Copyright Policy and DMCA Notices

Our approach

Vet Hub respects the rights of copyright owners, and we ask our members to do the same. We respond to notices of claimed copyright infringement that follow the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (17 U.S.C. 512). We end the access of members who repeatedly infringe.

What members post on Vet Hub is plain text: threads, replies and direct messages. Members cannot upload images, video or files to RallyPoint. So most copyright complaints will be about copied text, or about material that sponsors supply to us.

This page covers copyright. For other problems, see the Community Guidelines. For intimate images shared without consent, see our Take It Down page.

Where to send a notice

Send copyright notices and counter-notifications through our contact page. Choose the topic Legal and begin your message with "Copyright notice" or "Counter-notification". Give us the details listed in sections 3 and 5.

Our designated agent for notices under 17 U.S.C. 512(c)(2) is listed below as soon as the designation is on file with the U.S. Copyright Office.

What a notice must include

Under 17 U.S.C. 512(c)(3)(A), your notice must be in writing and include all of the following:

1. A physical or electronic signature of a person authorized to act for the owner of the exclusive right that is claimed to be infringed.
2. Identification of the copyrighted work you say was infringed. If one notice covers several works at one site, a representative list is enough.
3. Identification of the material you say is infringing, with enough information for us to find it. For a thread, give its web address. For a reply, give the thread's web address, the date and time, the display name of the author and the first few words of the reply. We cannot act on a general description.
4. Your name, mailing address, telephone number and email address.
5. A statement that you have a good-faith belief that the use of the material in the way complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent or the law.
6. A statement that the information in the notice is accurate, and, under penalty of perjury, that you are authorized to act for the owner of the exclusive right that is claimed to be infringed.

A notice that does not substantially meet these requirements may not give us the knowledge the law describes. We may write back to ask for what is missing.

What we do when we receive a notice

1. We review the notice. If it meets the requirements, we promptly remove the material or disable access to it.
2. We take reasonable steps to tell the member who posted the material that it was removed or disabled, and we may give them a copy of your notice, including your name and contact details.
3. We keep a record of the notice and of what we did, so that we can handle a counter-notification and meet our legal obligations.

If you send us a notice, you should understand that anyone who knowingly and materially misrepresents that material is infringing can be liable for damages, including costs and attorneys' fees (17 U.S.C. 512(f)).

If your material was removed: counter-notification

If you believe your material was removed because of a mistake or a misidentification, you may send our designated agent a counter-notification. Under 17 U.S.C. 512(g)(3) it must be in writing and include:

1. Your physical or electronic signature.
2. Identification of the material that was removed or disabled, and where it appeared before it was removed.
3. 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.
4. Your name, address and telephone number, and a statement that you consent to the jurisdiction of the federal district court for the judicial district where your address is located (or, if your address is outside the United States, any judicial district where we may be found), and that you will accept service of process from the person who sent the notice or that person's agent.

What happens after a counter-notification

We send a copy of your counter-notification to the person who sent the original notice, and tell them we will restore the material in 10 business days. We then restore the material not less than 10, and not more than 14, business days after we receive your counter-notification, unless that person tells our designated agent that they have filed a court action to stop you from using the material.

Repeat infringers

We will disable or permanently ban the account of a member who is a repeat infringer, in appropriate circumstances. We decide case by case, counting valid notices that were not successfully countered.

False notices and false counter-notifications

Anyone who knowingly and materially misrepresents that material is infringing, or that material was removed by mistake or misidentification, can be liable for damages, including costs and attorneys' fees.

Other kinds of complaint

• Harassment, hate, spam and other conduct: see our Community Guidelines.
• Intimate images shared without consent: see our Take It Down page.
• Other legal notices: use the contact page and choose the topic Legal. Requests from law enforcement are handled separately.

Changes

We may update this page. The version and effective date at the top show which text applies.