Copyright claims

If you publish a document that contains work by others without proper citation, you are infringing copyright. If a person, company or agency objects to this, it is called a copyright claim. These claims are made by individuals or companies that own music, movies, books and other copyrighted material. A copyright claim is a notice stating that content is being used unlawfully.

How can an individual or a company file a copyright claim to Stuvia? In each document on the platform, there is a link which reads “Report copyright violation” which people can click on to report misuse of content. You can also file a copyright claim through the “Report Abuse” form.

Before filing a report, be certain of the existence of plagiarism or other forms of content misuse. There is no added value in reporting ill-considered claims. The claim must be made in the form of an email or through the above-mentioned form. Your claim must include (as mentioned in Article 8 of the Terms and Conditions):

• A description of the study material your claim pertains to;
• A link to the study material on Stuvia;
• A statement as to why you believe the text infringes copyright laws;
• Contact information through which Stuvia can contact you, including your name, address, phone number and email address;
• A statement supported by evidence that the information in your claim is accurate and complete and that you (or the person on whose behalf you are filing the claim) own the affected intellectual property rights;
• A signature of the copyright holder of the material or of the person acting on behalf of the copyright holder.

Due to the open nature of the internet, it is possible for everyone to publish content themselves. As there is no central authority that controls this, it is very difficult to control what is published. For this reason, the Notice & Take Down Code of Conduct was established. As a result, online service providers know how to proceed when someone submits a request to remove content. This code of conduct states that every request must be handled, which does not mean that all requests are automatically accepted.

If you believe study material on Stuvia infringes your intellectual property rights, we request that you inform us through an email to abuse@stuvia.com. You can also file a Notice & Take Down request using the “Report Abuse” form.

To process the request, a Notice & Take Down request must include:

• A description of the study material your claim pertains to;
• A link to the study material on Stuvia;
• A statement as to why you believe the text infringes copyright laws or intellectual property rights;
• Contact information through which Stuvia can contact you, including your name, address, phone number and email address;
• A statement supported by evidence that the information in your claim is accurate and complete and that you (or the person on whose behalf you are filing the claim) own the affected intellectual property rights;
• A signature of the copyright holder of the material or of the person acting on behalf of the copyright holder.

For more information, read our Terms and Conditions.

Copyright claims and Notice & Take Down requests are formal legal procedures. It is possible that you did not provide the necessary information when submitting a claim. If this is the case, Stuvia will contact you to request the missing information. Be sure to submit a complete claim in which your contact details are correct.

Each individual claim is considered and treated by Stuvia as a separate legal procedure. In order to handle a claim in the best way possible and to process all aspects of the Copyright Act correctly, we must have all the information gathered together. Be sure you are filing a complete claim to simplify the process. Refer to “How do I file a copyright claim?” for more information.

All claims will be filed through Stuvia. If a claim is made against your work, we will handle it for you. If the claim is correct, we will remove the relevant documents from Stuvia’s platform. The removed document(s) are labeled as removed due to copyright violation in the 'Uploads' section in your profile. If you still choose to do this and we see repeated copyright infringements from your profile, you can permanently be removed from the platform.

By processing claims this way, we protect our users against complicated legal proceedings and high fines. However, due to the way we process the claims, it is not possible to file against the claim. If the document is deleted, we will not republish it on Stuvia. Therefore, we urge you not to upload the same document again after it has been removed.

Our intentions are certainly not that someone else places your carefully written documents on Stuvia. We would like to prevent plagiarism, as Stuvia is a platform where the quality of the content is of paramount importance. We take reports regarding plagiarism and copyright infringement very seriously. If this situation presents itself, please notify us by sending an email to abuse@stuvia.com or by filling out the “Report Abuse” form. If someone on Stuvia deliberately commits plagiarism, we will take measures to prevent this from happening again in the future.