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DMCA & Copyright Policy

Why this page is here

THUNDER TIGER lives on original work, so we treat the rights of photographers, writers, film makers and studios the way we would want ours treated. Five questions get answered below: what material we publish that somebody else made, how to complain if you think we have taken yours, what we do once your complaint lands, what to do if something you posted was pulled, and how to get permission to reuse ours.

The complaint procedure is modelled on the notice and takedown provisions of the United States Digital Millennium Copyright Act. That is not because the statute governs every reader; it is because rights holders and their agents already know its shape, which makes complaints faster to file and faster to act on. Valid notices brought under comparable laws in other countries are put through the same steps.

Material on this site that we did not make

Every photograph published here falls into one of five buckets. It is ours. It is licensed from the photographer or the agency holding the rights. It was supplied for publication by the person or body pictured. It is out of copyright or otherwise in the public domain. Or it carries a licence whose terms cover what we are doing with it. Nothing runs because it was easy to find.

Press kits from studios, publishers, manufacturers, teams and tourist boards contain stills, key art, trailers, cover images and renderings that were assembled to be published. We use them for that purpose and we credit them. Official documents appear on the site because they are public and because putting the actual text in front of a reader beats paraphrasing it: judgments, regulatory filings, safety notices, statements, returns and published research.

Brief extracts from copyrighted work are quoted for reporting, criticism and comment under fair use and its equivalents, always credited. Where the material is itself the story, a leaked memo, a clip, a posting, we publish the portion the reporting depends on and stop there. Pictures and video belonging to private individuals are not taken from their accounts simply because those accounts are open. When somebody’s own photograph is the news, we contact them, name them, and pay where paying is the right thing to do.

Filing a complaint about our use of your work

Send it to support@thundertiger-europe.com and start the subject line with LEGAL DMCA. For us to act on it, and for it to count as a proper notice under section 512(c)(3) of title 17, it needs to carry six things.

  • A signature, handwritten or electronic, from you or from whoever is empowered to act for the rights holder.
  • The work you say has been infringed, identified clearly. One notice can cover many works if it lists them representatively.
  • The specific thing on our site you object to, pinned down precisely enough for us to locate it: the page address plus which photograph, which paragraph, which clip.
  • Contact details that work, meaning a name, a postal address, a telephone number and an email address.
  • A statement of your good faith belief that neither the rights holder, nor an agent, nor the law itself authorised what we did.
  • A statement, on penalty of perjury, that everything in the notice is accurate and that you hold the right or speak for whoever does.

Leave one of those out and the notice may not be legally actionable, though in practice we write back and tell you which piece is missing rather than filing it away. Should you need a postal address for our designated agent, ask for it and it will be sent to you.

The steps after your complaint arrives

You get an acknowledgement inside two working days. The complaint then goes to an editor who played no part in publishing the material, which is the same separation we use for complaints about our reporting.

Four outcomes are possible. Where the claim is clearly good, the material comes down or is swapped out and you are told. Where we hold a licence, a press kit permission or a public domain source, we set out what we relied on. Where we consider the use fair, we explain the reasoning, the material stays, and the courts remain open to you. Where a reader posted the material in a comment, it is taken down quickly, the poster is sent your notice and given the opportunity to reply.

Pulling something down while a complaint is examined settles nothing about whether it infringed. It is what the statute contemplates, and we would rather follow the process than argue about it while the question is live.

Answering a takedown

Anybody whose posted material was removed over a complaint they believe was mistaken can reply with a counter-notification, sent to the same address. It has to carry your signature, handwritten or electronic; a description of what disappeared and whereabouts on the site it used to sit; a sworn statement, on penalty of perjury, that your good faith view is that the removal rested on an error or a case of mistaken identity; a name, postal address and telephone number; and an acceptance of the jurisdiction of the federal district court covering your address, or, for anybody outside the United States, of any district where we might be sued, together with an undertaking to accept service from whoever complained.

Your counter-notification is forwarded to the complainant. Should ten working days pass without word from them that proceedings have been started to stop the alleged infringement, the material may go back up, normally somewhere between ten and fourteen working days after your reply reached us.

False complaints and repeat offenders

Section 512(f) attaches liability, including costs and legal fees, to anybody who deliberately claims material is infringing when it is not, or claims a removal was mistaken when it was not. Copyright complaints aimed at burying truthful reporting about a company, a public body, a club, a film or a product are not copyright complaints at all, and we consider ourselves free to describe such an attempt in public.

Where reader contributions are switched on, an account that keeps posting infringing material is barred. Where a freelance contributor hands us work that turns out not to be theirs to hand over, that is the end of the arrangement.

Complaints that belong somewhere else

A takedown notice is a poor tool for arguing that a story was inaccurate, unfair, intrusive or unflattering. Those arguments belong in the CORRECTION or LEGAL queue described on our contact page, where they are handled under our corrections policy and, when they need it, with legal advice. Using copyright law to make an unwelcome article disappear does not work here and carries the risk described in the previous section.

Permission to use our work

Linking needs no permission and never will. Quoting a short extract with credit and a link needs none either. Beyond that, write with PERMISSIONS in the subject line and tell us what you want to reproduce and where it will appear. Teachers, universities and non-profit organisations wanting a story for classroom or other non-commercial use are generally told yes within a day. Anything commercial, including paid newsletters, subscription research and client briefings, is licensed on written terms. The everyday limits on reuse are described in our terms of service.