How to appeal a DMCA takedown and avoid copyright penalties

DMCA is meant to protect the copyright of a website. In practice, though, many competitors abuse it to file copyright complaints, which can seriously hurt a site's performance SEO . Because this is a common and frustrating problem, this article from MONA Media explains for you how to file a DMCA counter-notice effectively , the same method MONA has used on its own website.

What is a DMCA report?

DMCA stands for Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which means “Digital Millennium Copyright Act of the United States. It is a law designed to protect users' copyright over digital content. 

Through DMCA, you can report content copying very effectively. The flip side is that when your site receives a DMCA report, you are being asked to remove or disable the infringing content.

How do you know if your website has been reported under the DMCA?

When your site is reported under the DMCA, Google sends a notice to your email saying that your article link has been removed. To receive this notice and the follow-up, you need to set up Google Search Console for your site. It is a free tool that gives you full information and reports on ownership and DMCA copyright matters.

You can also check whether your site has a DMCA complaint on the Lumen website at: https://www.lumendatabase.org/ and entering your domain name. If your site has been reported, a list will appear DMCA (Copyright) Complaint to Google showing the sender, the date of the report, the original URL and the article suspected of infringing, so you can compare them and make the right changes.

You can also run a query using this address: https://transparencyreport.google.com/copyright/domains/ followed by your domain. If the result shows a 404 error, your site has not been reported under the DMCA. If it shows a list like the image below, your site has been reported for DMCA infringement.

How to identify the content flagged for copyright infringement

After Google Search Console notifies you that content has been removed or disabled in Google Search because of the DMCA, the first thing to do is work out which content is affected.

To pinpoint exactly which content was reported, MONA suggests two steps:

Step 1: Confirm whether your website has been reported under the DMCA

Search Notice of removal under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) from Google Search in the Google Search Console notifications, or use the third-party tools introduced above.

Step 2: Compare and confirm the reported content

Use the information attached to the notice, such as:

• The complaining party
• The content accused of infringement 
• The original URL (the website that filed the complaint)
• The URLs on your website accused of infringement

This gives you a basis to compare the content and decide how to fix or adjust it.

What to prepare before filing a DMCA counter-notice for your website

To improve your chances of a successful DMCA counter-notice, we recommend adding a DMCA badge to your website footer. Once installed, DMCA offers two versions: free and paid.

The paid version gives you a better chance of a successful counter-notice. If your budget is tight, though, the free version is still a reasonable choice.

How to check your website for duplicate content

Many plagiarism checkers can help you find out whether your articles have been copied. You can use the plagiarism checking tool https://plagiarismdetector.net/vi to check your articles. 

Just paste your content into the checker and run it. When it finishes, the result shows two figures: “Unique” or “Plagiarized”. From these you can tell whether your article is original or overlaps with other websites.

See also: 7 tools to check unique content quickly and effectively

How to write content that avoids copy-content penalties

To publish content without being penalized for duplication, follow these steps:

• Add synonyms and insert extra sentences into the article you drew on for reference.
• Reorder the content and information in the article to avoid duplication.
• Add more H2 and H3 headings as you need them, so the content differs from other websites.

Once the article is finished, run a final plagiarism check to confirm it is unique and not copied from another source.

-> What is spin content? The most effective spin content techniques

Why a DMCA report can be a dirty trick

A dirty DMCA report leaves many businesses and users confused, because the content on the site is entirely original and written by you. From the start, none of it was copied from any other source.

Yet you receive a notice about plagiarism, copying and a DMCA report. That means someone is playing dirty, and the usual causes are:

• A competitor wants to push their own site, and your traffic is hurting theirs.
• A competitor wants your top-ranking articles removed so their own site can climb in search results.
• A user reported incorrect information by mistake without checking carefully.
• A misunderstanding that your content was copied from someone else.

How to file a DMCA counter-notice and get content restored after a DMCA report 

How do you file a DMCA counter-notice? Let MONA walk you through the basic steps:

• Step 1: Go to the DMCA counter-notice section under “Notice of removal and DMCA counter-notice”. You can search on Google and click “Search” in Google Search Console to submit the counter-notice.
• Step 2: Provide the content and information required for the DMCA counter-notice.
• Step 3: Click “Submit” and wait for Google's reply by email.
• Step 4: Watch for information and replies from the system. Google will respond to your email address.

A case where MONA Media filed a DMCA counter-notice successfully

• Step 5: Check the index after receiving the notification email, then restore the article links that were removed.

Sample text for a DMCA counter-notice to Google

When you send a DMCA counter-notice to Google, you can use the following template:

Counter-notice template in English

Dear Google,

My full name is …….., representing the website (fill in your website), owned by Global Online Branding Joint Stock Company.

My company address is: (company address).

I have received a report that my article contains copyrighted content from another website. Specifically, our article link on the website is: (link to the reported article).

Our article is reported to be the same as the content of another website. In addition, I commit that all other content of this article was written by our editorial team so the content does not infringe the copyright of any other website.

We hope Google Team will review again and re-index the article link.

Best regards,

Sender's name.

Counter-notice template in Vietnamese

Dear Google,

My name is ………., and I represent the website (your website name).

My company address is: (full company address).

I have received a report that the article (give the article link) was reported for copyright infringement.

Our article was reported as duplicating information from competitors' websites. I confirm that the information we wrote is original, authentic and not copied from any other source, so this content cannot infringe the copyright of any website.

We kindly ask the Google team to review this and restore our article.

Sincerely,

Sender's name.

Important points when filing a DMCA counter-notice

To make your DMCA counter-notice as effective as possible, MONA has listed the points to keep in mind:

• Provide all the information the system asks for. You need to give full copyright details and the author's name to prove the articles are yours. With complete data, Google can process the complaint as quickly as possible.
• Register for DMCA protection so the content you publish is covered and competitors have less room to play dirty.

That is the full answer on what is DMCA, along with the reasons and the steps DMCA appeals that work best today. We hope what MONA Media has shared above makes your counter-notice go smoothly. Good luck!

See also:

• What is copyright? What you need to know about authors' rights
• How to recover from a Google Penguin algorithm penalty