DMCA Takedown Policy
Welcome to Doorframe's Guide to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, commonly known as the "DMCA." This page is not meant as a comprehensive primer to the statute. However, if you've received a DMCA takedown notice targeting content you've posted on Doorframe or if you're a rights-holder looking to issue such a notice, this page will hopefully help to demystify the law a bit as well as our policies for complying with it.
As with all legal matters, it is always 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.
What Is the DMCA?
In order to understand the DMCA and some of the policy lines it draws, it's perhaps helpful to consider life before it was enacted.
The DMCA provides a safe harbor for service providers that host user-generated content. Since even a single claim of copyright infringement can carry statutory damages of up to $150,000, the possibility of being held liable for user-generated content could be very harmful for service providers. With potential damages multiplied across millions of users, cloud-computing and user-generated content sites like YouTube, Facebook, or Doorframe probably never would have existed without the DMCA (or at least not without passing some of that cost downstream to their users).
The DMCA addresses this issue by creating a copyright liability safe harbor for internet service providers hosting allegedly infringing user-generated content. Essentially, so long as a service provider follows the DMCA's notice-and-takedown rules, it won't be liable for copyright infringement based on user-generated content. Because of this, it is important for Doorframe to maintain its DMCA safe-harbor status.
DMCA Notices and Doorframe.io
Doorframe.io strictly re-hosts content in original form or modified for the purposes of display that are originally provided by GitHub.com hosted repositories. If you find content that is in violation of your copyright, DMCA notices should be filed against the offending GitHub.com repository through GitHub.com's DMCA notice system. Doorframe.io has no ability to pre-moderate the content that is generated from a GitHub.com repository.
More information can be found on GitHub.com's DMCA Policy page.
If you come to the conclusion that a DMCA claim needs to be filed with content that is not generated from the contents of a Doorframe installation you can contact copyright@doorframe.io with a DMCA notice or a request for more information.
If presented with a DMCA notice that is for content generated through a User's installation the DMCA notice will be passed on to GitHub.com as that is the origin of the offending material. If the matter is not resolved within 24 hours of Doorframe's acknowledgment of notice reception Doorframe.io will suspend the User installation if not already suspended by GitHub.com.
Again, content hosted on Doorframe.io that is under a Installation is sourced from a respective GitHub.com repository. It is most efficient to file a notice with GitHub.com than Doorframe.io for violation of your copyrights as Doorframe.io is not the original host of the material.
Repeated Infringement
It is the policy of Doorframe, in appropriate circumstances and in its sole discretion, to disable and terminate the accounts of users who may infringe upon the copyrights or other intellectual property rights of Doorframe or others.
Submitting Notices
If you are ready to submit a notice or a counter notice:
- If you are submitting a DMCA notice for content that is specifically related to a Doorframe User's installation, please attempt to submit the notice against the appropriate GitHub.com account and repository as that is where the offending information originated from and will automatically be handled as GitHub and the User work through the DMCA notice. Notices submitted to Doorframe.io against user content will be forwarded to GitHub.com.
- If you are submitting against content that originated from Doorframe or Doorframe.io please submit any DMCA notice to copyright@doorframe.io with the subject "DMCA Takedown Notice against XXX" where XXX is the name of the offending User and Installation to help guarantee a quick response. Please attempt to submit the notice in plain text, as those are more likely to be immediately read than those included in an attachment.
Learn More and Speak Up
If you poke around the Internet, it is not too hard to find commentary and criticism about the copyright system in general and the DMCA in particular. While Doorframe acknowledges and appreciates the important role that the DMCA has played in promoting innovation online, we believe that the copyright laws could probably use a patch or two—if not a whole new release. In software, we are constantly improving and updating our code. Think about how much technology has changed since 1998 when the DMCA was written. Doesn't it just make sense to update these laws that apply to software?
We don't presume to have all the answers. But if you are curious, here are a few links to scholarly articles and blog posts we have found with opinions and proposals for reform:
- Unintended Consequences: Twelve Years Under the DMCA (Electronic Frontier Foundation)
- Statutory Damages in Copyright Law: A Remedy in Need of Reform (William & Mary Law Review)
- Is the Term of Protection of Copyright Too Long? (The 1709 Blog)
- If We're Going to Change DMCA's 'Notice & Takedown,' Let's Focus on How Widely It's Abused (TechDirt)
- Opportunities for Copyright Reform (Cato Unbound)
- Fair Use Doctrine and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act: Does Fair Use Exist on the Internet Under the DMCA? (Santa Clara Law Review)
Doorframe doesn't necessarily endorse any of the viewpoints in those articles. We provide the links to encourage you to learn more, form your own opinions, and then reach out to your elected representative(s) (e.g, in the U.S. Congress or E.U. Parliament) to seek whatever changes you think should be made.
