Hello, Hello. Here’s another edition of How to Handle Email. This one covers a very tough issue that you may or may not have a problem with, but probably will, in some number of, in some amount of time and that’s copyright violation claims.
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Most of the time there’s probably just going to be a random little “Re-claim that this is not in accordance with yada-yada whatever company policy blah-blah-blah. We demand you respond immediately or we’ll take you down,” etc. And this boils down to really just one thing: Did you do it? Are you unsure? If either of those are a “yes,” then you need to comply immediately. You really do.
No matter what kind of excuse is rolling around in your head, you need to work with them because they can never end out pretty. And it just won’t go away. Sure you may have a lazy representative that gives up after a while but I wouldn’t count on it; because most of the time the legal department is there to do legal things. And if you are doing illegal or unlawful things they “gonna get ya.”
So if it’s an image that you pulled from somewhere and didn’t have a right to, you’ve got to fess up to it. If it’s content that you’ve done the same, you’ve got to fess up to it. You’ve got to work with them. And unfortunately, sometimes this also involves having to pay some type of usage fee associated with that. And you are responsible for that, for unlawfully using a copyright image or content without paying your dues.
However, depending on how well you cooperate and how much of a good up-standing inter-webian citizen you are, you might just get a little bit of amnesty. I wouldn’t say that’s the only reason to cooperate but keep that in mind. You will never get any kind of good out of ignoring, not doing, or being uncooperative with anyone that has a claim that is somewhat legitimate. Now every once in a while you’ll get the “Well we are representative management from something-something organization out of China and we believe that this domain is in violation of whatever or yada-yada,” probably can ignore that pretty easily.
But the short of it is if you receive a claim take it seriously. Think about what could be valid about it. Discuss with them, as long as it doesn’t look like an obviously fishing message or silly social engineering goofiness. Take it seriously. Handle it like you would a lawyer showing up at your door.
Just because it’s the Internet doesn’t mean it’s not real. I’ve had a couple of these myself and two of them were legitimate and I just needed some education. So I got some education. I worked with people and things turned out okay. Do the right thing; you’ll be all right. There you go. Handling another batch of tough emails, copyright claims. Be careful. Be lawful. Be awesome. All right, bye.