Copyright Cease-and-Desist Letter

A copyright cease-and-desist letter may combine a demand to stop use with a binding undertaking, information requests, damages and legal-cost claims. Each component should be reviewed separately.

Back to Copyright Law.

Receiving a notice

Preserve the letter, attachments and evidence and avoid signing a pre-formulated undertaking without understanding its scope. The legal review should cover protection, ownership, licence history, alleged use, responsibility and calculation of monetary claims.

Enforcing copyright

A rights holder should document the protected work, ownership chain and unauthorised use before sending a notice. The requested undertaking should be proportionate to the actual infringement and risk of repetition.

Settlement and court options

Some matters can be resolved through a tailored undertaking or payment arrangement. Others may require interim or main proceedings, depending on urgency and the disputed issues.

Preparing a copyright-law review

Useful material can include the original work or source files, publication dates, licence and commissioning agreements, invoices, correspondence and screenshots showing the disputed use. Where online content is involved, preserving URLs, dates and the surrounding page context can be important. A clear rights chain helps distinguish authorship from contractual rights of use.

The response to a notice depends on the exact allegations, deadlines, evidence and licence situation.