DMCA notice and takedown

ArcVelvet respects intellectual property and operates a takedown process for valid claims of copyright infringement. This page describes how to file a notice, what we need to act on it, what happens after, and the counter-notice process for users whose content was taken down in error.

The process follows the structure of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), 17 U.S.C. section 512(c). The platform is a small team and notices are reviewed by a human; the steps below are calibrated to make a good-faith review possible.

How to file a notice

Send a notice through either of two paths:

The Contact Support form on the platform, reachable from the footer link on any page. Set the subject to DMCA Notice and include the required elements described below in the message body. This path leaves a Firestore record with a reference number; we recommend it for routine notices.
Email to arcvelvet@arcvelvet.com with subject DMCA Notice. Use this path when you need to attach exhibits the form does not accept.

Required elements of a valid notice

Under 17 U.S.C. section 512(c)(3), a valid takedown notice must include all of the following. A notice missing any of these elements may be returned to the sender with a request for the missing material.

Identification of the copyrighted work claimed to have been infringed. Include enough detail to identify the work (title, registration number if registered, a description of the work, or a link to the original source).
Identification of the allegedly infringing material with enough detail to locate it on the platform. A direct URL to the signal, profile, or comment is ideal. Vague descriptions ("all my work has been stolen by various users") cannot be acted on; the notice must point at specific material.
Your contact information: full legal name, address, telephone number, and email address.
A statement of good faith belief that the use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law.
A statement under penalty of perjury that the information in the notice is accurate, and that you are the copyright owner or are authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.
Your signature, electronic or physical. A typed name in the contact form counts as an electronic signature for this purpose.

Knowingly false notices have consequences. Under 17 U.S.C. section 512(f), a person who knowingly materially misrepresents that material is infringing may be liable for damages, including costs and attorney's fees, incurred by the alleged infringer or by the service provider. Please file in good faith.

What we do when we receive a notice

We aim to acknowledge a valid notice within 7 days and provide a substantive response within 14 days. For routine, well-formed notices the timeline is usually shorter. For notices that require legal review or where the underlying facts are contested, the timeline can stretch.

A well-formed notice that meets all six required elements above will result in removal of the identified material while the complaint is under review. We notify the user whose content was removed and inform them of the counter-notice process described below.

The user account associated with repeatedly infringing content may be suspended or terminated under our terms of service. Repeat infringer policy is part of the platform's compliance posture.

Counter-notice process

If your content has been removed in response to a DMCA notice and you believe the removal was a mistake (the use was authorized, or you believe the removal was made under a misidentification, or the use was fair use, or the work is not protected by copyright), you can file a counter-notice. Under 17 U.S.C. section 512(g)(3), a valid counter-notice must include:

Your contact information: full legal name, address, telephone number, and email address.
Identification of the material that was removed and its location before removal.
A statement under penalty of perjury that you have a good faith belief that the material was removed or disabled as a result of mistake or misidentification.
A statement that you consent to the jurisdiction of the federal district court for the judicial district in which your address is located (or, if your address is outside the United States, for any judicial district in which the service provider may be found), and that you will accept service of process from the person who filed the original DMCA notice or from their agent.
Your signature, electronic or physical.

Send counter-notices through the same paths as the original notice: the Contact Support form with subject DMCA Counter-Notice, or email arcvelvet@arcvelvet.com with the same subject.

On receipt of a valid counter-notice, we forward it to the original complainant. If the complainant does not file an action seeking a court order against the user within 10 to 14 business days, we will restore the removed material in not less than 10 and not more than 14 business days after receipt of the counter-notice, unless we first receive notice that an action has been filed.

Provenance-aware framing

ArcVelvet is a provenance platform. The signatures embedded in signed files may be relevant evidence in a copyright dispute. A complainant who is the original author can use the C2PA signature on their own file as supporting evidence of authorship and timestamp. A user defending against a notice can point to the cryptographic signature on their version of the file as supporting evidence that the work was theirs at signing time. We do not adjudicate authorship from the platform's signing record alone; we treat the signature as one input among the factual record the dispute relies on.

The platform's trust documentation describes the substrate the signatures rest on. Verifiers at contentcredentials.org and through the Adobe Content Authenticity inspector can independently verify ArcVelvet-signed files; we recommend both parties to a dispute use those tools to establish the factual baseline.

Acknowledgment of our scale

We are a small team and the DMCA process here is human-reviewed. We commit to handling notices in good faith and within the timelines above. Notices that are abusive, obviously meritless, or used as a tool of harassment will be addressed through the platform's terms of service alongside the DMCA process itself. If you are a copyright holder whose work is being misused on the platform, we will work with you. If you are a user whose work has been wrongly accused, the counter-notice process is the path; we will respect it.

For questions about a notice in flight, reach the team through the Contact Support form with the reference number from your original submission. For general copyright questions that are not yet a notice, the same path works.