DMCA & Takedown Policy

This process is for copyright — someone reposting your photo, article, code or document without permission.

It is not the route for a review you dislike. A DMCA notice filed to remove criticism is a misuse of the process, is punishable under 17 U.S.C. § 512(f), and will be rejected and recorded. If you believe a review contains a false statement of fact, use the in-product report flow instead.

Send the following to the designated agent. All six elements are required:

1. Your physical or electronic signature.
2. Identification of the copyrighted work you claim has been infringed. If multiple works, a representative list.
3. The URL of the specific content you want removed. A whole-profile or whole-page request without specific URLs cannot be actioned.
4. Your name, address, telephone number and email.
5. A statement that you have a good-faith belief the use is not authorised by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law.
6. A statement, under penalty of perjury, that the information is accurate and that you are the owner or authorised to act on the owner’s behalf.

1. We acknowledge receipt.
2. If the notice is complete, we remove or disable access to the identified content expeditiously.
3. We notify the member who posted it, forwarding your notice — including your contact details, which the law requires us to pass on.
4. They may file a counter-notice.
5. If they do, we forward it to you. Unless you file a court action within 10-14 business days, we may restore the content.

If your content was removed and you believe that was a mistake or a misidentification, you can contest it. Include:

1. Your physical or electronic signature.
2. Identification of the removed content and where it appeared before removal.
3. A statement, under penalty of perjury, that you have a good-faith belief it was removed as a result of mistake or misidentification.
4. Your name, address and telephone number, and consent to the jurisdiction of the federal district court for your address (or, if outside the US, any district in which we may be found).

Be aware that a counter-notice sends your contact details to the person who filed the original notice. If your content was posted anonymously, filing a counter-notice gives up that anonymity to them. Consider that before filing.

We terminate the accounts of repeat infringers, and we apply one written threshold rather than deciding case by case: three upheld notices within twelve months ends the account. A notice counts as upheld only once the removal stands — a notice you successfully counter, and a notice we reject as abusive, counts for nothing.

We tell you each time a strike is recorded, which content it relates to, and how many you now hold. You have 14 days to appeal a strike, and the appeal is read by someone other than the person who recorded it. Strikes expire twelve months after the date they were recorded.

Filing a knowingly false takedown notice carries liability for damages, including costs and attorney fees, under 17 U.S.C. § 512(f).

LinkedOut publishes content that companies frequently dislike. We treat takedown notices aimed at suppressing criticism rather than protecting copyright as abuse of process, we reject them, and we record them. Where we are permitted to, we publish them.

The process above is the one we run everywhere. It already gives you what the major regimes require of us, so you do not need to work out which one applies to you before you write to us.

• India. We act on complaints under the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 — acknowledged within 24 hours, resolved within 15 days, and within 36 hours where a valid government or court order requires removal.
• European Union. Notices are handled as notice-and-action under the Digital Services Act. We give a statement of reasons to the person whose content was removed, and our decision can be appealed to us free of charge for at least six months afterwards.
• United Kingdom. We operate reporting and complaint routes that meet the Online Safety Act duties, and the same appeal path applies.
• United States. The DMCA notice and counter-notice process described above, including the 10-to-14-business-day restoration window.

Whichever regime you are writing under, the two things that decide the outcome are the same: identify the specific content, and say what right it infringes. A notice that objects to a review being unflattering is not a copyright notice, and we treat it as what it is.