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DMCA takedown policy

vinfax.net mirrors public Copart and IAAI auction photos to its Cloudflare R2 storage as a permanence layer for the archive — see data sources. If you believe your copyrighted photo, or any other copyrighted material on vinfax, is being hosted without authorisation, you can submit a DMCA takedown notice through the process below. We honour valid DMCA notices promptly.

What this page covers

  • How to submit a DMCA takedown notice for content on vinfax.net.
  • What information your takedown notice must include.
  • How we respond to a valid DMCA notice.
  • How to submit a counter-notice if you believe content was removed in error.

Where vinfax-hosted content comes from

Almost every photo in the vinfax archive was captured by Copart or IAAI yard staff and originally hosted on those auction houses' CDNs. We mirror them to r2.vinfax.net because both auction houses retire their imagery within weeks of a sale. Other site content — Blade templates, written guides, SVG icons, layout — is original to vinfax, and the brand mark and wordmark are vinfax's. Copyright in each mirrored photo belongs to whoever took it, typically the originating yard.

Submitting a DMCA takedown notice

A valid DMCA takedown notice under 17 U.S.C. § 512(c)(3) must include each of the following. A takedown request missing any of them is facially incomplete and we'll ask you to supplement it before acting.

  1. Your physical or electronic signature.
  2. Identification of the copyrighted work — for a photo, the original source URL is ideal; for a written work, a clear reference is enough.
  3. Identification of the material on vinfax.net that the takedown notice targets, with enough detail for us to locate it. The URL of the lot page, the VIN, the lot ID and the specific image URL on r2.vinfax.net are all ideal.
  4. Your contact information: name, postal address, telephone, email.
  5. A statement that you have a good-faith belief the use is not authorised by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law.
  6. A statement, under penalty of perjury, that the information in the notice is accurate and that you are the copyright owner or authorised to act on the owner's behalf.

Where to send the notice

Email the complete DMCA takedown notice to [email protected], or use the contact form with subject "DMCA takedown" — both reach the same inbox. Put "DMCA Takedown" in the subject line for the fastest processing.

vinfax does not have a designated DMCA agent on file with the US Copyright Office because the site is operated outside the United States and Cloudflare — our CDN — handles DMCA notices for its own US-side infrastructure. For Cloudflare-hosted issues you can also contact Cloudflare directly: cloudflare.com/trust-hub/abuse-approach.

How we respond

  • We acknowledge receipt of every DMCA takedown notice within 2 business days.
  • We hide the disputed content within 5 business days of receiving a valid notice.
  • We notify the user or agent who uploaded the disputed content of the takedown and the basis for it, where contact information is on file. For mirrored auction photos, that means notifying the upstream source.
  • If the notice is incomplete or facially invalid under 17 U.S.C. § 512(c)(3), we'll write back asking you to supplement it before we act.

Counter-notices

If you believe content was removed in error or as a result of misidentification, you may submit a counter-notice under 17 U.S.C. § 512(g) to [email protected]. A valid counter-notice must include:

  • Your physical or electronic signature.
  • Identification of the removed content and where it appeared before removal.
  • A statement, under penalty of perjury, that you have a good-faith belief the removal was the result of a mistake or misidentification.
  • Your name, postal address, telephone and email.
  • A statement consenting to the jurisdiction of the relevant US federal court for your address — or, for filers outside the United States, an equivalent jurisdictional consent — plus a statement that you will accept service of process from the original DMCA complainant.

On receipt of a valid counter-notice we forward it to the original complainant and may restore the content after 10 to 14 business days unless the complainant initiates legal action.

Repeat infringer policy

vinfax has no user accounts, so "repeat infringers" here means upstream content sources rather than registered uploaders. If the same source appears in multiple valid takedowns, we will evaluate whether to stop mirroring photos from that source generally.

Bad-faith notices

Under 17 U.S.C. § 512(f), knowingly false DMCA notices carry liability for damages including attorneys' fees. We may publish redacted summaries of takedown notices we judge to be abusive — for example, repeated takedown requests with no copyright basis, or notices aimed at suppressing lawful public-record content.

Vehicle owner removal requests (not DMCA)

If you are a vehicle owner who wants your VIN hidden from the archive but do not have a copyright claim, the DMCA process is not the right path. Use the standard contact form with the subject "VIN removal request" — a VIN removal request is a faster, lighter route for non-DMCA cases.

Contact

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