DMCA takedown notice template

What this template is for

It is a drafting aid for a rights holder — or someone authorised to act for one — who wants to understand the shape of a notice before filling in a platform's form. It is not a document you can send unaltered and expect to work everywhere, for two reasons.

First, most services you would actually want to notify do not accept free-form notices at all. Google, the large video and social platforms and the major hosts all publish their own submission forms, and a form submission is faster and more likely to be processed than an email. Second, the requirements are not uniform: what a US host expects under the DMCA is not what a rights holder in another jurisdiction may need to send. The value of the template is that it tells you which facts you need to have ready.

The parts of a notice, and why each one exists

Under the US framework, a notice is generally expected to include the elements below. Each has a job:

• Identification of the work. The recipient has to know what is claimed to be protected. A link to the original, a registration number, or a clear description all work; "my content" does not.
• Identification of the infringing material. Specific enough that the recipient can locate it without investigating. In practice this means exact URLs, not a domain and not a section.
• Your contact details. Name, address, telephone, email. These are normally passed to the other side, and often published.
• A good-faith belief statement. That the use is not authorised by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law. The final clause matters: it means you have to have actually thought about whether a defence such as fair use applies.
• An accuracy and authority statement. That the information is accurate and, under penalty of perjury, that you are the owner or authorised to act for them.
• A signature. Physical or electronic.

Notices missing these are routinely declined, and Google states plainly that incomplete submissions and those without evidence of infringement do not result in removal. The longer discussion of each element is in what a DMCA takedown notice is.

The template

Replace everything in square brackets. Delete nothing else without understanding what it was doing.

To: [Designated Copyright Agent / Legal Department]
[Service provider name]
[Address or submission address]

Date: [Date]

Subject: Notice of claimed copyright infringement

Dear Sir or Madam,

I am writing to notify you of material available through your service
that I believe infringes copyright. I am [the owner of the copyright in
the work described below / authorised to act on behalf of the owner of
an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed].

1. The copyrighted work
[Describe the work. Where it was first published, and when. Include a
link to the original and any registration details, if you have them.]

2. The material I am asking you to remove or disable
[List each URL on its own line. Give the exact address of each page or
file, and say briefly what appears there that corresponds to the work
above.]

3. My contact details
Name: [Full name]
Company / rights holder represented: [If acting for someone else]
Address: [Postal address]
Telephone: [Number]
Email: [Address]

4. Statements
I have a good faith belief that the use of the material described above
in the manner complained of is not authorised by the copyright owner,
its agent, or the law.

The information in this notification is accurate, and I state under
penalty of perjury that I am the copyright owner or am authorised to
act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly
infringed.

5. Signature
[Physical or electronic signature]
[Printed name]
[Date]

Working through the fields

The recipient

Send it to the party that can act, not the party you are annoyed with. If you want the file gone, that is the host or the platform. If you want the URL out of Google Search, that is Google — and Google only delists, it does not delete. Choosing the right recipient covers this decision in full, and it is the step people get wrong most often.

Describing the work

The recipient is comparing two things. Make the comparison easy: a live link to your original, publication date, and where relevant the specific portion at issue. If the work is one of many — a catalogue of photographs, say — identify the individual items rather than the catalogue.

Listing the URLs

This is where most notices go wrong, and it is the source of the bulk-list errors that make the whole system unpopular. Check every URL resolves and still shows the material. Do not list a homepage because the material is somewhere on the site. Do not list a domain. If you are working from an automated tool's output, read the list before you sign a statement about its accuracy.

The good-faith statement

The phrase "or the law" is doing real work. Quotation, commentary, criticism, news reporting, parody and other uses may be lawful without permission. Whether a specific use qualifies is a legal judgment, and it is the point at which advice is genuinely worth paying for if the answer is not obvious.

The perjury statement

You are swearing to authority and accuracy. If you are filing for a client, be able to show the authorisation. If you are unsure whether the rights were assigned, transferred or licensed exclusively, resolve that before signing rather than after.

Your details become visible

Contact information in a notice is normally forwarded to the person whose material is removed, and notices are frequently published — in Google's Transparency Report data and in the Lumen Database. If that is a problem for you, resolve it before filing, not afterwards.

Checks worth doing before you send

1. Confirm you hold the rights. Commissioned work, agency work and work made under contract are not always owned by the party who assumes they own it.
2. Confirm the material is still there. Notices about pages that were already taken down waste everyone's time and undermine the next one you file.
3. Consider whether the use might be lawful. A review that quotes you is not the same as a scraped copy.
4. Consider asking first. Individuals and small sites frequently remove material on a polite email, and a licence sale is sometimes a better outcome than a removal.
5. Use the service's own form. It is faster, and it is often the only route that is actually monitored.
6. Keep a copy. Dates, recipients and responses. If this becomes a pattern you will want the history.

If a notice like this has been filed against you

Reading the anatomy from the other direction is useful: it tells you what the sender had to assert, and therefore where a mistaken notice is most likely to be wrong. Start with what a copyright infringement notice means, and check whether Google's public record shows requests naming your domain — including any you were never told about.

Check your domain's copyright-removal history

This guide is for informational purposes and is not legal advice.

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Last reviewed 2026-08-31.