What the DMCA actually is
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act is a United States statute. The part everybody means when they say “DMCA” is 17 U.S.C. §512, which offers a hosting provider a safe harbour from copyright liability — on the condition that it removes material expeditiously when a rights holder sends a notice that meets the statutory form.
That is the whole mechanism. It is a bargain: take it down quickly and you cannot be sued for having hosted it. A US host complies within a day or two because the alternative is losing the safe harbour, not because a judge has ruled on anything.
Why “ignored” is possible at all
A United States statute binds providers within United States jurisdiction. A company incorporated in Iceland, operating hardware in Iceland, is not inside that jurisdiction and has no safe harbour to lose. §512 offers it nothing and therefore demands nothing of it.
That is the entire trick, and it is not a loophole — it is what territorial law means. The same is true in reverse: a German court order has no force in Texas.
What a host can actually do with a notice
There are three honest options, and the industry uses all three while describing all three as the same thing.
| Response | What happens | Who decided |
|---|---|---|
| Take down on receipt | Content is removed within hours. You may not be told which complaint caused it. | The complainant |
| Forward and wait | You receive the notice in full, with the complainant named, and a period to answer it. | You |
| Discard silently | Nothing happens and nobody is told anything. | Nobody |
The middle one is what this estate does, and it is the only one of the three that is defensible in both directions: a rights holder who is right still gets a route, and a publisher who is right is not removed by an email. The published process is on the no-DMCA policy page, and the count of notices received and removals made is in the transparency report.
What does remove content
An order from a court with jurisdiction over the company that hosts it. Not a notice, not a letter from a law firm, not a complaint to the upstream carrier. A judge, in the country where the entity is incorporated, having heard that there is a case.
Which is why the corporate structure matters more than the marketing does. Eight jurisdictions means eight separate companies; a ruling against the Panamanian one is not enforceable against the Icelandic one. That is the reason it is arranged that way, and it is set out in clause 1 of the terms.
What DMCA-ignored does not protect you from
- Local criminal law. The server obeys the law of the country it sits in. Offshore is a change of jurisdiction, not an exemption from having one.
- Content that is illegal everywhere. Two categories are refused outright here and the list does not grow: see the acceptable use policy.
- Your domain registrar. A registrar in a different jurisdiction can suspend a domain regardless of where the hosting is.
- Your payment rail. This is most of why settlement here is on-chain only — a card processor is a takedown mechanism that nobody counts as one.
- Yourself. If you are personally within reach of a court, the hosting arrangement does not move you.
How to tell a real one from a claim
The phrase costs nothing to print. Four things are harder to fake, and every one of them is checkable before you spend anything:
- A named contracting entity per jurisdiction, not one company with a flag graphic.
- A written process saying what happens to a notice, with a timescale.
- A published count of notices received — and of removals actually made.
- A statement of what the host will not do, that costs it money to keep.
Questions people actually ask
Is DMCA-ignored hosting legal?
Yes. Hosting outside United States jurisdiction is lawful; the servers answer to the law of the country they are in. What is not lawful is content that breaks that country's own law, and no hosting arrangement changes that.
Does DMCA-ignored mean my content can never be removed?
No. It means a notice does not remove it. An order from a court with jurisdiction over the hosting entity does, and here you are told about it with the complainant named unless the order itself forbids telling you.
Will I be told if someone complains about my site?
Yes, in full, with the complainant identified, and with fourteen days to answer before anything else happens. That is published as a commitment rather than offered as a favour.
Is this the same as bulletproof hosting?
No, and the difference is worth reading about: it is set out in the guide on bulletproof versus offshore hosting. Two content categories are refused outright here and court orders are honoured.
Every price on this estate is published in full, in one place. See the whole catalogue