Copyright and DMCA

We take copyright seriously in both directions. Sellers here make their living from work that is easy to copy, so a marketplace that tolerated stolen code would be worthless to the people it exists for.

Every item is reviewed before publication, and part of that review is whether the seller had the right to publish and license the work, including every bundled dependency. Review is not perfect, which is why this process exists.

Two things worth checking, because they account for most notices we cannot action:

• Is it actually your work? Similar layouts, common patterns and widely used open source components are not infringement on their own.
• Does the licence permit it? If your work is under a licence that allows commercial redistribution, a seller using it within those terms is not infringing, even if you would rather they did not.

You do not have to contact the seller first, and we will not ask you to. If you would rather try, that is your choice.

Send a notice through a support ticket, or use report an item on the listing itself. To be actionable it must include all of the following:

• Your physical or electronic signature, as the rights owner or someone authorised to act for them
• Identification of the copyrighted work you say has been infringed
• Identification of the material you say is infringing, with the item link and enough detail for us to find it
• Your contact details: name, address, telephone number and email
• A statement that you have a good faith belief the use is not authorised by the rights owner, its agent, or the law
• A statement that the information in your notice is accurate, and, under penalty of perjury, that you are the rights owner or authorised to act on their behalf

On a complete notice we will normally:

• Disable public access to the item, so it can no longer be bought
• Notify the seller, and pass them a copy of the notice including your statements
• Tell them how to respond if they believe the removal was a mistake
• Record the notice against the seller's account

We act on notices, not on judgements about the underlying dispute. Disabling an item is not a finding that a seller infringed, and restoring one is not a finding that they did not.

Where a claim is clearly well founded, for example an item that is plainly a repackaged copy of a known product, we may act immediately and permanently.

Sellers can respond with a counter-notice. Send it through a support ticket including:

• Your physical or electronic signature
• Identification of the material that was removed, and where it appeared
• A statement under penalty of perjury that you have a good faith belief it was removed as a result of mistake or misidentification
• Your name, address and telephone number, and your consent to the jurisdiction of a court where you are located or where we are

We will pass your counter-notice to the person who filed the original claim. If they do not tell us they have started legal proceedings within a reasonable period, we may restore the item.

If your item was removed because you bundled a dependency whose licence forbids redistribution, a counter-notice is the wrong route. Remove or replace the component and resubmit the item.

An item withdrawn by its seller does not affect you at all. Your licence, your downloads and your updates continue. See the download policy.

An item removed for a copyright reason is different. We may have to withdraw access for people who already hold it, because continuing to distribute it would extend the infringement. Where that affects something you own:

• We will tell you rather than let you discover it
• Buyers who purchased that item within the previous 30 days may be eligible for a refund or account credit, at our discretion and limited to what they paid for it
• Purchases older than 30 days are not eligible, because the item was supplied and used as sold at the time
• We cannot advise you on your own position regarding work already deployed, which is a matter between you and the rights owner

A takedown is not a finding that the item was defective, and it does not create a general right to a refund for everyone who has ever bought it. This is one of the reasons to keep your own copy of anything running in production.

We keep a record of notices against each seller account. Accounts that repeatedly publish infringing material have their selling privileges withdrawn and are closed permanently.

Publishing work that is not yours is the single most serious breach of the seller terms. A first offence that looks deliberate, rather than a genuine licensing misunderstanding, may end an account on its own.

We do see notices filed to remove a competitor rather than to protect anyone's rights. We do not action those, we tell the seller, and we may refuse to accept further notices from a party that has abused the process.

This process is for copyright. If your complaint is about a trademark, a brand name, a passing-off issue, or content that is defamatory or otherwise unlawful, send it through a ticket and describe the right you are relying on.

Those claims are handled case by case rather than through the notice and counter-notice route above.

The OurCodeMarket name, logo, site design, copy and documentation are ours. Sellers' items belong to their sellers, and nothing on this site transfers ownership of an item to us. See the seller terms for the licence sellers grant us to display and distribute their work.

Notices and counter-notices should be sent to our designated agent for copyright claims:

Copyright Agent, BonViser Digital
Asaba
Delta State
Nigeria
cloud@ourcodemarket.com

Email reaches us fastest. You can also use the contact form, which gives you a reference to follow up on, or report the item directly if you can point at the listing. All three reach the same team.

Please do not send them through item comments or to a seller's support thread. Those do not reach the right people and will delay your claim.

We may update this policy. The date at the top of this page shows when it last changed, and material changes will be announced on the blog.

For questions about this policy, or to report something that breaches it: