Your own product photos appearing on a stranger's listing is both a detection signal and the cleanest evidence you will ever file: the image is yours, the copyright is yours, and the comparison takes seconds. A routine built on reverse image search of your hero images, run weekly, catches copycat listings earlier than keyword monitoring does.
A counter notice is a sworn statement that the seller believes in good faith the removal was a mistake or misidentification. Once the platform forwards it to you, the material comes back between 10 and 14 business days after the platform received the counter notice, unless you notify the platform's designated agent that you have filed a court action or a Copyright Claims Board claim seeking to restrain the seller.
A valid takedown notice needs identification of the protected work, the infringing material and its location, your contact details, and statements of good faith belief and accuracy under penalty of perjury. Complete notices move; vague ones queue. A counter notice needs the seller's identification, a statement under penalty of perjury of good faith belief that the removal was a mistake or misidentification, and consent to the jurisdiction of the federal court for their district.
Anyone who knowingly misstates infringement in a notice is liable for the other side's damages and legal fees under the DMCA. That liability is the reason the statements are sworn, and the reason neither side should file casually.
The window is business days, counted from the platform's receipt of the counter notice, not from the day you read the email. Platforms state it slightly differently: some say 10 business days, others say generally 10 to 14. Either way, the decision has to be made in days, not in the next planning cycle.
Inside the window, two filings hold the material down: a lawsuit seeking an order to restrain the seller, and a Copyright Claims Board claim. The Board hears claims up to 30,000 dollars, the seller can opt out, and the Board cannot order a stop unless the seller agrees. A lawsuit can ask a court for that order directly. Which route fits depends on the value of the work and how determined the seller is.
Log the date the platform received the counter notice, calculate the restoration window, and put both dates where the team will see them. Then decide quickly whether the work justifies a filing, and if it does, file and notify the designated agent before the window closes. If it does not, let the material restore and record why, so the same decision is not relitigated on the next notice.
Keep the notice, the counter notice, and the dates together. Trademark complaints are not covered by the DMCA and run under separate procedures, so a counter notice process that works for a copyright claim does not apply to a trademark report. Mixing the two tracks is how windows get missed.
Keep reading: Who we protect covers a nearby case in this series.
Between 10 and 14 business days after the platform receives the counter notice, unless you notify the platform that you have filed a court action or a Copyright Claims Board claim. Count business days, and count from the platform's receipt date.
No. A second notice on the same material will not hold it after a counter notice. The platform is following the statutory process, and only a filed action reported in the window changes that.
A lower cost forum for copyright claims up to 30,000 dollars. The seller can opt out, and the Board cannot order the seller to stop unless the seller agrees, which makes it a damages route more than a takedown route.
No. Counter notices belong to copyright reports under the DMCA. Trademark and counterfeit reports run under each platform's own policies, with their own appeal routes.