ComplaintsBoard DMCA takedown and nine other copyright desks, compared by what each one does
Short answer. A ComplaintsBoard DMCA takedown is a written notice emailed to the site's Copyright Agent at [email protected]. It removes text or images copied from a work you own, and never a complaint you simply dislike. Other sites take the same six-element notice and do different things with it. On YouTube the question is Content ID claim vs copyright strike: a claim attaches to one video, a strike to the whole channel.
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act gives every US-facing site the same notice format, set out in 17 U.S.C. § 512(c)(3): a signature, the copyrighted work, the infringing copy and its location, contact details, a good-faith statement, and a statement of accuracy under penalty of perjury. The format is the easy part. Each site decides who reads the notice, what happens to the uploader, and which court a counter-notice names.
This guide starts with the ComplaintsBoard DMCA takedown and compares it with nine other desks: YouTube, Dailymotion, Course Hero, DeviantArt, itch.io, eBay, the Chrome Web Store, the Wayback Machine, and the host or registrar behind a standalone site. It assumes you already know how to write the notice itself; the DMCA takedown notice guide covers the drafting. Nothing here is legal advice, and a notice is a sworn statement.
Where does each DMCA notice go, and what does the desk do with it?
Each site names its own recipient for a DMCA notice, and the recipient decides the consequence. ComplaintsBoard and itch.io take an email. DeviantArt, Course Hero, YouTube and eBay prefer a form. The Internet Archive takes an email and promises nothing. The outcome for the uploader ranges from one deleted page to a terminated account, so the desk matters as much as the notice.
The table lists what each desk publishes. Where a cell says "not confirmed", the site's own policy page either does not state the rule or could not be read directly when this guide was checked on 11 October 2026.
| Desk | Where the notice goes | What happens to the uploader | Counter-notice detail |
|---|---|---|---|
| ComplaintsBoard | Copyright Agent, [email protected] | No strike rule published | Names the federal court in Los Angeles; restoration in 10 to 14 business days or more |
| YouTube | Copyright removal webform | Copyright strike; three strikes put the channel up for termination | Counter notification filed from YouTube Studio |
| Dailymotion | Copyright notification through its legal pages | Not confirmed | Not confirmed |
| Course Hero | Form at coursehero.com/copyright-infringement, or [email protected] | Document removed | Not confirmed |
| DeviantArt | Form (free account needed) or [email protected] | Three strikes mark a repeat infringer subject to ban | Separate counter-notice instructions |
| itch.io | [email protected] | Page removed; terms allow account termination without notice | Names the federal court in San Francisco; 10 to 14 business days |
| eBay | Notice of Claimed Infringement through VeRO | Listing removed and seller notified | Seller can counter-notify on copyright removals |
| Chrome Web Store | Flag link on the listing, or Google's legal troubleshooter | Item removed from the store | Handled by Google's legal team |
| Wayback Machine | [email protected] | Captures excluded from public view | None stated |
| Host or registrar | The provider's registered DMCA agent | Page, site or account taken offline | Statutory 10 to 14 business days |
Two patterns stand out. Only YouTube and DeviantArt publish a strike count, three in both cases, and YouTube alone adds the Content ID claim vs copyright strike split covered below. And the two smallest desks, ComplaintsBoard and itch.io, use near-identical policy wording but send a disputing uploader to different federal courts.
How does a ComplaintsBoard DMCA takedown work?
A ComplaintsBoard DMCA takedown starts with an email to the designated Copyright Agent at [email protected]. The notice must carry the six statutory elements, and ComplaintsBoard's DMCA page warns that a notice missing any of them may not be valid. The page lists a mailing address in Riga, Latvia, and asks that the address be used for copyright notices only, not for complaints or general questions.
The limit is in what copyright covers. A complaint about your business is the complainant's own writing, so the complainant owns the copyright in it. A ComplaintsBoard DMCA takedown reaches only material lifted from a copyrighted work of yours: your product photographs, a page of your website pasted in full, a private email reproduced without permission. Your company name and logo are trademark matters, and a false statement about you is a defamation matter.
Most ComplaintsBoard problems are therefore not copyright problems. A false complaint goes through defamation removal routes, which turn on proving the statement untrue. A complaint from someone who was never a customer is a policy question, the same one behind removing negative reviews on any review site. Google's own listings follow separate rules again, covered under Google review removal.
When the copying is real, a ComplaintsBoard DMCA takedown is free and takes one email. The ComplaintsBoard DMCA takedown page publishes no turnaround time and no rule on whether the poster is told who complained. Assume the poster may see the notice, and keep a dated copy of everything sent.
Content ID claim vs copyright strike: which one did YouTube apply?
The difference in Content ID claim vs copyright strike is the trigger and the reach. A Content ID claim is an automated match against a reference file; the claim sits on one video and lets the rights holder block, monetize or track that video. A copyright strike follows a legal removal request, takes the video down, and counts against the whole channel.
YouTube's help pages describe the two as different ways to assert ownership. The table sets them side by side.
| Point | Content ID claim | Copyright strike |
|---|---|---|
| Trigger | Automated match, or a manual claim by a Content ID partner | A copyright removal request YouTube accepted |
| Who can start one | Rights holders approved for Content ID | Any copyright owner or authorised agent, through the webform |
| Reach | One video | The channel |
| Effect on the video | Blocked, monetized for the claimant, or tracked | Removed |
| How to answer | Dispute, then appeal | Wait for expiry, ask for a retraction, or counter-notify |
| Expiry | Stays while the claim is active | 90 days after Copyright School, with fewer than three strikes |
YouTube processed 2,502,941,368 Content ID claims in 2025. Uploaders disputed 12,840,608 of them, 0.51% of the total, and won 67.42% of those disputes.YouTube Copyright Transparency Report, as reported by TorrentFreak, 6 June 2026
Those figures explain the copyright claim vs copyright strike confusion. Claims outnumber every other copyright action on the platform, and only 7,626 rights holders were approved to use Content ID in 2025, of whom 4,454 used it. Everyone else works through the removal webform, which 295,531 rights holders used in the same year, according to the same report.
For an owner, the choice follows from that. If your problem is copyright infringement YouTube has not caught automatically, you file a removal request, and an accepted request produces a strike. A scheduled request gives the uploader seven days to delete the video and avoid the strike. The step-by-step version is in the guide to getting a YouTube video taken down.
Three strikes make the account and its associated channels subject to termination, and the owner cannot create new channels. A channel-level result still depends on three separate, valid removals rather than on report volume, a point the guide on what gets a YouTube channel banned covers in detail. The Content ID claim vs copyright strike distinction also sets the uploader's exposure: disputing a claim costs nothing, while a counter notification invites a lawsuit.
Dailymotion: how does a copyright takedown work without a strike count?
A Dailymotion copyright takedown runs on a notice from the rights holder to the company's copyright team, submitted through the notification route on Dailymotion's legal pages. Dailymotion is a Paris-based service, so the same notice also works as a notice under French law and the EU Digital Services Act. We could not confirm a published strike ladder for Dailymotion uploaders of the kind YouTube and DeviantArt state.
That gap matters for two common searches. "Dailymotion copyright strike removal" borrows YouTube's vocabulary: an uploader whose video was removed should answer the specific notice with a counter-notification or a retraction request, because there is no documented strike to wait out. A "Dailymotion copyright strike service" that promises to place strikes on a rival's account is selling something Dailymotion does not publish.
A Dailymotion copyright takedown notice should list every video URL, since each upload has its own address, and should identify the original by title and first publication date. A Dailymotion DMCA complaint that names only the uploader's channel gives the reviewer nothing to remove.
The Moscow City Court ordered Dailymotion permanently blocked in Russia in January 2017 after Gazprom Media said its copyright complaints to the company's head office went unanswered.TorrentFreak, 27 January 2017
Stolen video rarely stays on one host. The same clip usually needs a copyright report to TikTok and, for reposts on X, the form described in the guide to filing a DMCA notice with X. Each platform reviews its own copy and ignores decisions made elsewhere.
Course Hero: how do instructors file a DMCA takedown?
A Course Hero DMCA takedown is filed through the Copyright Infringement Notification form at coursehero.com/copyright-infringement, or by email to [email protected], the address university copyright offices cite. The notice must give the exact Course Hero URL of each document. Course Hero's compliance team then removes the files, according to the guidance UC Riverside's legal affairs office gives its faculty.
Course Hero copyright infringement cases have an ownership question that other desks rarely raise. An instructor owns the exam, the slides and the problem set the instructor wrote, subject to the university's policy. A student owns the student's own lecture notes. Penn State's copyright office warns faculty not to send notices for material they do not own, student notes included, because the notice is signed under penalty of perjury.
Course Hero copyright removal works per document, so a course with forty uploaded files needs forty URLs in the notice. Most documents sit behind a preview blur, which makes them hard to identify; the document title, course code and uploader name shown on the preview page are usually enough to match a file to its original.
The Copyright Office's guidance allows a representative list where many works sit on one site, but the location of each infringing file still has to be specific enough for the provider to find it.
DeviantArt and itch.io: where does a DMCA takedown notice for stolen art go?
A DMCA takedown notice for stolen art on DeviantArt goes through the site's copyright form, which requires a free DeviantArt account, or by email to [email protected] with the notice attached as a PDF. DeviantArt's copyright policy says it will delete the infringing submission immediately on proper notice, without warning the uploader, and treats three strikes as a sign of a repeat infringer subject to ban.
A DeviantArt DMCA takedown can come from the artist or an authorised agent, so a studio or a friend with written permission may file. A DeviantArt copyright complaint from a fan who simply recognises the work is not a valid notice. The same is true of the on-page report button: a DeviantArt copyright infringement report from a third party can flag the piece, and only the owner's notice obliges the site to act.
A DeviantArt DMCA takedown notice should link the stolen submission and the artist's own earlier post of the same piece. DeviantArt Protect, the site's matching tool, alerts artists to possible copies of new submissions but does not remove anything by itself, according to DeviantArt's own announcement.
The DMCA takedown notice for artists has one recurring weak point: tracing, heavy referencing and style imitation. Copyright protects the specific image, not a style or an idea, and a notice against a look-alike piece invites a counter-notice. Art that travels further needs further notices. Sticker packs built from illustrations are covered in the guide to copyright infringement on Telegram, and a profile that posts your portfolio while posing as you is a case for reporting a fake Facebook account on impersonation grounds.
itch.io: one support address, public notices
For a DMCA notice itch.io support is the only channel: the terms of service direct notices to [email protected] and name no separate agent address. An itch.io moderator has asked filers to put every required element in the email body and to avoid links to third-party document hosts. Accepted notices can appear as public pages under itch.io/takedowns, so write the notice expecting it to be read.
A re-uploaded game is the usual itch.io case. Identify the original store page, its release date, and the build or asset files that match.
eBay and the Chrome Web Store: how do listings and extensions get removed?
The DMCA takedown process on eBay runs through the Verified Rights Owner programme, known as VeRO. The rights owner or an authorised representative submits a Notice of Claimed Infringement, by email to [email protected] according to eBay's VeRO page, identifying the item numbers and the right infringed. eBay removes the listing and tells the seller why. A buyer or competitor cannot file on the owner's behalf.
Copyright covers less of a listing than sellers expect. Your product photographs and your written description are protected. The product itself usually is not, and the first-sale doctrine lets a buyer resell a genuine item. A counterfeit is a trademark report, filed through the same VeRO route with different evidence.
A DMCA takedown Chrome extension case has two routes. The Chrome Web Store help page tells owners who believe an item violates a copyright or trademark to use the flag link on the listing and complete the form behind it. Google's legal troubleshooter takes a formal copyright removal request for any Google product. Cite the extension ID from the listing URL, because names and icons are easy to change.
The phrase also describes browser add-ons that claim to file notices for you. No extension can supply the signature and sworn statement a notice needs. A cloned extension that collects logins has moved past copyright into fraud, where the faster route is the one described under phishing takedowns.
Wayback Machine, domains and cheater websites: who can remove the copy?
A DMCA takedown Wayback Machine request goes by email to [email protected]. The Internet Archive's help page asks for the URLs, the time period to exclude, and the period during which you controlled the site or account. The page says the request starts a review and that the Archive makes no guarantee about the result. Exclusion hides captures from web.archive.org and leaves the live page untouched.
A DMCA domain takedown is a misnomer that still describes a real route. The registrar controls the domain name and the host controls the server holding the copy, so the notice belongs with the host's registered DMCA agent. The US Copyright Office recognises four kinds of online service provider, covering conduit, caching, hosting and linking, and only a host can remove a file. Registrars act on whole domains, usually for fraud or abuse rather than a single infringing page.
Finding the right recipient is most of the work. A provider that claims safe harbour must register an agent in the Copyright Office's public directory and post the contact details on its website. Where the host sits behind a proxy network, the general route for reporting abuse to a host explains how the complaint gets forwarded.
Cheater websites
A DMCA takedown cheater website request means one of two things. On a site that posts photos of alleged unfaithful partners, copyright helps only the person who took the photograph: a selfie is yours, and a picture your ex took is not. On a site selling game cheats, the copyright in the game code belongs to the publisher, so a player cannot file.
Exposure-site cases are usually better framed another way. Intimate images qualify for the dedicated routes covered under leaked content removal, which do not depend on who held the camera.
What does a DMCA counter-notification do at each desk?
A DMCA counter-notification is the uploader's sworn reply that the removal was a mistake or misidentification. After a compliant counter-notice, the provider restores the material no less than ten and no more than fourteen business days later, unless the original sender tells the provider a court action has been filed. The counter-notice also names a federal court and accepts service of process.
Desks apply that rule with different margins. After a ComplaintsBoard DMCA takedown, the site says restoration may happen in 10 to 14 business days "or more", at its sole discretion. itch.io uses the same window and the same discretion. YouTube forwards the counter notification to the claimant, including the uploader's contact details.
More than 6% of the videos targeted through YouTube's public webform were judged likely false assertions of ownership, and uploaders counter-notified against 9.9% of webform removals, a little over 267,000 counter-notices.YouTube Copyright Transparency Report, as reported by TorrentFreak, 6 June 2026
The window is the owner's deadline too. Once a counter-notice arrives, the only way to keep the copy down is to file suit and tell the provider. For a US work, that requires copyright registration first. Owners who are not prepared to sue should treat a counter-notice as the end of the DMCA route for that copy.
Is a DMCA takedown free, and when does a copyright takedown service help?
A DMCA takedown is free to file at every desk in this guide. None of the ten charges for receiving a notice, and none requires a lawyer or a registered copyright. Costs appear later: registration before a US lawsuit, and the lawsuit itself. The Copyright Claims Board, the Copyright Office's small-claims tribunal, charges $100 to file and caps awards at $30,000.
"DMCA takedown free" searches also turn up notice generators. A generated template is fine as a checklist. The value of a notice is in the URLs and the ownership evidence, which no template supplies.
French-speaking owners searching "demande DMCA" are asking for the same thing. The DMCA is US law, so a ComplaintsBoard DMCA takedown, or a notice to itch.io or DeviantArt, can be sent from France, Belgium or Quebec and should be written in English. A notice to an EU service such as Dailymotion can also rely on the Digital Services Act's notice mechanism.
A copyright takedown service earns its fee in three situations: the copies run across many desks at once, the owner does not want a home address on a notice the uploader may see, or a counter-notice has arrived and a decision about court is due. A copyright claim service that files Content ID claims needs Content ID access, which YouTube grants to a few thousand rights holders. Ask which route the service actually uses.
Copyright strike support is the uploader-side version: help reading a strike, requesting a retraction, or drafting a counter notification. It is legitimate work when the removal was mistaken. The general checklist for choosing a content removal service applies to both sides: the firm files under its own name with written authority, quotes no guaranteed outcome, and never sells report volume.
Copyright is also the wrong lever for accounts. Removing an account for what it does, rather than for a file it hosts, is a conduct question, as the guides to X account removal and to reporting a Telegram user explain. Clearline's content removal casework handles copyright notices alongside those routes and states the same limits: no outcome a desk has not decided, and no notice for a work the client does not own.
Frequently asked questions
Can a DMCA notice remove a complaint about my business from ComplaintsBoard?
A ComplaintsBoard DMCA takedown works only when the complaint contains material copied from a work you own, such as your photographs or a page of your website. The complaint itself is the complainant's writing, so copyright does not reach it. False statements are a defamation matter and fake customers are a policy matter, and neither is handled by ComplaintsBoard's Copyright Agent.
What is the difference between a Content ID claim and a copyright strike?
A Content ID claim is an automated match that sits on one video and lets the rights holder block, monetize or track it. A copyright strike follows an accepted legal removal request, removes the video and counts against the channel. Three copyright strikes make a YouTube account subject to termination; claims do not add up that way.
Does it cost anything to send a DMCA takedown notice?
No. ComplaintsBoard, YouTube, Dailymotion, Course Hero, DeviantArt, itch.io, eBay, Google and the Internet Archive all accept notices without a fee, and none requires a lawyer or a registered copyright. Costs begin if the uploader counter-notifies and you decide to sue, which for a US work requires registration first.
Can someone else file a DMCA notice for me?
Yes, if that person is your authorised agent. The statute accepts a notice from the copyright owner or someone authorised to act for the owner, and the agent swears to that authority under penalty of perjury. A fan, customer or competitor acting without your written permission cannot file a valid notice.
How long after a counter-notification is content restored?
The US Copyright Office states that a provider restores access no less than ten and no more than fourteen business days after a compliant counter-notice, unless the original sender notifies the provider that it has filed a court action. ComplaintsBoard and itch.io both add that restoration is at their discretion.
Does removing a page from the Wayback Machine remove it from Google or the live site?
No. An exclusion granted by the Internet Archive hides captures on web.archive.org only. The live page stays with its host until the host or the publisher removes it, and Google's results need a separate removal request to Google. Each copy has its own desk and its own notice.
Copies of your work on more than one site?
Send the URLs, your original and any replies you have had. The review sets out which desk handles each copy, who should sign the notice, and what a counter-notice would mean for you.