Comment by jcr | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jcr | Hacker News Reader

It seems themeforest.net and themeforest.com are owned by an Australian company, Envato Pty Ltd. The DMCA is a US law, and luckily, it seems they're not in the US.

  $ whois themeforest.net
  Registrant Organization: Envato Pty Ltd
  Registrant Street: PO Box 21177, Little Lonsdale St
  Registrant City: Melbourne
  Registrant State/Province: Victoria
  Registrant Postal Code: VIC 8011
  Registrant Country: AU
  Registrant Phone: +61.390230074
  Registrant Phone Ext:
  Registrant Fax: +61.290183043
  Registrant Fax Ext:
  Registrant Email: domains@envato.com

Envato has a page on DMCA takedown notices, but I'm not done reading it yet. None the less, it seems they may respond to DMCA Takedown Notices.

http://support.envato.com/index.php?/Knowledgebase/Article/V...

The important thing is that filing a knowingly false DMCA Takedown Notice can have legal consequences, both civil (read: monetary) and criminal (read: prison).

http://www.aaronkellylaw.com/internet-law/consequences-of-fi...

Personally, I'd contact ThemeForest/Envato myself to let them know I'm being harassed with threats of false complaints before the other guy gets a chance to file his false complaint.

If they have hosting services provided in they US, or by a US company, they may still be effected by DMCA notices (or at least, the hosting provider would be).

Australian law is tricky when it comes to the DMCA. There isn't specifically an Australian DMCA, but through trade-agreements there is parity between Australian copyright law and the US', which may include similar provisions.

The theme hosting company is not ThemeForest/Envato Thanks for your advice.

As I said, my main concern is I won't be given the opportunity to defend myself by the DMCA institution.

The hosting for the theme marketplace is GODADDY.COM

Sorry I was a bit dense and took ThemeForest literally.

Godaddy responds as most US companies do to DMCA Takedown Notices by removing access to the cited content. By law, they must disable access if they receive a valid takedown request. It would then be up to you to file a "Counter-Notice" with them, at which point they will enable access to your content again. The Digital Media Law Project (DMLP) has some useful info on how to file a Counter-Notice:

http://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/responding-dmca-takedown-not...

If you contact GoDaddy first, and inform them about the false threats, they might consider any takedown request they receive as knowingly false, and not disable access to your content, and/or well as give you time time to file a Counter-Notice. It won't hurt to ask them about what you should do, since at least then you'd have a pre-existing support ticket number to refer to if they do get a takedown notice.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com