Copyright and Takedown

A copyright notice is the right route when your own picture, or your own words, have been copied onto this site without your permission.

Some things that feel similar are handled elsewhere, and will get sorted out faster there:

• A review you think is untrue, or a post that names or targets somebody — use the Report link on the item itself, or read the Community Guidelines.
• A photograph of you, or of your property, that you did not agree to — that is a privacy question rather than a copyright one. Write to us and say that; you do not need any of the formal wording below.
• Somebody using your business name or logo as if it were theirs — write to us with the details. Trade marks are not covered by the process on this page.
• A listing for your business that you did not create — you can claim it from your account, or write to us.

Send it to weldon@weldonpc.com, or by post to Broadview Heights Today · c/o WeldonPC, PO Box 318364, Independence, OH 44131.

[REVIEW: designated copyright agent — name, postal address, phone and email]

United States copyright law sets out what a notice has to contain. Please include all six:

• 1. Your signature — typing your full name at the bottom of an email counts.
• 2. What was copied. Identify the work you own — “the photograph of the shopfront on my website at …”, or a description if it has never been published.
• 3. Where it is on our site. The full web address of the page, and enough to say which item on it. A page with eight pictures on it is not enough on its own.
• 4. How to reach you. Your name, a postal address, a telephone number and an email address.
• 5. A statement that you believe in good faith that the use is not authorised by you, your agent, or the law.
• 6. A statement that the information in your notice is accurate, and — under penalty of perjury — that you are the owner of the copyright or authorised to act for the owner.

A notice missing pieces four to six is not a valid notice and we may have to come back to you for them, which slows everything down. If you are in a hurry, put them all in the first email.

• A person reads it. We may take the item down, or hide it, while we look at it.
• We tell the member who posted it what we removed and why, and we pass on your notice. That includes the contact details in it — the law requires them and the other side is entitled to answer. If you would rather not hand over a home address, use a business or mailing address.
• We record the decision, the same as any other moderation decision.
• When we remove a picture, we delete the file from the server as well as the record of it, so the old link stops working.

You can send a counter-notice. Only do this if you genuinely believe the removal was a mistake — for example the picture is yours, or you had permission, or it was misidentified.

Send it to the same address, with:

• 1. Your signature — your full name typed at the bottom is fine.
• 2. What was removed and where it was, so we can identify it — the page address it appeared on before it went.
• 3. A statement, under penalty of perjury, that you believe in good faith it was removed as a result of a mistake or a misidentification.
• 4. Your name, postal address and telephone number, a statement that you agree to the jurisdiction of the federal court for the district your address is in — or, if you are outside the United States, any district in which we may be found — and that you will accept service of process from the person who sent the original notice.

What happens next. We pass your counter-notice, including your contact details, to whoever sent the original notice. If they do not tell us within ten to fourteen business days that they have gone to court about it, we may put the material back.

A counter-notice is a formal step and it puts your name and address in front of the other side. If the material is not really yours, the better move is to leave it down.

We close the accounts of people who do this repeatedly. A member who has had content removed on valid copyright notices more than once can expect their account and their listings to be suspended, and we do not treat “I only copied it off the internet” as a defence.

It is not legal advice, and we are not able to give you any. It tells you how to send us a notice and what we do with it. If you need to know whether you hold copyright in something, or whether a use is fair, ask a lawyer.

weldon@weldonpc.com — or by post to Broadview Heights Today · c/o WeldonPC, PO Box 318364, Independence, OH 44131.

See also the Terms of Use, the Privacy Policy and the Community Guidelines.