A takedown notice is a formal written request asking a platform, host or search engine to remove specific content because it breaks the law or the provider's own rules.
The best-known example is a DMCA notice under US copyright law, whose required elements are set out in 17 U.S.C. §512(c)(3). The term also covers other formal removal requests: an EU Digital Services Act notice of illegal content, a GDPR erasure request, a defamation complaint, or a removal request under the US TAKE IT DOWN Act for non-consensual intimate images.
A notice differs from a public report button: it goes to the provider's legal or abuse team, identifies the exact URLs, states the legal ground and usually includes a statement of good faith or accuracy. The law often attaches consequences to it — a provider that ignores a valid notice can lose legal protections, while a person who sends a knowingly false one can face liability.
In practice
Many rejected notices fail on form rather than substance: a missing URL, the wrong legal ground, a sender who is not the rights-holder, or no evidence. A good notice names the legal ground for each item, lists every copy, and goes to the channel the provider designates for that ground. Under the DSA, a hosting provider must also tell you its decision and how to challenge it, which gives you something concrete to work with if it refuses.
Source: 17 U.S.C. §512 ↗
Related removals
- DMCA takedown — Quoted by scope, pay on success
- Website takedown — $3,000 per site, pay on success
Related terms
- DMCA takedown — A DMCA takedown is a notice under US copyright law asking a host, platform or search engine to remove material that infringes a copyright you own or are authorised to enforce.
- Digital Services Act (DSA) — The Digital Services Act is the EU regulation on how platforms and hosts handle illegal content, including a duty to act on notices and to explain decisions, refusals included.
- Counter-notice — A counter-notice is the uploader's formal response to a DMCA takedown, asking the provider to restore material they believe was removed by mistake or misidentification.
- Abuse report — An abuse report is a complaint to a hosting provider, domain registrar, CDN or email provider that its service is being used for phishing, fraud, malware or other illegal activity.
- Cease and desist letter — A cease and desist letter is a written demand that a person or company stop a specific activity, such as publishing defamatory or infringing content, and often that they remove it.