Sending and Fighting a DMCA Takedown: A Practitioner's Guide to Notices, Counter-Notices, and Misrepresentation Claims
By Casey Scott McKay ·
This is the working manual for the notice-and-takedown machinery of 17 U.S.C. 512 - what to do, in what order, on what clock, and at what cost. Fifteen numbered stages run from whether a takedown is the right instrument at all, through fixing chain of title and authority to sign, finding the correct designated agent, documenting the Lenz fair use look, drafting each of the six statutory elements with model language, preserving evidence before the material disappears, and running a repeat-notice program at scale without creating misrepresentation exposure. The guide then turns the notice around: triaging an incoming takedown, deciding whether to counter-notice, drafting around the consent-to-jurisdiction trap, and managing the ten-to-fourteen business day put-back window from both sides, including the expedited registration problem that decides whether a claimant can stop restoration at all. It covers Section 512(f) misrepresentation as sword and shield, the Copyright Claims Board as a cheaper forum, how a platform builds a repeat-infringer policy that survives discovery, platform mechanics for YouTube Content ID, marketplaces, hosts, CDNs, code hosts and app stores, and the parallel non-statutory world of trademark takedowns and brand registries. One worked example - a Montana field-guide publisher, a knockoff PDF, and a Denver birding channel with a very good fair use defense - runs through all of it, and a consolidated cost-and-timeline table sits at the end.
IP and Technology > Copyright | Guide | Published 23 March 2026 - Updated 13 July 2026 | Casey Scott McKay - marksy.us
Summary. This is the working manual for the notice-and-takedown machinery of 17 U.S.C. § 512 — what to do, in what order, on what clock, and at what cost. Fifteen numbered stages run from whether a takedown is the right instrument at all, through fixing chain of title, finding the correct designated agent, documenting the Lenz fair use look, drafting each of the six statutory elements with model language, preserving evidence before the material disappears, and running a repeat-notice program at scale without creating misrepresentation exposure. The guide then turns the notice around: triaging an incoming takedown, deciding whether to counter-notice, drafting around the consent-to-jurisdiction trap, and managing the ten-to-fourteen business day put-back window from both sides — including the expedited registration problem that decides whether a claimant can stop restoration at all. It covers § 512(f) misrepresentation as sword and shield, the Copyright Claims Board as a cheaper forum, how a platform builds a repeat-infringer policy that survives discovery, platform mechanics for Content ID, marketplaces, hosts, CDNs, code hosts and app stores, and the parallel, non-statutory world of trademark takedowns. One worked example runs through all of it.
Keywords: dmca takedown notice · section 512(c)(3) elements · counter-notice drafting · section 512(g) put-back window · designated agent directory · section 512(f) misrepresentation · repeat infringer policy · youtube content id · copyright strike · amazon brand registry · ebay vero notice · notice and takedown workflow · good faith belief statement · consent to jurisdiction trap · expedited copyright registration · lumen database · copyright claims board · takedown evidence preservation
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