One problem, six instruments

When an infringer ignores notices, operates its own servers, or profits too much to stop voluntarily, litigation is the remaining lever. We bring copyright infringement actions in federal court seeking injunctive relief, actual damages and profits, or statutory damages of up to $30,000 per work — up to $150,000 per work where infringement is willful — plus attorney's fees for registered works under 17 U.S.C. § 505.

Registration timing matters more than most clients expect. Under § 412, statutory damages and fee awards are generally available only if the work was registered before the infringement began or within three months of first publication. We audit a client's registration posture at intake and, where needed, handle registration — including group registration options for photographers and prolific creators — before demand letters go out, so the case we threaten is the case we can actually bring.

Not every matter should be a lawsuit. We give clients a candid assessment of collectability, jurisdiction, and cost before filing, and we structure demand-and-settlement strategies for matters where a negotiated license or payment is the better outcome. When a case does need to be filed, it is filed to be won, not to posture.

Leaked private material — subscription content redistributed off-platform, private images shared without consent, pre-release work exfiltrated by an insider — spreads fast and does its worst damage early. These matters get same-week mobilization: evidence preservation first, then removal demands across every site, host, and search index where the material appears.

The legal toolkit here is broader than copyright alone. Where the client created the material, DMCA takedowns apply and are usually the fastest lever. Where they did not, we use state non-consensual intimate imagery statutes, the federal civil remedy under 15 U.S.C. § 6851, platform policies that prohibit this material regardless of copyright status, and search-engine removal programs for NCII and doxxing content. Most matters use several of these in parallel.

Discretion is a design constraint, not an afterthought. We structure filings to minimize public exposure of the client's identity where the law allows — including pseudonymous filing where courts permit it — and we never include the underlying material in public documents. Clients speak directly with an attorney, not an intake vendor.

False factual statements published online — fake reviews, fabricated accusations, impersonation accounts — can be actionable defamation. The emphasis is on false and factual: opinion, hyperbole, and true statements are protected speech, and a demand letter that ignores that distinction invites a public backlash or an anti-SLAPP motion that can leave the client paying the other side's fees.

Our first step is an honest merits assessment: is the statement provably false, is it defamatory, who published it, and what does the client actually want — removal, retraction, correction, or damages? Many matters resolve through targeted retraction demands, platform policy reports, or negotiated removal, without a public filing that amplifies the original statement.

Where suit is warranted, we plead it carefully. Platforms hosting third-party statements are generally immune under 47 U.S.C. § 230, so the viable defendant is usually the speaker — sometimes anonymous, which is where our John Doe identification practice comes in. We also counsel clients on the practical layer: a court order in hand is often the most effective instrument for persuading platforms and search engines to remove or de-index content they would not remove on request alone.

Some sites ignore every notice: offshore hosts, anonymized registrants, operators who monetize stolen content deliberately. When the source won't remove material, the next-best remedy is making it unfindable. Search engines accept copyright removal notices under § 512(d) for links to infringing material, and they honor court orders and specific policy-based requests — for NCII, doxxing, and certain personal information — even for sites outside US jurisdiction.

De-indexing is also a demotion strategy. Search engines factor the volume of valid copyright notices against a domain into ranking, so a sustained, accurate notice campaign against a pirate site suppresses its visibility broadly, not just for the noticed URLs. We run these campaigns with the same accuracy standards as our takedown work — bad notices get rejected and forfeit credibility with the removals teams that process them.

Where a client has obtained a judgment — for defamation, infringement, or under a privacy statute — we handle submission of the order to search engines and platforms, which routinely act on judicial determinations that specific URLs contain unlawful content.

Enforcement often stalls at the same wall: the infringer is anonymous. An account name, a throwaway email, a site behind a privacy proxy. Federal law provides two main paths through it, and we use both.

First, § 512(h) of the DMCA lets a copyright owner obtain a subpoena from a federal court clerk — without filing a lawsuit — directing a service provider to identify a user who posted infringing material the provider stores. It is fast and comparatively inexpensive, but it has real limits shaped by case law: it reaches providers that store the infringing material, not mere-conduit ISPs, so choosing the right subpoena target matters.

Second, where § 512(h) doesn't fit or the claims go beyond copyright, we file a John Doe action and seek expedited discovery to subpoena platforms, hosts, payment processors, and email providers for identifying information. Courts apply a balancing test before unmasking anonymous speakers — particularly where speech interests are implicated — so the complaint and the early discovery motions must be built to survive that scrutiny. Once a real name is on the caption, most cases change posture quickly.