Guide to Submitting a DMCA Takedown Notice

This guide describes the information that LuzFaltex needs in order to process a DMCA takedown request. If you have more general questions about what the DMCA is or how LuzFaltex processes DMCA takedown requests, please review our DMCA Takedown Policy

Due to the type of content LuzFaltex hosts (forum posts and creative content) and the way that content is managed (on forums), we need complaints to be as specific as possible. These guidelines are designed to make the processing of alleged infringement notices as straightforward as possible. Our form of notice set forth below is consistent with the form suggested by the DMCA statute, which can be found at the U.S. Copyright Office's official website.

As with all legal matters, it is best to consult with a professional about your specific questions or situation. We strongly encourage you to do so before taking any action that might impact your rights. This guide isn't legal advice and shouldn't be taken as such.

Before You Start

Tell the Truth. The DMCA requires that you swear to the facts in your copyright complaint under penalty of perjury. It is a federal crime to intentionally lie in a sworn declaration (18 U.S.C § 1621). Submitting false information could also result in civil liability -- that is, you could get sued for monetary damages. The DMCA itself provides for damages against any person who knowingly materially represents that material or activity is infringing (17 USC § 512(f)).

Investigate. Millions of users and organizations pour their hearts and souls to the projects they create and contribute to. Filing a DMCA complaint against such a project is a serious legal allegation that caries real consequences for real people. Because of that, we ask that you conduct a thorough investigation and consult with an attorney before submitting a takedown to make sure the use isn't actually permissible.

Ask Nicely First. A great step before sending us a takedown notice is to try contacting the user directly. They may have listed contact information on their public profile page. Worst case, you can always sign up to the forum for the Project and send them a direct message. This is not strictly required, but it is classy.

Send in the Correct Request. We can only accept DMCA takedown notices for works that are protected by copyright and that identify a specific copyrightable work. If you have a complaint about trademark abuse, please see our trademark policy. If you are dealing with defamation or other abusive behavior, please see our Code of Conduct.

No Bots. You should have a trained professional valuate the facts of every takedown notice you send. If you are outsourcing your efforts to a third party, make sure you know how they operate and make sure they are not using automated bots to submit complaints in bulk. These complaints are often invalid and processing them results in needlessly taking down content!

Matters of Copyright are Hard. It can be very difficult to determine whether or not a particular work is protected by copyright. For example, facts (including data) are generally not copyrightable. Words and short phrases are generally not copyrightable. URLs and domain names are generally not copyrightable. Since you can only use the DMCA process to target content that is protected by copyright, you should speak with a lawyer if you have questions about whether or not your content is protectable.

You May Receive a Counter Notice. Any user affected by your takedown notice may decide to submit a counter notice. If they do, we will re-enable their content within 10-14 days unless you notify us that you have initiated a legal action seeking to restrain the user from engaging in infringing activity relating to the content on LuzFaltex Projects.

Your Complaint Will Be Published. As noted in our DMCA Takedown Policy, after redacting personal information, we will publish all complete and actionable takedown requests at https://github.com/LuzFaltex/DMCA/.

LuzFaltex Isn't The Judge. LuzFaltex exercises little discretion in the process other than determining whether the notices meet the minimum requirements of the DMCA. It is up to the parties (and their lawyers) to evaluate the merit of their claims, bearing in mind that notices must be made under the penalty of perjury.

Your Complaint Must...

1. Include the following statement: "I have read and understand LuzFaltex's Guide to Filing a DMCA Notice." We won't refuse to process an otherwise complete complaint if you don't include this statement. But we'll know that you haven't read these guidelines and may ask you to go back and do so.

2. Identify the copyrighted work you believe has been infringed. This information is important because it helps the affected user evaluate your claim and give them the ability to compare your work to theirs. The specificity of your identification will depend on the nature of the work you believe has been infringed. If you have published your work, you might be able to just link back to a web page where it lives. IF it is proprietary and not published, you might describe it and explain that it is proprietary. If you have registered it with the Copyright Office, you should include the registration number. If you are alleging that the hosted content is a direct, literal copy of your work, you can also just explain that fact.

3. Identify the material that you allege is infringing the copyrighted work listed in item #2 above. It is important to be as specific as possible in your identification. This identification needs to be reasonably sufficient to permit LuzFaltex to locate the material. At a minimum, this means that you should include the URL to the material allegedly infringing your copyright. If you allege that less than a whole post or submission is infringing, identify the specific file(s), text, or line numbers within a file that you allege infringe. If you allege that all of the content at a URL infringes, please be explicit about that as well.

4. Explain what the affected user would need to do in order to remedy the infringement. Again, specificity is important. When we pass your complaint along to the user, this will tell them what they need to do in order to avoid having the rest of their content disabled. Does the user just need to address a statement of attribution? Do they need to delete certain lines of text or images? Of course, we understand that in some cases, all of a user's content may be alleged to infringe and there's nothing they could do short of deleting it all. If that's the case, please make that clear as well.

5. Provide your contact information. Include your email address, name, telephone number, and physical address.

6. Provide contact information, if you know it, for the alleged infringer. Usually this will be satisfied by providing the LuzFaltex username associated with the allegedly infringing content. But there may be cases where you have additional knowledge about the alleged infringer. If so, please share that information with us.

7. Include the following statement: "I have a good faith belief that use of the copyrighted materials described above on the infringing web pages is not authorized by the copyright owner, or its agent, or the law. I have taken fair use into consideration."

8. Include the following statement: "I swear, under penalty of perjury, that the information in this notification is accurate and that I am the copyright owner, or am authorized to act on behalf of the owner, of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed."

9. Include your physical or electronic signature.

How to Submit your Complaint

The fastest way to get a response is to enter your information and answer all of the questions on our Copyright claims form.

You can also send an email notification to copyright@luzfaltex.com. You may include an attachment if you like, but also please include a plain-text version of your letter in the body of the message.

If you must send your notice by physical mail, you can do that too, but it will take substantially longer for us to receive and respond to it—and the 10-14 day waiting period starts from when we receive your counter notice. Notices we receive via plain-text email have a much faster turnaround than PDF attachments or physical mail. If you still wish to mail us your notice, our physical address is:

This content is based off the Github policy of the same name.