DMCA NOTICE directly to my Email ID

Even moving to an offshore host is not the perfect answer as this will not protect your serp ranking, which google will remove as soon as they are aware of a dmca.

Also they sent it to your own email? Which means they have done some digging, offshore will not stop you being sued.

Your call but I would personally hold my hands up, fair cop, remove the offending item and save the site, move on to your next project.

dave18k said:

they cant force you anyway haha, you pay for your hosting you do what you want after all
they wont come to your home with a gun and asking to remove everything, they should not brag about that its free pub for them anyway

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What's wrong with you?

His hosting will take down his website and close everything, including handing out his domain name to DMCA..
You don't just come online searching for ways on how to make money, you get to read the terms and condition.

peepin2me said:

Which country do you reside in? Does your country have strict laws to protect intellectual property rights?

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I live in India. Am not sure about the law here.

deancow said:

Does hostwinds just hand over users email to law firms?

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No they didn't

fheaky said:

I got the EXACT same email. I wouldn't worry too much about it, they probably sent it to everyone.

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Can you pm me about this?

rob1977 said:

Even moving to an offshore host is not the perfect answer as this will not protect your serp ranking, which google will remove as soon as they are aware of a dmca.

Also they sent it to your own email? Which means they have done some digging, offshore will not stop you being sued.

Your call but I would personally hold my hands up, fair cop, remove the offending item and save the site, move on to your next project.

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They didn't send it to my email ID directly, they sent the mail to the whois guard mail ID that is shown on the whois details of my domain.

I have been living in Finland for quiet long and I can assure you that they do what they say. So cleanup your self before they sue you and press legal charges.

xorain said:

I have been living in Finland for quiet long and I can assure you that they do what they say. So cleanup your self before they sue you and press legal charges.

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Does having an article about their game infringes copyright?


Can I remove the game images and redesign the site without any game related on my site, keeping the content?

They must be saying about the images, videos and design.

CrazyTeen said:

I live in India. Am not sure about the law here.

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If your in india then they can do two things:

Sue you in US, convict you and extradit you as per 1997 treaty *provided the charges framed are extraditable. This is however, highly unlikely and is only a theoretical possibility keeping in view the gravity of the alleged offense.

Hire someone (lawyer) in India to sue you in a Civil suit in India, however, they probably won't if the losses aren't much however the chances increase if the Complainant Company has a Office in India.

In short nothing to worry until you get a court notice from Indian court.

dont worry ignore it.

parahalu said:

If your in india then they can do two things:

Sue you in US, convict you and extradit you as per 1997 treaty *provided the charges framed are extraditable. This is however, highly unlikely and is only a theoretical possibility keeping in view the gravity of the alleged offense.

Hire someone (lawyer) in India to sue you in a Civil suit in India, however, they probably won't if the losses aren't much however the chances increase if the Complainant Company has a Office in India.

In short nothing to worry until you get a court notice from Indian court.

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I dont think they have an office in india.
So you say i still can remove the content after the Indian Court notice to avoid getting sued.

CrazyTeen said:

I dont think they have an office in india.
So you say i still can remove the content after the Indian Court notice to avoid getting sued.

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Dont Worry the chances of them suing you in India is 0.0001% However, answering the question, no Once suit is instituted, then taking down the content will not help much.

CrazyTeen said:

I dont think they have an office in india.
So you say i still can remove the content after the Indian Court notice to avoid getting sued.

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Don't worry about it mate. Indian copyright laws and anti-piracy laws are not too strict. DMCA is a United States copyright law and does not apply in India. There is no way you are going to get extradited and tried in a U.S court for an offence like this. If that was the case, most of India would have to be extradited since most individuals and a lot of companies too still use cracked/pirated software like Windows, MS Office etc.

So, yes move to an offshore host and just continue doing what you are doing.

peepin2me said:

Don't worry about it mate. Indian copyright laws and anti-piracy laws are not too strict. DMCA is a United States copyright law and does not apply in India. There is no way you are going to get extradited and tried in a U.S court for an offence like this. If that was the case, most of India would have to be extradited since most individuals and a lot of companies too still use cracked/pirated software like Windows, MS Office etc.

So, yes move to an offshore host and just continue doing what you are doing.

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Thanks man, btw i got a reply from them. I dont think they are strict, but still i cant find an offshore host.

Whenever i ask those so called offshore hosts, they say that they will give me time to remove the content if i ever get a DMCA notice.

CrazyTeen said:

Thanks man, btw i got a reply from them. I dont think they are strict, but still i cant find an offshore host.

Whenever i ask those so called offshore hosts, they say that they will give me time to remove the content if i ever get a DMCA notice.

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You got reply from them (fondia)?
So, what did they say?

It sometimes makes more sense to avoid getting into trouble. I don't know how to see it but If I were you, I would have pulled the plug on the project and moved on.

CrazyTeen said:

Does having an article about their game infringes copyright?


Can I remove the game images and redesign the site without any game related on my site, keeping the content?

They must be saying about the images, videos and design.

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Reading this, and this post hit a hot button.

You said the hack or whatever was "fake", and so I was wondering why they cared, and now I'm thinking that it's the images that triggered all of this. Did you rename the images so that they cannot be found in an "images" search of the copyrighted text?

It's hard for me to communicate this, I've only had 1/2 cup of coffee, lol, but you should think about this in terms of "How they found you", and I'm wondering if they didn't do a text search of images and target any site that had their images with meta data that was related to their copyright. Maybe if you had obscured the metadata better they might not have found you at all, is what I'm wondering. The rest of the advice is spot on particularly BassTrackerBoats he's been around for ever, has seen it all, knows it all, etc...

Also it sounds to me like your fake hack is internet marketing related. Does your web hosting service have your personal email on file? If so, consider it was them that handed it over, on request, without a court order or anything. There may be some kind of personal connection between Hostwinds and the person that owns the hack or tool or whatever that you were promoting. Giving them your "real" email might have been a way one friend helps to scare-off his friend's copyright infringers without having to pay for or perform a lengthly investigation. Also, it would be good I think for other Hostwinds clients to consider this, if it's true that the hosting provider voluntarily gave out this person's information.

You have to state on your website that you are not affiliated/working with whoever... and that whatever copyrighted material belongs to the their respective owners IE. Blablabla is property of Blebleble, trademarks whatever belong to whatever.
As for your website, since it has been punched with a DMCA you might just want to throw that domain in the trash because i believe that google deletes all the DMCA websites from its search results.
Keywords may also be under property rights. You cant just put "Microsoft" as one of your keywords, cuz that keyword belongs to microsoft. They own it.
Just removed whatever copyrighted stuff you got on your website. They can in fact take legal action.

Guys , so its not safe to use real info ,real ip,your paypal to buy domain n hosting ? if i ll get dmca ?

This is not legal advice but I do have some thoughts to share about your situation.

If your website has content on it pertaining to other products, you may be able to safely cut your losses by following the C&D and remove the pages about this one game without disturbing your business otherwise.

If your website is only about this one game, then I'd suggest you may want to repurpose the domain for a different product. If you absolutely don't want to do that, then I'd suggest checking with the game manufacturer's website and look for information about what disclaimers they require when their trademarks are used. Changing your image names like someone else suggested is also a good move; while you're at it, that's a good time to strip out all the image metadata. Also check your web page metadata too. If you have the skills, you can also alter your images so that they are less likely to show up in image match algorithms.

People reference trademarks all the time on websites without legal repercussions, but when it's for commercial purposes (as opposed to editorial content), then compliance with trademark disclaimers applies. Even open source software has requirements like that.

Also, may I make one more observation? I notice you are using G's email. I recommend ditching all G products. There are suitable replacements for everything. There's no sense in making it so easy to track what you're doing.

pazocean said:

You got reply from them (fondia)?
So, what did they say?

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this is what i got as reply

BillyPart said:

Also it sounds to me like your fake hack is internet marketing related. Does your web hosting service have your personal email on file? If so, consider it was them that handed it over, on request, without a court order or anything. There may be some kind of personal connection between Hostwinds and the person that owns the hack or tool or whatever that you were promoting. Giving them your "real" email might have been a way one friend helps to scare-off his friend's copyright infringers without having to pay for or perform a lengthly investigation. Also, it would be good I think for other Hostwinds clients to consider this, if it's true that the hosting provider voluntarily gave out this person's information.

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No hostwinds didnt give out my email, they sent the C&D through the whois protected email found on the domain whois details, and it was forwarded to my email.

Agerzef said:

You have to state on your website that you are not affiliated/working with whoever... and that whatever copyrighted material belongs to the their respective owners IE. Blablabla is property of Blebleble, trademarks whatever belong to whatever.
As for your website, since it has been punched with a DMCA you might just want to throw that domain in the trash because i believe that google deletes all the DMCA websites from its search results.
Keywords may also be under property rights. You cant just put "Microsoft" as one of your keywords, cuz that keyword belongs to microsoft. They own it.
Just removed whatever copyrighted stuff you got on your website. They can in fact take legal action.

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I have added Disclaimer and Privacy Policy Pages after i got the DMCA Notice. would that help in anyway?

My website is still ranking in google and is not removed from its search results.

Hostwinds will dump you if they find out. I think you should move. Also you need to make sure you dont have a.com or .net. .EU seems to be ok. They can take .coms from you easily enough. I have had that happen to me when streaming sports.