DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) is a law that supplements U.S. copyright legislation with directives that take into account modern technological advancements in copying and disseminating information.
DMCA Complaint: Removal of Plagiarism from Google
A copyright holder who encounters unauthorized copying or plagiarism of their content (text, photo, illustration, video, or audio) can file a DMCA complaint to have the content removed from Google’s index or blocked on Google-owned services such as YouTube, Google Play, AdWords, Google Drive, etc.
How to File a DMCA Complaint:
Depending on where the infringing copyright materials are hosted, Google has two forms for filing a DMCA complaint:
- If the plagiarism is hosted on Google services: Go to the Removal of content from Google page and specify which service you found the copyright infringement in.
- If the plagiarism is hosted on other websites: Go to the Removal of copyright-infringing materials page and fill out the form with your contact information and links to the materials that infringe your copyright.
After submitting the form, the review of the DMCA claim takes about two weeks. You can check the status of your complaint on the Material removal dashboard.
Once the complaint is reviewed, you will receive an email notification regarding the review of the DMCA claim. If the unauthorized use of content is confirmed, the pages with violations will be removed from Google’s index within a day, and the infringing materials in Google services will also be blocked within the same timeframe.
Specifics of DMCA Action in Google
When detecting unauthorized use of copyrighted content, the copyright holder should consider the following nuances before filing a DMCA complaint:
- The DMCA complaint can only remove or block content if it is hosted on Google services. If it is hosted on other websites, Google will remove links to these materials from its database, but the content itself will not be affected.
- A multi-page website cannot be completely removed from the index; only the pages for which DMCA complaints have been filed will be blocked in search. If there are multiple pages with violations, a separate DMCA complaint must be filed for each one.
- When filing a DMCA complaint, Google will notify you: “WARNING! You are responsible for damages (including costs and attorney’s fees) if your notification of alleged copyright infringement contains misleading information. According to court rulings, you must evaluate the circumstances that provide a defense, copyright limitations, and exceptions before sending the notification.”
- You can check complaints against any website in the DMCA database (Lumen) at: https://www.lumendatabase.org/. If links to the website are found in the Lumen Database, it means that a DMCA complaint has been filed and reviewed in favor of the copyright holder against one or more pages of that website. Links to the pages in the Lumen database have been removed from Google’s index.
- The DMCA complaint is an effective method of combating the unauthorized use of copyrighted content. However, the copyright holder must have legal grounds and be prepared to defend their copyright in court. The DMCA is not a method for competing with others but a means of opposing the use of copyrighted content. If the DMCA complaint tool is used unlawfully, you will be the one to suffer, not the defamed site.
SEO Specialist Tip: A DMCA complaint does not impose filters on the site during ranking; it only excludes the pages for which it was filed from the index. A DMCA “Pirate” filter can only be imposed on the entire site in the case of repeated DMCA complaints on different pages of the resource.
