Copyright & DMCA Policy

What Makes a Valid Takedown Notice

If you own the copyright to a work — or are authorized to act for the owner — and you believe a listing, image, or profile on Surfaced Art uses that work without permission, you can send us a takedown notice. To be effective under 17 U.S.C. § 512(c)(3), your notice must include all six of the following:

1. Your signature. A physical or electronic signature of the copyright owner, or a person authorized to act on the owner’s behalf.
2. The work being infringed. A description identifying the copyrighted work you say has been infringed (or, if several works, a representative list of them).
3. The infringing material. A description identifying the material you say is infringing, with enough detail for us to locate it — for a listing or profile, the URL is the clearest way to do this.
4. Your contact information. Information reasonably sufficient for us to reach you, such as your name, mailing address, telephone number, and email address.
5. A good-faith statement. A statement that you believe in good faith that the use of the material is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law.
6. A statement under penalty of perjury. A statement that the information in your notice is accurate, and — under penalty of perjury — that you are the copyright owner or are authorized to act on the owner’s behalf.

Please send a complete notice. A notice that is missing any of these elements may not be treated as effective under the DMCA, and may delay our response. If you are not sure whether the work you found actually infringes your copyright — for example, if it may be fair use — you may want to seek legal advice before sending a notice, since misrepresenting infringement can carry liability under 17 U.S.C. § 512(f).

Our Designated Agent

Send your takedown notice to our designated copyright agent by email:

A designated postal address will be published here once our agent registration with the U.S. Copyright Office is complete. Until then, email is the correct and monitored channel for takedown notices.

Notices sent to this address are received and transcribed into an internal copyright log so we can act on them and keep an accurate record. We retain takedown notices and the information they contain as legal records — including the details of who filed the notice and the material identified — because that record is what lets us operate our repeat-infringer policy and support the good-faith basis of any removal. We do not delete these records on request; they are kept as part of our compliance recordkeeping under the DMCA safe harbor, consistent with our Privacy Policy.

What Happens After We Receive a Notice

When we receive a notice that appears to meet the requirements above, we generally:

• Review the notice. We check that it identifies both the copyrighted work and the specific material on the platform, and that it includes the required elements.
• Remove or disable the identified material. We take down the listing, image, or profile content named in the notice, removing it from public view.
• Notify the affected artist. We let the artist whose content was removed know what was taken down and pass along the claims made in the notice, so they understand why and can decide how to respond.

We may act more quickly or more cautiously depending on the circumstances, and we may ask for clarification if a notice is unclear or incomplete.

Repeat-Infringer Policy

Surfaced Art has a policy of terminating, in appropriate circumstances, the accounts of artists who are repeat infringers. An artist who is the subject of repeated valid copyright takedown notices may have their account suspended or permanently terminated. Maintaining this policy is a condition of the DMCA safe harbor, and it reflects our commitment to a gallery of genuinely original work.

Counter-Notices

If your content was removed and you believe it was removed by mistake or misidentification — for example, because you hold the rights to the work, or its use is otherwise authorized by law — you may submit a counter-notice. Counter-notices go to the same designated agent, legal@surfaced.art.

We handle counter-notices individually and will explain the next steps to you when you submit one. Because this is a legal process, please include a clear explanation of why you believe the material should be restored, along with your contact information. We will review your counter-notice and coordinate any restoration on a case-by-case basis.

Changes to This Policy

We may update this policy from time to time — for example, to add our registered postal address or to reflect changes in how we handle notices. When we do, we will update the version note at the top of this page.