Our Story

DMCA.com was started in 2010 by experienced digital managers, developers and entrepreneurs that knew the content takedown and security industry very well. These experienced professionals had already built and were running an Internet Service Provider (ISP). They knew the process of protecting digital content online needed a fix.

Bad Situation in need of a solution

Nearly all the stakeholders involved in the internet were struggling against a relentless tide of the online theft and illegal publication of content.

  • Internet businesses whether small or Fortune 500 were experiencing the theft of whole websites. If not that then certainly their expensive marketing and advertising materials, SEO and content were constantly being republished without permission
  • People, like you and me (and social media users particularly). The rise of revenge content posting and user generated content sites promoted a epidemic of citizen content theft never seen before. The impact of the theft of user generated content (UGC) was (and still is) terrible. Young people particularly, bore the brunt of the emotional trauma experienced when personal content was shared online.
  • Performers, artists and content creators were constantly under attack against online thieves.
  • Content publishers, broadcasters and distributors bearing the pricey responsibility of online or digital protection and enforcement. Including everything from costly protection measures to expense lawsuits against slippery thieves.
  • Internet Service Providers (ISP’s) and webhosting companies weighed down with the additional operating cost of processing and ever increasing number of takedown notices.
  • Website owners, whether new or old, were having difficulty in keeping up with how to “follow the rules” and not only provide protection of content but also avoid legal prosecution for hosting illegal content.

Call to Action:

It was clear there was need for change. The process of protecting content and enforcing ownership needed to be easier and better. There needed to be:

  • More solutions and options available to content owners and publishers.
  • More information so everyone involved with online digital content could better understand what to do about protection and theft
  • More resources so everyone involved could get access to a better set of tools to act on content theft and protection.
  • More transparency within the whole content protection and takedown protocol. The process needed to be clear and easy for everyone involved. All stakeholders (Owners >>> ISP's>>>Website ) needed to understand better what they could do whether protecting content or enforcement it's ownership.

Building a community - an online content protection community

The word community is often overused. It has largely been hijacked by the social media folks. However we knew there needed to more conversations, interactions and solidarity about content theft and protection. Content Creators>>>Publishers>>>Users have a role to play in protecting and enforcing ownership of content .

Copyright laws and the legal jurisdictions (read: countries) of those laws create silos and walls that restrict transparency and communication.

At DMCA.com we wanted to increase the transparency and communication.

So we created Protection Pro

This service is a community of content protection and enforcement users that make the publishing and consuming of content on the internet better. The Protection Pro Website Badge and Certificate tells the everyday user the website they are on has been registered with DMCA.com – or not. They also tell would be thieves content ownership on this site is taken seriously. For good measure we added a list of services the website owner can use to make their business safer and better online.

  1. Protect your content
  2. Enforce your ownership

We, the people

The Second best part – we didn’t leave out everyday people like social media users. The advent of the smart phone with a camera, texting and finally social media created "personal content". Regular internet service users who virtually overnight became content creators. Unfortunately very often they know very little about the internet and how it works.

DMCA.com created two specific service to help this group of internet users.:

  • Protecting the community
  • Tackling the takedowns
  • Consistency, easy and professional
  • We also added a focus on cost and accessibility.
  • No matter what your budget
  • no matter where you live
  • No matter your online skill

If you have been a victim of content theft and your content has been published without your permission we have created services to help you.

  1. Professional takedowns – We do all the work. Humans – real people helping real people - in the takedown equation. Service has always been a focus for everyone from the very beginning at DMCA.com. Service really shines with this service.
  2. Do it Yourself takedown - for those on a limited budget we offer a complete service for the DIY’er. Related searches, lookups, queries, scans, takedown form creation, case management system etc.