When Patreon receives a notification of claimed infringement pursuant from the DMCA, we check for two things:
- Is the notification sufficient?
- Is the notification made in good faith?
The first check is to make sure that it complies with the requirements of section 512 of the Copyright Act and that the information appears to be correct, such as that the person sending the notification is actually authorised to send it.
The second check is to make sure that the alleged infringement passes the common sense test. We don’t stop all potentially bad-faith claims here, because we are held liable if we refuse to take content down, but we try our best to make sure that bad-faith claims don’t harm creators.
If you receive a notification, we have already gone through this review and determined that it is at least a valid claim and appears to have been made in good faith.
At this point, you have 48 hours from when we emailed you until we remove the content or your page to comply with the DMCA.
If you wish to dispute this notification of claimed infringement, you can send us a valid counter-notification. For a counter-notification to be valid, it must comply with the applicable counter-notification provisions of section 512(g)(3) of the Copyright Act.
We will forward this counter-notification to the original sender of the notification. If the original sender wishes to keep your content removed, then the next step for them is to sue in court. We strongly advise that you speak with a solicitor before taking this step. We can refer you to a solicitor with a guaranteed flat rate of $350 for an initial review.
To send a counter-notice we suggest you follow this template:
- Your personal information:
- Your name
- Your address
- Your telephone number - In your own words identify the content that was removed and include the URL of your page. If the work was located somewhere other than your creator home page, then please specify where it was located.
- Read, understand and include this statement:
“Under penalty of perjury, I have a good-faith belief that the material was removed as a result of mistake or misidentification. I consent to the jurisdiction of the District Court for the judicial district in which my address is located. If my address is outside of the United States, I consent to the jurisdiction of any judicial district in which Patreon may be found. I will accept service of process from the person who sent the original takedown notice or an agent of that person.”
Your physical or electronic signature.
Please note that, if we receive multiple DMCA notices for your page, we may ban you from using Patreon as part of our repeat-infringer policy. Any notices you send a counter-notice for will not be counted against you in our repeat-infringer policy.