–38 (D.C. Cir. 2003); In re Charter Communications, Inc., 393 F.3d 771, 776–77 (8th Cir. 2005). For a file sharer you need a John Doe complaint, expedited discovery under Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(d)(1), and a Rule 45 subpoena.
[ ] For a filed complaint, confirm the registration certificate, the § 412 timing, venue under 28 U.S.C. § 1400(a), and the remedies you will actually seek. Work the Copyright Infringement Complaint Checklist.
[ ] Consider § 512(j) relief against a provider that is in a harbor. Against a host, a court may order removal of specific material, termination of a specified account, and other least-burdensome relief; against a conduit, termination of a specified account and reasonable steps to block a specific, identified foreign online location.
- Authority. 17 U.S.C. § 512(j)(1)–(3). Practitioners underuse this. There is a statutory hook for a blocking order against U.S. conduits that most U.S. lawyers assume does not exist here.
[ ] To bring a § 512(f) claim, plead and prove five things: a representation that material was infringing (or was removed by mistake); that it was materially false; knowledge of the falsity or willful blindness to it; the provider's reliance; and damages proximately caused.
- Authority. 17 U.S.C. § 512(f). "Knowingly" is subjective — an honestly but unreasonably wrong sender is not liable. Rossi v. Motion Picture Ass'n of America Inc., 391 F.3d 1000, 1004–05 (9th Cir. 2004). What a winnable one looks like: Online Policy Group v. Diebold, Inc., 337 F. Supp. 2d 1195, 1204–05 (N.D. Cal. 2004); Automattic, Inc. v. Steiner, 82 F. Supp. 3d 1011 (N.D. Cal. 2015).
- Trap. Damages is the element that kills most claims. Compute lost revenue, substitute hosting, staff time and response fees before you file. Lenz confirms nominal damages are available, 815 F.3d at 1156, which tells you how thin the typical recovery is.
[ ] Price the forum. The Copyright Claims Board has express jurisdiction over § 512(f) misrepresentation claims, costs $100 in filing fees in two stages, requires no lawyer, and caps damages at $30,000 per proceeding — but the respondent may opt out within sixty days of service.
- Authority. 17 U.S.C. §§ 1504(c)(3), 1504(e), 1506(i), 1504(e)(1)(D).
[ ] Consider adjacent theories where they fit: a § 1202(b) CMI claim, tortious interference, and — where the sender is a competitor who made false statements about your goods — false advertising under 15 U.S.C. § 1125(a)(1)(B). Whether state-law claims premised on a takedown survive preemption is unsettled; anchor on the federal theory.
[ ] If a vendor sent a notice you did not authorize, withdraw it the same day, in writing, to the agent and to the uploader, unqualified, with no objection to restoration. A prompt retraction is the strongest evidence against "knowingly" that exists.

Phase 11 — Platform side: a repeat-infringer program that survives discovery

Run this if your client stores anything at the direction of users — which now includes most SaaS products, every marketplace, and any ordinary website with a comments section or a file upload field. Section 512(i)(1)(A) requires three separate things: adopt a termination policy, reasonably implement it, and inform subscribers of it. Failing any one forfeits every harbor.

[ ] Register the designated agent in the Copyright Office's electronic Directory. Pay $6. List the full legal name, a street address (post office boxes only by special permission), and every alternate name the public would search — trade names, app names, website URLs.
- Authority. 17 U.S.C. § 512(c)(2); 37 C.F.R. § 201.38(b).
- Trap. Related corporate entities cannot share a designation. A parent and its subsidiary each register separately. Only one agent per provider.
[ ] Calendar the three-year renewal to two named people, on the same docket as trademark maintenance dates.
- Authority. 37 C.F.R. § 201.38(c), (e). A lapsed designation means §§ 512(b)–(d) were unavailable for the entire lapse period and a plaintiff can reach back. Apply the discipline in Docketing Deadlines: Never Miss a Renewal.
[ ] Publish a copyright policy in a publicly accessible location containing the agent's name, physical address, telephone and email; the list of § 512(c)(3) elements; the counter-notice procedure; and one sentence on repeat infringers: "It is our policy, in appropriate circumstances, to disable or terminate the accounts of users who are repeat infringers."
- Authority. 17 U.S.C. § 512(c)(2); Ventura Content, Ltd. v. Motherless, Inc., 885 F.3d 597, 615–19 (9th Cir. 2018) (a provider need not publish internal thresholds). Where the copyright policy is a standalone page, incorporate the repeat-infringer sentence into the terms of use as well. The whole pre-ship stack is in The Legal Layers of a Website, Launching a Website or App Without Legal Debt, and the Website and App Launch Legal Checklist.
[ ] Build the strike ledger. Minimum fields: notice ID; date received; complainant; work; URL; account ID; action taken; date of action; counter-notice received; restoration date; strike count after action; reviewer.
- Authority. Reasonable implementation requires actually tracking who the repeat offenders are. Perfect 10, Inc. v. CCBill LLC, 488 F.3d 1102, 1109–13 (9th Cir. 2007) — CCBill survived because its log recorded webmaster names and email addresses, and only "a substantial failure to record" would have created a triable issue.
[ ] Set a threshold and follow it. Three valid, uncontested notices in twelve months is a defensible default; so is a graduated ladder, provided the last rung actually gets used. Reverse a strike when a counter-notice goes unanswered.
[ ] Terminate somebody, and be able to say how many.
- Authority. Motherless won on arithmetic — 1,320 to 1,980 terminations, nine identified returnees. UMG Recordings, Inc. v. Grande Communications Networks, L.L.C., 118 F.4th 697 (5th Cir. 2024), involved a written policy and zero terminations across seven years and more than a million notices. A policy nobody has executed is not a policy.
- Trap. "Repeat infringer" is not limited to adjudicated, commercial, or willful infringers. BMG, 881 F.3d at 301–03; EMI Christian Music Group, Inc. v. MP3tunes, LLC, 844 F.3d 79, 89–91 (2d Cir. 2016).
[ ] Write the provider-side notice workflow: expeditious removal on a compliant notice, § 512(c)(3)(B)(ii) outreach on a partly compliant one, prompt notice to the subscriber under § 512(g)(2)(A), prompt forwarding of any counter-notice with a statement that restoration will occur in ten business days under § 512(g)(2)(B), and restoration between business days 10 and 14 under § 512(g)(2)(C).
- Why. Following the § 512(g) procedure is what buys the provider immunity from its own user for good-faith removal. 17 U.S.C. § 512(g)(1).
[ ] Do not interfere with standard technical measures, and audit your upload pipeline for silent metadata stripping.
- Authority. 17 U.S.C. § 512(i)(1)(B); see Gardner v. CafePress Inc., No. 3:13-cv-1108, 2014 WL 6890934 (S.D. Cal. Dec. 4, 2014) (automatic stripping of embedded copyright management information on upload could constitute interference). No measure has ever been formally designated, but metadata stripping also raises § 1202 exposure independently.
[ ] Train the abuse team on written communications, in the induction session, with real examples.
- Why. Cox lost on its own emails — an abuse manager instructing "DMCA = reactivate," another writing that the company should "hold on to every subscriber we can." BMG, 881 F.3d at 302–04. Tell them these messages get read aloud in courtrooms.
[ ] Audit annually: agent record current, policy URL live, ledger complete for the year, termination count reportable in one number, and a sample of ten notice files that a stranger could reconstruct.
- Note. After Cox, a conduit that loses the § 512(a) harbor faces a contributory claim requiring inducement or a service tailored to infringement, which a general-purpose broadband provider will almost always win. That changes nothing for a § 512(c) host, which on losing the harbor faces direct-infringement exposure for files on its own servers. Do not let a platform client read the headline and cancel the program. Where the product is an AI service, the storage analysis is genuinely unresolved — see the AI, Content, and IP Toolkit.

Common Mistakes

Sending a copyright notice about a trademark problem. Section 512 gives you nothing against a logo, a counterfeit, or a lookalike listing. Different track, different toolkit.
Assembling a notice from multiple emails. A single communication must contain all six elements. CCBill, 488 F.3d at 1112–13.
Writing "this is infringing" instead of the statutory good-faith formula. A gratuitously broad assertion is a § 512(f) exhibit.
Noticing before capturing. The evidence disappears when the notice works, and no screenshot taken after the fact fixes it.
Treating registration as a litigation step. Fourth Estate makes it a precondition to suit, and § 412 makes late registration cost you statutory damages and fees on most works.
Sending to support@ and waiting. No clock starts. Use the Directory record and screenshot it.
Vendor Schedule A drift. "All our titles" is not a schedule. The one work that matters will be the one added last month.
Counter-noticing on reflex. You have consented to jurisdiction, handed over a home address, pre-waived service, and sworn an oath — to restore content that may earn less than the retainer.
Missing day 10 by treating calendar days as business days. Ten business days is two full calendar weeks, and holidays extend it. Diary both dates.
Filing a damages-only complaint to stop restoration. Section 512(g)(2)(C) speaks of an action seeking an order to restrain the subscriber.
A repeat-infringer policy nobody has ever executed. Grande: a written policy, a million notices, zero terminations.
Letting the agent registration lapse. Three years is exactly long enough for the person who filed it to have changed jobs.

Deadlines at a Glance

| Clock | Length | Source | Extendable? | |---|---|---|---| | Provider removal after a compliant notice | "Expeditiously" — no fixed period; 24–72 hours at large platforms | 17 U.S.C. § 512(c)(1)(C) | N/A | | Provider notice to the subscriber after removal | "Promptly" | 17 U.S.C. § 512(g)(2)(A) | N/A | | Provider forwards the counter-notice and states the 10-day restoration | "Promptly" | 17 U.S.C. § 512(g)(2)(B) | N/A | | Restoration of counter-noticed material | Not less than 10, not more than 14 business days from the provider's receipt | 17 U.S.C. § 512(g)(2)(C) | No | | Claimant's deadline to file suit and notify the agent | Before business day 10 of that window | 17 U.S.C. § 512(g)(2)(C) | No | | Designated agent registration renewal | Every 3 years | 37 C.F.R. § 201.38(c), (e) | No — it lapses | | Registration for statutory damages and fees | Before infringement commenced, or within 3 months of first publication | 17 U.S.C. § 412 | No | | Special handling turnaround | About 1 week; $800 plus the filing fee | Copyright Office practice | No | | Copyright infringement limitations period | 3 years from accrual | 17 U.S.C. § 507(b) | No | | § 512(f) limitations period | Courts generally apply the 3-year copyright period; treat it as 3 years and do not test it | 17 U.S.C. § 507(b) | No | | Copyright Claims Board opt-out | 60 days from service of the notice | 17 U.S.C. § 1506(i) | No | | Content ID dispute response (contractual, not statutory) | Historically 30 days for the claimant to release or uphold | Platform terms | Platform's discretion | | Copyright strike expiry (contractual) | Commonly 90 days; three live strikes terminate a channel | Platform terms | Platform's discretion |