Our approach
The details

Copyright and DMCA policy

How to report material you believe infringes your copyright, how a contributor can respond, and what happens next. Effective 2 October 2026.

Who this applies to

SharpAndLean respects copyright and expects the people who contribute to it to do the same. This policy covers everything published on sharpandlean.com, including community reviews submitted by readers. It explains how we respond to notices under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. § 512, and forms part of the terms of use.

Notices of claimed infringement go to our copyright agent:

  • Copyright Agent, SharpAndLean
  • Email: sharpnlean@gmail.com, with “DMCA notice” in the subject line

Email is the fastest route, and the one we can act on the same week. Please do not send DMCA notices through the newsletter or a community-review form, because they are not monitored for legal notices. General questions about our content, including a correction request, belong on the contact page instead.

What a notice must include

To be valid under the DMCA, your notice must be in writing and include:

  1. Your physical or electronic signature, or that of the person authorised to act for the copyright owner.
  2. Identification of the copyrighted work you say has been infringed. If several works on the site are covered by one notice, a representative list is enough.
  3. Identification of the material you say is infringing, with enough detail for us to find it. The full page URL, and the paragraph, image or review in question, is ideal.
  4. Your name, postal address, telephone number and email address.
  5. A statement that you have a good-faith belief that the use is not authorised 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 the owner or are authorised to act for the owner.

A notice that leaves out an element may be returned to you with a request for the missing information rather than acted on. Before sending one, consider whether the use could be fair use — a short quotation used for review or criticism, for example. Under 17 U.S.C. § 512(f), anyone who knowingly misrepresents that material is infringing can be liable for the damages and costs that result.

What we do with a valid notice

When a complete notice arrives, we remove the material or disable access to it promptly, normally within two working days. If a community contributor posted it, we tell them it has been taken down and send them a copy of the notice, with your personal contact details removed unless the law requires otherwise. Material that SharpAndLean published itself is reviewed by the editor, who either removes it or replies to explain why we believe the use is lawful.

Counter-notices

If material you submitted was removed and you believe that was a mistake or a misidentification, you may send a counter-notice to the copyright agent above. It must include:

  1. Your physical or electronic signature.
  2. Identification of the material that was removed and where it appeared before removal.
  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 in which your address is located (or, if you are outside the United States, any judicial district in which SharpAndLean may be found), and that you will accept service of process from the person who sent the original notice or their agent.

When we receive a valid counter-notice, we send a copy to the person who sent the original notice. Unless they tell us, within 10 business days, that they have filed a court action seeking to restrain the alleged infringement, we may restore the material between 10 and 14 business days after receiving the counter-notice.

Repeat infringers

Contributors who are the subject of repeated, valid infringement notices lose the ability to post. Where we can identify the person behind more than one valid notice — by account, email address or display name — further community submissions from them are refused and any account is closed. We may also act sooner where an infringement is plainly deliberate.

Other intellectual-property concerns

For a trademark concern, misattributed quotation or anything else that is not a copyright claim, write through the contact page and describe the problem. It will be looked at, but the DMCA procedure above does not apply to it.

Changes

If this policy changes, the effective date at the top changes with it. Notices are handled under the version in force when they arrive.