DMCA Takedown & Counter-Notice Generator

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act gives copyright owners in the United States a way to ask a website or host to remove infringing material, and gives the person whose material was removed a way to object. Both steps are letters with a specific list of contents. If a required item is missing, a host may decide the notice is not valid, so the order and wording matter more than style. This tool lays out the items for you.

Takedown notice

Section 512(c)(3)(A) lists what a notice must contain. The generator turns each item into a numbered part. Part 1 describes the copyrighted work and where the original is published. Part 2 lists the infringing addresses, one per line, with enough detail for the host to find them. Part 3 gives your contact details. Part 4 is the good-faith statement: you believe the use is not authorised by the owner, its agent or the law. Part 5 is the statement that the information is accurate and, under penalty of perjury, that you are the owner or authorised to act for the owner. The notice ends with a physical or electronic signature, so you type your full name.

Counter-notice

If your material was removed and you believe that was a mistake, section 512(g)(3) lists the contents of a counter-notification. The tool prints three parts: the removed material and where it appeared, a statement under penalty of perjury that you have a good-faith belief that it was removed by mistake or misidentification, and your consent to the jurisdiction of the federal district for your address, with the typed signature and contact details.

What happens next

A host that wants the safe harbour removes the material quickly when it receives a valid notice, and tells the person who posted it. If that person sends a valid counter-notice, the host passes it on and, unless the complainant tells the host within a set period that they have filed a court action, may put the material back. The statute names a window of 10 to 14 business days. Courts, not hosts, decide who is right.

A worked example

The first sample is a takedown from a photographer, Mira Patel. It names the photograph “Harbour at Dawn”, first published on 3 March 2025, gives its original address, lists two addresses on a copycat site, and is addressed to “Copyright Agent, Example Hosting Inc.” with the date 10 November 2026. Parts 4 and 5 carry the good-faith and perjury statements, and the letter closes with a signature block. The second sample is the matching counter-notification, with a short explanation of why the removal was a mistake.

Before you send

Check that you really own the work, or have written authority to act for the owner, and think about fair use. A notice that you know to be false can make you liable for damages and costs under section 512(f). Keep records of when and where the work was first published, since the host or a court may ask. Use the host’s own form if it has one, and check who its designated agent is, since some countries and hosts use different procedures.

Limits

This is a template following the elements of United States law, not legal advice. It does not send the notice, judge whether a use is fair, or cover other countries’ notice systems. For a serious dispute, or a counter-notice that may lead to a lawsuit, take advice from a copyright lawyer.

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