A message arrives claiming content on your site infringes somebody's copyright, and it has a deadline. What you do in the next day matters more than the merits of the claim.
This is general guidance rather than legal advice. For anything with real financial or legal exposure, get advice from someone qualified in the relevant jurisdiction.
Do not ignore it
An unanswered notice escalates to your hosting provider, who is obliged to respond and whose practical options are limited: disable the content, or suspend the account.
They do not know which page is disputed, which images were licensed, or what your evidence is. Handling it yourself keeps a decision that requires judgement with the person who has the information.
That is true whether or not the claim is correct.
Acknowledge quickly
Reply the same day, even before you have decided anything. Confirm you received it, that you are reviewing it, and when you will respond.
That single message changes the situation from an unresponsive site owner into a conversation, and it is usually enough to stop the escalation clock while you look properly.
Check whether it is accurate
Find the exact content named. Then establish where it came from, which is frequently the harder question on a site with several contributors or years of history.
Common outcomes: an image used from a search engine years ago by somebody who assumed it was free; a stock image whose licence covered a different use; text quoted at length; or content a user uploaded that you host rather than published. There is more on that case, which is legally different in most places in setting up a file upload directory safely.
Also entirely possible: the claim is wrong. Automated systems generate notices at scale and misidentify content regularly.
If the claim is correct
Remove or replace the content immediately. Do not negotiate first: removal is the response that resolves most notices, and delay is what turns them into something larger.
Then check whether the same source produced other problems on the site. One unlicensed image usually means several, from the same era and the same person.
Replace with something properly licensed instead of leaving a gap, and keep the licence record with the file so this is answerable next time.
If the claim is wrong
Respond factually, with evidence: the licence, the receipt, the permission, or the demonstration that the content is yours.
Keep it short and unemotional. The person reading it is processing a queue, and a clear document attached to a two-sentence reply resolves it faster than an argument.
Most jurisdictions have a formal counter-notice process. Using it has consequences (it typically involves accepting jurisdiction for a dispute) which is the point at which advice is worth paying for.
Document everything
What was claimed, when it arrived, what you found, what you did, and when.
That record is what demonstrates a good-faith response if the matter continues, and it is what your host will ask for. Reconstructing it afterwards is much harder than writing it as you go.
Tell your host what you did
If the complainant copied them, send them the same summary: the content is removed, here is when.
A provider with evidence of a prompt response has no reason to act further. One with silence from you and pressure from a complainant has to make a decision without you. Handling an abuse report walks through the same situation from the provider's side, which is worth understanding.
Other kinds of notice
Trademark complaints, defamation claims and data protection requests arrive the same way and are handled differently. What they share is that ignoring them is the worst available option.
Data protection requests in particular have statutory deadlines in many places, and those do not pause while you decide. What a website needs for privacy compliance walks through the obligations that generate them.
Afterwards
Establish where content comes from, in writing, for anything published from now on. Keep licences with the files.
Most of these notices trace back to a moment when nobody recorded where an image came from, and the cost of that omission arrives years later, from someone who is entitled to ask.
Establish what is actually being complained about
Notices arrive with varying precision, and acting on a vague one is how the wrong thing gets removed.
curl -sI https://example.com/path/from/notice | head -1 ls -la ~/public_html/path/from/notice 2>/dev/null grep -rn 'filename-from-notice' ~/public_html --include='*.php' 2>/dev/null | head
Confirm the address named actually exists and serves what the notice describes. Notices are sometimes generated automatically and name addresses that were removed years ago or never existed.
Where the notice names a page rather than a file, establish which element is at issue. Removing a whole page because one image on it is disputed is an overreaction that costs traffic for no reason.
Preserve what you removed
Removing the material is usually the right immediate action, and deleting it permanently is not.
mkdir -p ~/legal-hold/$(date +%F) cp -a ~/public_html/path/from/notice ~/legal-hold/$(date +%F)/ 2>/dev/null date > ~/legal-hold/$(date +%F)/removed-at.txt
Keep a copy outside the web root, with the date, the notice itself and a note of what was done. If the claim turns out to be wrong, restoring takes a minute; without the copy it is a reconstruction.
The record also matters if the same material is disputed again later, or if the complaint escalates. What you did and when is the question that gets asked, and a dated directory answers it.
Look for the same material elsewhere
A notice names one address, and the file frequently exists at several.
find ~/public_html -name 'disputed-file.*' 2>/dev/null grep -rl 'disputed-file' ~/public_html --include='*.html' --include='*.php' 2>/dev/null | head
Copies accumulate in a media library, in a backup directory inside the web root, in a staging copy and in a theme's own assets.
Removing the one named while leaving three others reachable produces a second notice, which is treated less patiently than the first. Searching once is considerably cheaper than the follow up.