What to do in the case of Copyright Infringement

How to Properly and Politely ask a webmaster to remove your copyrighted material,

as well as proceed as the network creator or webmaster in question.

Running a social network can be challenging, as not all of your members respect the copyright laws.

Many people say, which run larger groups if you post material please make sure you have the author's permission.

Most people who think of someone infringing on copyright materials believe the police in their town will knock down their door and drag them kicking and screaming all the way to the jail. :laughing:⁠ 

That is not the honest way. This post is meant to show the author's rights and the Network Creator (NC) or webmaster's rights as well as how to comply peacefully so everyone gets along well in the process.

If you are a poster, or just a general member of a network, make sure you get your articles, pictures and videos in the public domain. Google Image search and most image searches now carry the warning "Image may be copyrighted." If it's your works, for example you may post and under neath the article or on top of it, the images or anything else, you can say "May be used elsewhere as long as Author's name stays in tact or a web link is written in the work or on it."

If you do not want them to use it outside the network media in question you must say "Do not use my works anywhere else without my permission." Meaning you would have to email the author and ask them for permission and to show how you wish to use or feature their work. Not all authors will say No, so don't be afraid to ask.

If you are the author and see your work used without permission - Email the NC or webmaster POLITELY, show files or links as to where the work is located, and ask them to remove the content that featured your work. The NC should then contact the poster who posted the work, and tell them why their posts are about to be edited and or removed from the network. They must then ask the poster or member not to post anymore copyrighted materials from this author and if they do their account may be subject to removal.

If a NC sees copyright infringement happening on the network, you can then also stop the incident as it is happening. This is also what the report or flag button is on some websites and forums. If you have flagged a material you must explain why. Tell the Mod team or staff or admin (Usually the NC) what has transpired so they will remove the content.

Some social networks may choose to ignore an author's warning or message. What then can they do to get the material removed? If you have contacted the website three times or more, then you may look into contacting the host of the webmaster. You must look for the type of web host the  NC has and contact the webmaster team of the host platform politely. Explain what is going on and provide the email transcripts of your talk /discussion with the NC and say that they are ignoring you and you want the material pulled. The Host of the website may suspend, or delete the entire network or website at the owner's expense if it warrants it.

Some websites however are self hosted, such like PHP FOX and social engine, the NC has downloaded and paid for a license to use the website. It could be difficult in asking for the materials to be removed. You should only file a dmca report if everything else has failed between you and the webmaster or NC.

DMCA - Digital Millennium Copyright Act

However, the US laws for DMCA do not work in the UK

"Does DMCA apply in UK? Unfortunately (or fortunately) the US DMCA act cannot be enforced in the UK. ... Please note that we are a UK company and under UK law the DMCA ;act does not have a equivelent provision. Jun 3, 2008"

You Can find out more here also: Copyrighted.com

Fair Use agreement

Some websites, that deal with selling and making of t-shirts and hoodies online, such like redbubble.com and teepublic.com allow artworks or Images that may be copyrighted under the work of Fair use agreement, in which the author may not know the image is copyrighted as it held no copyright and they have manipulated the image to look different on a product. If reported, these products will be taken down by the store in question and the creator of the store notified about the image in question. No one will go to jail or get sued. 

How much of a copyrighted material may be used under fair use?

Fair use allows limited use of copyrighted material without permission from the copyright holder for purposes such as criticism, parody, news reporting, research and scholarship, and teaching. There are four factors to consider when determining whether your use is a fair one. www.baylor.edu › copyright
Using Copyrighted Material | Copyright | Baylor University

Such as also when one is reporting news, one may quote/unquote an author about a blog, in which a small snippet of their work appears in an blogger's blog or forum for the purpose of staying on topic, reporting news, and such more. The author of that blog or paper may say on their website or blog entry "This work is not allowed to be quoted or used in a manner without my explicit permission." Which is not actually true, a webmaster of another blog reporting news on such an entry (Usually used to raise critique of a entry or article) may use at least 53-83 words of the author's document in a fair use quote/unquote segment. (Roughly two or three paragraphs, per page)

Webmasters who build on wordpress.com, even if they have pointed their own domain to the blog in question, as well as content on tumblr, livejournal.com, pixie (self hosted), ghost (self hosted), and other cms such as Drupal, Elgg and also Xoops, Mambo, may use the 53/83 word quote segment, because even though some are self hosted, the license of the software is considered free or of a public domain. Other blogs on sites like ning.com for instance would not be allowed to quote the 53-83 count and you would have to link the article instead and then the blog author could just delete or rewrite their link name (Or slug/stub like with wordpress articles) to keep you from hosting their link. Hiveflare I believe also you would not be able to quote and but would be able to host a link to the blogger's material. You can always, take the article offline and list it in google docs or drive and privately allow only some people to read the entire article and this is a free fair use instance again.

If you have had to ever file a DMCA notice against someone or have material removed, you may reply below and tell us about the experience.