We got a letter from Google recently, reproduced below, suggesting that someone, innocently or otherwise, reproduced material that may have infringed copyright. Thankfully the site in question was no longer hosted by us, and had not been for a good many years, but it is a reminder that we should all be wary of re-using other people’s digital assets without checking the licence agreement. Look for Creative Commons and remember that attribution is just polite, its part of the CC deal. No licence probably means it is copyright, so an email to the owner goes a long way. Easy.
Have fun publishing
The Ourlocality Police.
Hello,
Google has been notified, according to the terms of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), that some of your materials allegedly infringe upon the copyrights of others. The URLs of the allegedly infringing materials may be found at the end of this message. The notice that we received, with any personally identifying information removed, may be found at http://www.chillingeffects.org/notice.cgi?sID=11200265.
Please note that it may take several weeks for the notice to be posted on the above page.
The DMCA is a United States copyright law that provides guidelines for online service provider liability in case of copyright infringement. We are in the process of removing from our Google Search results the materials that allegedly infringe upon the copyrights of others. If we did not do so, we would be subject to a claim of copyright infringement, regardless of its merits. Seehttp://chillingeffects.org/dmca512/faq.cgi for more information about the DMCA, and seehttp://www.google.com/support/bin/static.py?page=ts.cs&ts=1114905 for the process that Google requires in order to make a DMCA complaint.
If you feel that your sites or pages were mistakenly removed due to a DMCA request filed against you, or you have taken the necessary steps to remove the infringing content, Google can reinstate these materials into its search results upon receipt of either a DMCA Counter Notification form, or a Content Removed form.
To request reinstatement for a URL where the allegedly infringing content is still available, please fill out our DMCA Counter Notification form:
https://support.google.com/legal/contact/lr_counternotice?product=websearch&hl=en
If you have removed the allegedly infringing content, you may fill out our Content Removed Notification form:
https://support.google.com/legal/contact/lr_contentremoved?product=websearch&hl=en
If you have legal questions about this notification, you should retain your own legal counsel. If you have any other questions about this notification, please let us know.
The affected URLs are listed below:
Regards,
The Google Team
