Filing DMCA Complaints

If you've ever found some of your work posted on the Web without your permission, you know it can be an upsetting experience. Someone is taking and using your property without so much as a by-your-leave. Many writers will try to track down the site owner and either threaten legal action (impossible to do if you haven't registered copyright) or send an invoice (often ignored).

There is another choice: the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998. Under US law, if the ISP that hosts the Web site is in the US, then it must respond to a demand from a copyright holder to remove material that is posted without permission. I've added a file under Writer Resources with a summary of what you have to include in such a request and a short primer in how to find which ISP hosts a site.