This ridiculous registrar threatened to lock our domain and destroy our business within 24 hours for a defective DMCA notice that addressed one if our 40 million user profile subdomains. Our legal counsel advised to temporarily comply instead of arguing (although he did send them a nasty letter) to move over to a normal registrar from this cheap one, that i got when i was bootstrapping with no money because it was several dollars cheaper. It's not a business of a domain registrar (unlike a web host) to enforce DMCA notices.
So you found out how DMCA works and how much it sucks the hard way, eh?
You’re right it shouldn’t be the business of a domain registrar. But every provider in the chain that the copyright holders can reach to will end up responsible. You, the registrar, web host, ISP, everything.
Send your complaints to the US government and the copyright lobby. It’s a bullshit law. Namecheap complies with it because if they don’t, THEY get cut off by their own providers, and so on up the chain until the fines roll in.
My experience with namecheap is similar very bad too. They also sent me an email saying if you don't respond in a short time(24 hours) your domain will be revoked. Related experience: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14139288 I moved my domains from namecheap to gandi.net and so far no problems. I would avoid namecheap like the plague for any large site. Of note, I had millions of unique vistors per month on that domain for a normal legal site.
ycombinator uses gandi.net too.
and even if they obey us and internation laws, threating to revoke a domain within 24 hours if no reply regarding an external complaint, with just an email warning is ridiculous and not how other reputable domain registrars work.
Why should it matter how many visitors you have? People with 3 visitors pay the same and can be also badly affected if the domain is yanked at a wrong time. Especially nasty if you run email on the yanked domain.
I agree with that.
I was just emphasizing the livelihood of multiple people and a whole business depended on answering a email from namecheap within 24 hours due to an complaint they received.
Abusive DMCA takedowns are unfortunately extremely easy, very time consuming to report, and seemingly very rarely have any action taken against the person who falsely claimed. Not excusing Namecheap here, what they did was totally shit.
Heroku did the same thing to me for same reason - completely shut down my entire account with several revenue generating websites with zero notice.
We are contacting you from the Namecheap Legal and Abuse department regarding your “XXXXX” Namecheap account.
We are in receipt of a copyright infringement notice pursuant to 17 U.S.C. §512 of the Copyright Act, requesting that we disable allegedly infringing material that appears on a domain hosted in your account (“Domain”):
xLINKSx
As a hosting service provider, Namecheap complies with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”). We would like to help you avoid any service interruption. Please review the DMCA notice that we have included in this communication.
If you do not have the authorization to host the alleged disputed content, and if you are not authorized to use the disputed content, you will need to remove the content within 72 hours, or we may be required to suspend your hosting account under DMCA guidelines.
In order for us to consider a case resolved, the reported link(s) is to show the '404 Not Found' error/suspended page or redirect to the main page of the website.
If you believe that the identification of this infringing content is in error, we suggest that you contact the reporting copyright owner to resolve the matter. If the reporting copyright owner agrees there is a mistake, ask them to email Namecheap at dmca@namecheap.com.
If you are not able to come to an agreement with the reporting copyright owner or if you disagree with the copyright claim, you may submit a DMCA Counter-Notice to Namecheap within ten (10) business days of the date of this email. The Counter-Notice must comply with the requirements of the DMCA and must contain the following points:
1. Your contact information, including name, address, and telephone number, as well as facsimile number and email, if available;
2. A statement that, under penalty of perjury, you have a good faith belief that the material was removed or disabled as a result of a mistake or misidentification of the material to be removed or disabled;
3. Identification of the material that has been removed or to which access has been disabled, and the location at which the material had appeared before it was removed or access was disabled;
4. A statement that you consent to the jurisdiction of the United States District Court in which the address you provide is located, or if your address is outside the United States, for the judicial district of California;
5. A statement that you will accept service of process from the person who provided the initial notice or an agent of that person;
6. A physical or electronic signature by you or your agent.
The DMCA Counter-Notice should be sent either via this ticket by replying to our notice or to Namecheap.com Attn: Legal Department, 4600 East Washington Street, Suite 305, Phoenix, AZ 85034, USA, Facsimile:
Once a valid DMCA Counter-Notice has been submitted, Namecheap would provide a copy of the Counter-Notice to the reporting copyright owner. In addition, the DMCA requires that you remove the disputed content for at least ten (10) and not more than fourteen (14) days from when the Counter-Notice was served. Thus, Namecheap will advise the complaining party that the listing will be reinstated within ten (10) days and will remain so unless we hear from the reporting copyright owner that he or she has filed an action against you under the DMCA in a court of competent jurisdiction for copyright infringement and is seeking a court order to restrain you from publishing the disputed content.
By submitting your Counter-Notice to Namecheap, you agree to waive, and hereby do waive any legal or equitable rights or remedies you have or may have against Namecheap with respect to any Counter-Notice you send, or claims regarding any aspect of the disputed content and its publication and/or Namecheap's action in implementing a takedown or re-establishing the content, and you agree to indemnify and hold Namecheap, and its owners/operators, affiliates and/or licensors, harmless to the fullest extent allowed by law regarding all matters relating to your sending of a Counter-Notice.
If you feel you received this notification in error, please contact us at with more information as to why. We do apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you.
This proliferates the same confusion that your company has. The note you quoted is about hosting accounts ("hosting service provider"). We did not host anything with you, we only registered a domain. This notice does not apply. When i get to my laptop i will dig out the original notice from you and the response from our counsel.
