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I am referring to this situation: document B is alleged to infringe the copyright of document A.

Document B is hosted online (as I believe is necessary for the DMCA to apply).

Document A, the original work, is not online e.g. it is a printed book published in 1990.

By "DMCA takedown procedure" I mean the notice to the service provider, takedown, counter notice, safe harbor, etc.

The reason for this question is that many DMCA request forms (e.g. Google's) require a URL to the copyrighted work.

In the case of a paper book, can copyright holders just provide a citation of the publishing? Or do they need to scan a sample, post it online somewhere, and then provide a URL to it?

NB: assume the copyright was not registered.

Mr Central
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2 Answers2

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The relevant law requires only that the notice must provide "Identification of the copyrighted work claimed to have been infringed" and "Identification of the material that is claimed to be infringing or to be the subject of infringing activity and that is to be removed or access to which is to be disabled, and information reasonably sufficient to permit the service provider to locate the material". In the former case, it would be sufficient to provide the title of the print book.

However, Google does also ask

Where can we see an authorized example of the work?

(Please provide URL(s) where an example of the copyrighted work can be viewed. This will be used by our team to verify that the work appears on the pages you are asking us to remove.)

This in a surprising extra-legal add-on that is contrary to the law, at least if they use or require this information, and puts their safe harbor in jeopardy (the law does not empower providers to judge the validity of a copyright claim. However, you can directly mail the takedown notice to them – online reporting is not mandated by law.

user6726
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Yes.

Many works do not exist online. Like books. You can DMCA a book that only exists physically. It's a little more complicated than for a webpage or online available one, but it works.

Trish
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