A DMCA takedown notice is a written request, sent to an online service, asking it to remove or disable access to material that infringes the sender's copyright. The name comes from the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998, which created a notice-and-takedown process in section 512 of the US Copyright Act (17 U.S.C. § 512).
Why the process exists
Online services host enormous amounts of material uploaded by other people. Section 512 gives qualifying services a "safe harbor": they are generally protected from copyright liability for what their users upload, provided they meet conditions, including removing infringing material promptly when they receive a valid notice. The notice is how a rights holder triggers that removal without going to court first.
What a notice has to contain
Section 512(c)(3) lists the elements of a valid notice. In plain terms, a notice needs:
- A physical or electronic signature of the copyright owner or a person authorised to act for them.
- Identification of the copyrighted work claimed to be infringed.
- Identification of the infringing material, with enough information (usually the exact URL) for the service to find it.
- Contact information for the sender.
- A statement that the sender has a good-faith belief the use is not authorised by the owner, its agent or the law.
- A statement that the information in the notice is accurate and, under penalty of perjury, that the sender is authorised to act for the owner.
A notice that leaves these out can be ignored by the service, which is why accuracy and completeness matter more than length.
Who receives it
Services that want safe-harbor protection register a designated agent with the US Copyright Office, and many also publish an online form. A notice normally goes to that agent or form at the platform, social network or hosting provider that stores the material. It is not sent to the person who uploaded it.
What happens next
If the notice is valid, the service removes or disables access to the material and normally tells the uploader. The uploader can respond with a counter-notice stating, under penalty of perjury, that they believe the material was removed by mistake or misidentification. The service then passes the counter-notice to the sender. Unless the sender tells the service within a short statutory window (10 to 14 business days) that it has filed a court action, the service may restore the material.
Accuracy has consequences
Section 512(f) makes anyone who knowingly materially misrepresents that material is infringing liable for damages. In practice this means a sender should check that the work is theirs (or that they are authorised), that the copy really is a copy, and that obvious defences such as a licence or a genuine fair-use argument have been considered before sending.
It is not the only route
The DMCA is US law. Many services outside the US accept DMCA-format notices as a matter of policy, but other countries have their own rules. In the UK and EU, for example, hosting providers' protection from liability also depends on acting expeditiously once they know about infringing material, but the process and paperwork differ. A notice to a platform removes material at the source only; it does not remove links to it from search results, which is a separate request.