Copyright and DMCA PolicyCopyright and DMCA Policy

草稿 — 尚未經律師審核，不構成正式條款 / 草稿 — 尚未经律师审核，不构成正式条款 / DRAFT — not yet reviewed by counsel; not binding

This is a working draft. It has not been reviewed by a lawyer, it is not in force, and it does not create any rights or obligations. Items in [BRACKETS] are still to be decided.

1. Who we are and what this policy covers#

OpenVPT ("we", "us") is operated by [COMPANY LEGAL NAME], a [STATE OF INCORPORATION] company with its business address at [BUSINESS ADDRESS]. OpenVPT is an online marketplace where users list and sell digital goods such as source code, software licences, websites, e-books, courses, design assets and digital services. Payments are held in an escrow smart contract on the Base network and released under a 2-of-3 signature scheme (buyer, seller, platform signer).

We respect the intellectual property rights of others and expect our users to do the same. This policy explains:

• how copyright owners can ask us to remove material they believe infringes their copyright;
• how a user whose material was removed can respond;
• how we treat users who repeatedly infringe; and
• what a notice means for listings and for orders that are already in progress.

This policy is intended to follow the notice-and-takedown process of the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), 17 U.S.C. §512. It forms part of our Terms of Service. Effective date: [EFFECTIVE DATE].

2. Material this policy applies to#

A notice may concern any material that users place on OpenVPT, including:

Sellers may only list goods they have the right to sell. Pirated or cracked software, unlicensed copies of courses, e-books or design assets, and resale of third-party licences without the right to resell them are not allowed on OpenVPT. Listings are reviewed before they go live, but that review does not confirm that a seller owns or is licensed to sell what they list.

3. How to send a takedown notice#

3.1 Where to send it#

Our designated agent for notices of claimed infringement is:

[DMCA AGENT NAME]
[COMPANY LEGAL NAME]
[DMCA AGENT ADDRESS]
Phone: [DMCA AGENT PHONE]
Email: [DMCA AGENT EMAIL]

Until a dedicated address is published, please send notices through our contact form with the topic "Legal". Put "DMCA Notice" at the start of the subject line.

The designated agent must be registered with the US Copyright Office before this policy takes effect. [CONFIRM REGISTRATION AND INSERT THE DIRECTORY ENTRY ONCE AVAILABLE.]

3.2 What the notice must contain#

Under 17 U.S.C. §512(c)(3), a notice must be in writing and include substantially all of the following:

1. A physical or electronic signature of the copyright owner or of a person authorised to act on the owner's behalf.
2. Identification of the copyrighted work claimed to be infringed. If one notice covers several works, a representative list of those works.
3. Identification of the material claimed to be infringing, with information reasonably sufficient for us to locate it. The listing URL (or order or listing ID, if you have it) is the most helpful.
4. Information reasonably sufficient for us to contact you, such as your name, postal address, telephone number and email address.
5. A statement that you have a good faith belief that the use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorised by the copyright owner, its agent or the law.
6. A statement that the information in the notice is accurate and, under penalty of perjury, that you are the copyright owner or are authorised to act on the owner's behalf.

Before you send a notice, please consider whether the use may be licensed or may be fair use. A notice that is missing required elements may not be acted on; where it substantially complies with items 2, 3 and 4, we may contact you to ask for the missing information.

3.3 Example notice#

Subject: DMCA Notice

1. Signature: /Jane Example/ (authorised agent of Example Studio)
2. Work: "Example UI Kit v3", design files first published at [URL]
3. Infringing material: listing at https://openvpt.com/listings/[LISTING ID]
4. Contact: Jane Example, [postal address], [phone], [email]
5. I have a good faith belief that the use of the material described
   above is not authorised by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law.
6. The information in this notice is accurate, and under penalty of
   perjury, I am authorised to act on behalf of the copyright owner.

4. What we do when we receive a valid notice#

When we receive a notice that substantially complies with §512(c)(3), we intend to act expeditiously to remove or disable access to the material identified. In practice this may include:

• Listings: taking the listing off sale so it no longer appears in search or on the listing page, and preventing new orders for it.
• Delivered files and licence keys: disabling access to delivery files stored on our systems. Files or keys a buyer has already downloaded or copied cannot be recalled by us.
• Chat, evidence and other content: removing or restricting access to the identified item.

We will take reasonable steps to promptly notify the user who posted the material that it has been removed or disabled, and we will generally give them a copy of the notice. That copy may include the complainant's name and contact details, so that the user can respond or contact the complainant directly. We may also forward notices to third parties that track takedown requests, as permitted by law. [COUNSEL TO CONFIRM WHETHER TO SHARE NOTICES WITH A THIRD-PARTY DATABASE.]

5. Effect on orders that are already in progress#

Orders on OpenVPT are paid in USDC into an escrow smart contract. This has consequences that differ from a conventional payment processor:

• We cannot move escrowed funds on our own. The contract releases funds only with signatures from two of the three parties (buyer, seller, platform signer). A notice does not let us seize, freeze or redirect funds in the contract.
• Blockchain transactions are public and irreversible. Once an order is settled on-chain, we cannot reverse that payment.
• Removing a listing does not cancel existing orders. An order that was already created continues under the normal order rules: an unpaid order expires if it is not funded in time; a funded order that the seller does not deliver by the delivery deadline is refunded to the buyer; a delivered order can be confirmed by the buyer or disputed during the inspection window.
• Disputes. If a buyer opens a dispute because an item is subject to a copyright claim, an arbitrator reviews the order under our arbitration rules and may take the notice and any counter-notice into account. An arbitrator's ruling decides the split of escrowed funds for that order only; it is not a decision on who owns the copyright.
• Sellers. While a takedown is pending, a seller should not deliver the identified material. We may decline to process deliveries of material that is subject to a notice. [COUNSEL AND PRODUCT TO CONFIRM THE EXACT TREATMENT OF IN-FLIGHT ORDERS.]

6. Counter-notice#

6.1 When to send one#

If material you posted was removed or disabled because of a notice, and you believe in good faith that this was a mistake or a misidentification, you may send a counter-notice to our designated agent (section 3.1) under 17 U.S.C. §512(g).

6.2 What the counter-notice must contain#

Under §512(g)(3), a counter-notice must be in writing and include substantially the following:

1. Your physical or electronic signature.
2. Identification of the material that was removed or disabled and the location where it appeared before removal (for example, the listing URL or ID).
3. A statement under penalty of perjury that you have a good faith belief that the material was removed or disabled as a result of mistake or misidentification of the material.
4. Your name, address and telephone number, and a statement that you consent to the jurisdiction of the Federal District Court for the judicial district in which your address is located (or, if your address is outside the United States, any judicial district in which [COMPANY LEGAL NAME] may be found), and that you will accept service of process from the person who provided the original notice or that person's agent.

6.3 What happens next#

A restored listing may need to pass listing review again before it goes back on sale. A counter-notice contains your personal contact details, which we will pass to the original complainant.

7. Repeat infringer policy#

We will, in appropriate circumstances, terminate the accounts of users who are repeat infringers. Under this policy:

• Each valid notice that leads to removal counts as a strike against the account that posted the material, unless it is withdrawn or successfully countered.
• An account that receives [NUMBER] strikes within [PERIOD] may be permanently banned. [COUNSEL TO CONFIRM THE THRESHOLD.]
• We may ban an account after fewer strikes, or after a single notice, where the infringement is clear or serious, for example the sale of pirated or cracked software.
• We may also act on repeat infringement we learn about by other means, not only through notices.

What a ban does today:

• The user can no longer sign in or use the service; existing sessions are ended.
• The user's live listings are taken off sale.
• Orders already in progress are not cancelled or reversed. They proceed through the counterparty, the automatic order deadlines and, if needed, arbitration. Where a settlement needs the banned user's own signature (for example, a refund to a banned buyer), we may temporarily lift the ban so that the user can sign, or handle it in another way.
• We do not open new accounts for users we have banned for repeat infringement. [COUNSEL TO CONFIRM HOW RE-REGISTRATION IS HANDLED.]

8. Misrepresentation#

Under 17 U.S.C. §512(f), any person who knowingly and materially misrepresents that material is infringing, or that material was removed or disabled by mistake or misidentification, may be liable for damages, including costs and attorneys' fees, incurred by the alleged infringer, by the copyright owner or its licensee, or by us.

Please do not send a notice or counter-notice unless you are confident that it is accurate. If you are unsure whether material infringes your rights, or whether your own use is allowed, consider seeking advice from a lawyer first. We cannot give legal advice.

9. Other intellectual property complaints#

This policy covers copyright. For complaints about trademarks, counterfeit goods, trade secrets or other rights, or for a listing that breaks our rules in another way, please contact us through the contact form with a description of the problem and the listing URL. We review those reports under our Terms of Service and listing rules; the DMCA procedure above does not apply to them.

10. Changes to this policy#

We may update this policy. The version and date at the top of this page show when it last changed. Material changes will be announced as described in our Terms of Service.

11. Contact#

• Copyright notices and counter-notices: our designated agent (section 3.1).
• Other legal questions: the contact form, topic "Legal", or [LEGAL CONTACT EMAIL].

Notes for counsel / 給律師的待確認事項#

These notes are for review only and will be removed before publication.

1. DMCA agent registration. A designated agent must be registered with the US Copyright Office (online directory, 37 C.F.R. §201.38) and the registration renewed every three years; the agent's contact details must also be shown on the site. Until then, §512(c) safe harbor may not be available. Please confirm the agent (in-house or third-party service) and fill in [DMCA AGENT NAME], [DMCA AGENT ADDRESS], [DMCA AGENT PHONE] and [DMCA AGENT EMAIL].
2. Contact channel. Notices are currently routed to the general contact form (topic "Legal"). That form collects a topic, an optional name, an email address, a subject and a message of up to 5,000 characters (no file upload), is rate limited (5 per hour per IP, 10 per day per e-mail), and stores a salted hash of the IP, not the raw IP. Please confirm whether a form is acceptable as the receiving channel under §512(c)(2) or whether a dedicated email and postal address are required before launch.
3. Take-down tooling (engineering gap). Today the admin tools can approve or reject listings in review and can ban a user (which pauses all of that user's live listings). There is no admin action yet to remove a single live listing, delete a single chat message or evidence file, or disable access to a single delivered file. "Expeditious" removal may therefore require engineering work before launch. The promises in sections 4, 5 and 7 should match the tooling that exists at launch.
4. Section 512 safe harbor scope. Please confirm how §512(c) applies to (a) listing content, (b) files delivered to buyers through the platform, (c) order chat and dispute evidence, and whether OpenVPT's pre-publication listing review affects the "actual knowledge" or "right and ability to control" analysis (§512(c)(1)(A)–(B)). Relevant facts: the platform takes a per-order fee (the listing schema stores a fee in basis points, default 500 = 5%), which bears on the "financial benefit directly attributable" prong of §512(c)(1)(B); listing images are stored as external URLs rather than files hosted by OpenVPT, which may raise §512(d) rather than §512(c) questions; and the platform itself co-signs settlements as one of the three escrow signers. Please also consider whether OpenVPT's role in facilitating paid sales affects the analysis.
5. Repeat infringer threshold. Choose a strike count, time window, and whether withdrawn or countered notices count (§512(i)(1)(A) requires a reasonably implemented policy). Consider how to handle re-registration by banned users; the system currently bans by account, not by person or wallet.
6. In-flight orders and escrow. The escrow contract is non-custodial for the platform: funds move only with two of three signatures, and settled transactions are irreversible. Please review how a takedown should interact with pending, funded, delivered and disputed orders (for example, whether the platform should refuse to co-sign a seller payout on disputed goods), and whether arbitrators may consider copyright claims without implying a legal determination. Consider also the case where a banned user's signature is needed to settle.
7. Sharing notices. Confirm whether complainant details are forwarded to the user in full, and whether notices are shared with a third-party transparency database; update the Privacy Policy accordingly.
8. International users. If users are outside the US, consider other notice regimes (for example the EU Digital Services Act notice-and-action rules, and the UK) and whether a single global procedure is acceptable.
9. Other IP. Consider a separate trademark / counterfeit reporting process and whether it should mirror this one.
10. Placeholders to fill: [COMPANY LEGAL NAME], [STATE OF INCORPORATION], [BUSINESS ADDRESS], [EFFECTIVE DATE], [DMCA AGENT NAME], [DMCA AGENT ADDRESS], [DMCA AGENT PHONE], [DMCA AGENT EMAIL], [LEGAL CONTACT EMAIL], [NUMBER], [PERIOD].