Copyright and DMCA Policy

Plain-English summary (30-second read)

• If you own a copyright and you believe material on SEO Genius infringes it, send a notice to our designated copyright agent using the details in Section 2.
• Your notice has to contain the six things listed in Section 3. A notice that leaves one out may not count as valid, and we may not be able to act on it.
• When we get a valid notice we remove or disable the material and tell the customer who posted it.
• If your material was removed and you think that was a mistake, you can send a counter-notice under Section 5. We put the material back after 10 to 14 business days unless the person who complained sues.
• We terminate accounts of customers who infringe repeatedly. See Section 7.
• Sending a knowingly false notice or counter-notice can make you liable for damages and legal fees under 17 U.S.C. § 512(f).
• This summary is not the policy. The numbered sections below are.

1. What this page covers

SEO Genius is operated by Rize Digital LLC (a Delaware limited liability company) ("Rize Digital," "we," "us," or "our"). Customers connect their own websites to the Service, and the Service stores, processes, and in some configurations writes content to those sites. That means material supplied or directed by our customers passes through and is stored on our systems.

This page is how a copyright owner tells us about material they believe infringes their copyright, and how a customer responds if their material was removed. It is written to match the notice and takedown process in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. § 512.

This page does not cover trademark complaints, defamation claims, or privacy complaints. For those, use the contact route in Section 10.

2. Our designated copyright agent

Rize Digital has designated the following agent to receive notifications of claimed copyright infringement. This agent is registered with the United States Copyright Office in its Directory of Designated Agents, and the registration is active.

Send copyright notices to the agent above. Notices sent to support, sales, or any other address may be delayed and may not start our review.

3. How to send a takedown notice

To be effective under 17 U.S.C. § 512(c)(3), your written notice has to include substantially all of the following:

1. A physical or electronic signature of a person authorized to act on behalf of the owner of the exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.
2. Identification of the copyrighted work you say has been infringed. If your notice covers multiple works at one site, a representative list of those works is enough.
3. Identification of the material you say is infringing and that you want removed or disabled, with enough detail for us to find it. A direct URL is the most useful thing you can give us.
4. Your contact information: 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 your notice is accurate, and, under penalty of perjury, that you are authorized to act on behalf of the owner of the exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.

Two practical notes. First, the penalty of perjury statement attaches to your authority to act, not to your whole notice, so write it as its own sentence. Second, a notice missing items 1, 5, or 6 does not put us on notice under the statute, and we may come back to you asking for a corrected version rather than acting on it.

4. What we do when we get a notice

When we receive a notice we believe is valid, we act quickly to remove the material or disable access to it. We also:

• Take reasonable steps to tell the customer whose material was removed.
• Give that customer a copy of the notice, including your contact information, so they can respond or send a counter-notice.
• Record the notice against that customer's account for the purposes of Section 7.

We do not decide who owns a copyright and we do not decide whether a use is fair use. We act on notices that meet the statutory requirements and we pass counter-notices back to the person who complained. Disputes about ownership or fair use are between you and the customer.

If a notice is incomplete, unclear, or appears to target material we do not host or control, we may ask you for more information before acting.

5. How to send a counter-notice

If your material was removed or disabled and you believe that happened because of a mistake or because the material was misidentified, you can send a counter-notice to the agent in Section 2.

Under 17 U.S.C. § 512(g)(3), a counter-notice has to include substantially all of the following:

1. Your physical or electronic signature.
2. Identification of the material that was removed or disabled, and the location where it appeared before it was removed or disabled.
3. A statement under penalty of perjury that you have a good faith belief the material was removed or disabled as a result of mistake or misidentification.
4. Your name, address, and telephone number, plus a statement that you consent to the jurisdiction of the Federal District Court for the judicial district your address is in, or, if your address is outside the United States, any judicial district in which Rize Digital may be found, and that you will accept service of process from the person who sent the original notice or from that person's agent.

Read item 4 before you send anything. A counter-notice is a consent to be sued in a specific court. If you are not sure whether to send one, talk to a lawyer first.

6. What happens after a counter-notice

When we receive a valid counter-notice we send a copy 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, or re-enable access to it, no earlier than 10 business days and no later than 14 business days after we received your counter-notice. The one exception is if our designated agent first receives notice that the original complainant has filed a court action seeking to restrain you from the activity in question. In that case the material stays down.

7. Repeat infringers

Rize Digital has adopted and reasonably implements a policy of terminating, in appropriate circumstances, the accounts of customers and users who are repeat infringers. This policy is a condition of using the Service and is also stated in Section 7.6 of our Terms of Service.

How we apply it:

• A strike is recorded when we remove or disable material in response to a valid notice under Section 3 and the customer does not send a counter-notice that results in the material being restored.
• A strike is withdrawn if the material is restored under Section 6, if the complainant retracts the notice, or if we conclude the notice was not valid.
• Three strikes on one account within a rolling 12 month period results in termination of that account.
• We may terminate an account sooner than three strikes where the circumstances warrant it, including a court finding of infringement, a single notice covering a large volume of works, or conduct that makes clear the infringement is deliberate.
• Termination under this section is termination for cause. Section 11 of the Terms of Service governs what happens to your data.

We keep a record of notices and strikes so this policy can be applied consistently.

8. False or abusive notices

Under 17 U.S.C. § 512(f), anyone who knowingly materially misrepresents that material is infringing, or that material was removed or disabled by mistake, may be liable for damages, including costs and attorneys' fees, incurred by the alleged infringer, by any copyright owner or its licensee, or by us.

We take that seriously in both directions. Do not use this process to remove a competitor's content, to resolve a contract dispute, or to suppress criticism. We may decline to act on notices from a sender with a pattern of invalid submissions, and we may report abuse of this process.

9. Standard technical measures

We accommodate and do not interfere with standard technical measures used by copyright owners to identify or protect copyrighted works, as that term is defined in 17 U.S.C. § 512(i)(2).

10. Contact

Copyright notices and counter-notices go to the designated agent in Section 2. That is the only address that starts the process described on this page.

For anything else, including trademark, privacy, or general legal questions, contact legal@rizedigital.io.