DMCA & copyright

Before you read on: what do you want removed?

There are two different routes, and the wrong one only costs you time.

• A photo or text YOU hold the rights to — you are the photographer, agency or rights holder. Then this page is right.
• A listing that concerns YOU as a person — you are the person depicted or described and simply do not want to be there. Then use Request profile removal. It is faster, requires no sworn statement and no proof of rights, and we act on it without follow-up questions.

How CharmMap handles images

One point up front, because it makes most notices unnecessary: we do not copy other people's images. There is no copy on our servers. Only the image address of the source page is stored; on request the image is fetched from the origin server and passed through.

In practice that means:

• If you delete the image at the source, it disappears here too.
• If you block access at the source, that block takes effect here immediately.
• We can nevertheless — and do, upon a justified notice — permanently block the image address so it is not picked up again on future runs.

Notice of copyright infringement

Send your notice to [email protected] with the subject "DMCA" or "Copyright".

For us to act, the notice must contain the following (this matches 17 U.S.C. § 512(c)(3) and simultaneously covers the requirements of Art. 16 DSA):

1. Identification of the protected work — which photo, which text, which trade mark. A list, if there are several.
2. Precise location — the full URL of every page complained of on charmmap.com. Please list the addresses individually; "everything on your site" cannot be processed.
3. Your contact details — name, email address, and postal address and phone number if applicable.
4. Statement of good faith — a statement that you believe in good faith that the use complained of is not authorised by the rights holder, its agent, or the law.
5. Statement of accuracy — a statement that your information is accurate and that you are the rights holder or authorised to act on their behalf. Under US law this statement is made under penalty of perjury.
6. Signature — a physical or electronic signature. A typed name at the end of an email is enough.

We have to reject an incomplete notice — not out of formalism, but because taking content down without these details would itself be unlawful. We will tell you what is missing.

What happens next

1. Acknowledgement of receipt within 48 hours.
2. Review and takedown. Where the notice is justified, the content is hidden without delay — as a rule within 72 hours of a complete notice arriving.
3. Blocklist. The image address concerned is permanently blocked so it is not picked up again on a later automated run.
4. Notification. If the content belongs to an account, we inform the account holder of the takedown and its reason, as Art. 17 DSA requires.
5. Closure. You receive a report of what happened.

Counter notice

If your content was taken down and you believe that was wrong, you can object — to the same address, subject "Counter notice". The counter notice needs:

1. Your signature.
2. Identification of the removed content and the address at which it was reachable.
3. A statement that you believe in good faith the removal is the result of a mistake or misidentification.
4. Your contact details.

We forward the counter notice to the reporting party. If they do not file suit within 10 to 14 business days, the content may be restored.

Abusive notices

A notice containing knowingly false statements can give rise to damages (17 U.S.C. § 512(f)). Anyone repeatedly submitting manifestly unfounded notices is suspended from the reporting function for a reasonable period under Art. 23(2) DSA — after a prior warning.

Likewise, we suspend accounts that repeatedly post other people's content ("repeat infringer policy", 17 U.S.C. § 512(i)).

Other infringements

This route covers copyright, trade marks and related rights. For everything else:

• Personality rights, your own image, your data → Request profile removal
• Minors, coercion, trafficking → immediately to [email protected] with the subject Urgent. Handled with priority, outside any queue.

Independent help for those affected: trafficking.help

• Other unlawful content → the report function on the listing, or email to [email protected]

Legal note

CharmMap is a service provider within the meaning of Art. 6 DSA and §§ 7 ff. DDG. We are responsible for third-party content only once we have knowledge of a specific infringement; upon a justified notice we act without delay. There is no general obligation to monitor in advance (Art. 8 DSA).

We process notices using the DMCA procedure because it is established and precise. That implies no submission to US law: German law applies to claims against us.

Single point of contact under Art. 11 and 12 DSA: [email protected]. The languages of proceedings are German and English.