Digital Millennium Copyright Act

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act

It's Google's policy to respond to clear notices of alleged copyright infringement. Our response to these notices may include removing or disabling access to material claimed to be the subject of infringing activity and/or terminating subscribers. If we take action in response to a notice, we may try to notify the alleged infringer or the operator of the affected site.

We may also document notices of alleged infringement on which we act. We may forward the content in your notice to the nonprofit organization Lumen, which publishes these notices after removing certain personal information. You can see an example of such a publication here. For products like Google Web Search, we provide a link to the notice as published by Lumen in place of the removed content.

This page provides instructions for filing the following types of complaints:

• Infringement Notification
• Counter notification

Infringement Notification

To file a notice of infringement with us, please file a complaint using the steps available at our legal troubleshooter. By selecting the appropriate product, the form will prompt you to provide all the information listed below that is required to submit a valid DMCA complaint. Please note that you will be liable for damages (including costs and attorneys' fees) if you materially misrepresent that a product or activity is infringing your copyrights. Indeed, in a past case (please see http://www.onlinepolicy.org/action/legpolicy/opg_v_diebold/ for more information), a company that sent an infringement notification seeking removal of online materials that were protected by the fair use doctrine was ordered to pay such costs and attorneys fees. The company agreed to pay over $100,000. Accordingly, if you are not sure whether material available online infringes your copyright, we suggest that you first contact an attorney.

Counter notification

The administrator of an affected site or the provider of affected content may make a counter notification pursuant to sections 512(g)(2) and (3) of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. When we receive a counter notification, we may reinstate the material in question.

Please click on the relevant link below if you would like to file a counter notice for one of the following products:

Blogger
Web Search
Google+ Pages/Profiles

If your issue relates to a product not listed above, please find it on our legal troubleshooter and choose the “Counter Notice” option. Please note that you will be liable for damages (including costs and attorneys' fees) if you materially misrepresent that a product or activity is not infringing the copyrights of others. Accordingly, if you are not sure whether certain material infringes the copyrights of others, we suggest that you first contact an attorney. A sample counter notification may be found at http://www.lumendatabase.org/dmca/counter512.pdf.

When filling out our counter notice form, please be sure to identify the specific URLs or other unique identifying information of material that Google has removed or to which Google has disabled access.