Finding your work on a site you never posted to is a horrible feeling. The first steps have no fee and you can start them today. Here they are in order: check that the work is yours to enforce, log every link, send notices to the sites and their hosts, ask search engines to drop the links, and then decide whether to register your work.
Step 1: Check that the work is yours to enforce
You own the copyright in your work from the start. The U.S. Copyright Office says: "Your work is under copyright protection the moment it is created and fixed in a tangible form." You don't need to register anything before you act.
What matters for a takedown is who made the photo or video. The Copyright Office puts it simply: "if you pushed the button to take the photo or record the video, you may send a takedown notice under the DMCA." If someone else shot it, they probably own it, unless the copyright was transferred to you in a signed writing or the work was made for hire. Our guide on how to send a DMCA takedown notice explains those exceptions.
If you appear in material you didn't shoot, copyright may not be the right tool. The Copyright Office says other state laws may apply, "including right of privacy, right of publicity," and that some sites have their own removal procedures, so check the site's Terms of Service. A licensed attorney can tell you which of these fit your case.
Intimate images shared without your consent, or fakes, have a separate route. Google has its own request for removing personal intimate images from its search results, and it isn't based on copyright. Google says "As long as you're the subject of the content, you or your representative can start a request," and it covers fake images too. There is a limit that matters if you sell your work: for content you agreed to, Google's policy covers it only if "the content isn't commercialized online or somewhere else," and Google points people worried about copyright in their work to its DMCA request instead. Like a copyright request, this only affects Google's results: "Google can only remove content from search results pages." Our guide to removing copies from Google Search links to both routes.
Step 2: Log every link before you contact anyone
Start a private list. For each copy, write down the full address of the page, which of your works is on it, and the date you found it. A notice has to point the site to the exact material. In the Copyright Office's words, that "may mean providing specific URLs or listing specific pages on which the infringing material can be found."
Keep the list somewhere only you can see. Our guide to finding copies of your content covers image search, searching your stage name, and how to save evidence without making new copies of the leak.
Step 3: Send takedown notices to each site and its host
The standard U.S. tool is a DMCA takedown notice, sent to the site's designated agent. It has six required parts and you can write it yourself. Use our free notice template. Before you send, make sure the use isn't one you licensed and isn't likely fair use, because a knowingly false notice can make you liable for damages.
A few facts that matter when your work is spread across many sites:
- One notice can cover several of your works on the same site. The Copyright Office says you may include a "representative list" of your works on that site instead of listing each one, but you still have to identify each copy well enough for the site to find it.
- Sites must have a repeat-infringer policy. To keep their legal protection, sites must "adopt and implement a policy that results in account termination for 'repeat infringers,'" according to the Copyright Office. Most sites describe that policy in their Terms of Service.
- A site outside the U.S. can still get a notice. The Copyright Office says: "You can still send a takedown notice. Copyright law is territorial." If a foreign site doesn't respond, it says you "may need to explore enforcement options under the law of the country where the site's owners are located, where its servers are located, or where it is targeting users." That is a job for a lawyer in that country.
- There is a legal way to ask who posted it. Under 17 U.S.C. 512(h), a copyright owner or someone authorized to act for them "may request the clerk of any United States district court to issue a subpoena to a service provider for identification of an alleged infringer." The provider has to disclose identifying information only "to the extent such information is available to the service provider." The request has to include a copy of your takedown notice and a sworn statement that you want the identity only to protect your copyright. This is a court process. Talk to a lawyer before you start one.
If the poster pushes back with a counter-notice, read what a counter-notice means for you before you do anything else.
Step 4: Ask search engines to drop the links
Search engines take copyright requests for the pages in their results. Delisting stops a page from showing up in that search engine. It doesn't delete the copy from the site, so send the site its notice too. Our guide to removing copies from Google Search walks through Google's request, what Google shares about it, and Bing's separate form.
Step 5: Decide whether to register your work
You don't have to register to send a notice. Registration matters if you might ever sue, and timing matters more than most people expect.
- The three month window. Under 17 U.S.C. 412, a court can't award statutory damages or attorney's fees for an infringement of a published work that began before its registration, "unless such registration is made within three months after the first publication of the work." For unpublished work, the cutoff is the effective date of registration itself. That date is generally the day the Copyright Office has received your application, fee and copy of the work, if they are later accepted. There are narrow exceptions, so ask a lawyer how this applies to you.
- What registration can add. The Copyright Office says registered works "may be eligible for statutory damages and attorney's fees in successful litigation."
- Registration is public. The Copyright Office warns that registering "you are making a public record. All the information you provide on your copyright registration is available to the public and will be available on the Internet." Think about which name and address you put on the application.
- Photos can be registered in groups. The Copyright Office offers group registration options for both published and unpublished photographs. Registration has a filing fee, listed on the Copyright Office's fee page.
What nobody can promise
Nobody can promise every link comes down. The Copyright Office says "Responding to takedown notices is always voluntary," and some sites ignore notices altogether. Search engines decide for themselves which links to drop. A poster can send a counter-notice, and the site may then put the copy back. New uploads are new copies and need new notices. And a subpoena only reaches what the provider actually knows about the poster.
Do it yourself for free
There is no fee to send a takedown notice, and you can write and send notices yourself. The Copyright Office says you don't need to hire anyone to do it. Search engine requests are filed through each company's own web form, and none of the Google or Microsoft request pages we read mention a fee. Registration has a filing fee, and the subpoena in step 3 is a court process. A lawyer costs money too, but for subpoenas, foreign sites and lawsuits, one is worth it.
Where LeakVoid fits
Writing and sending a notice for every copy you find is the hard part. LeakVoid is being built for that part. You send it links to copies of your work and it drafts the notices. You review the new ones and sign the ones you want sent. LeakVoid sends them for you and shows whether each link is still up. If someone sends a counter-notice, LeakVoid pauses that item and forwards it to you. No notice goes out without your signature. LeakVoid doesn't give legal advice or promise removal.
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Sources
All checked Sat 2026-10-24.
- 1. U.S. Copyright Office, Frequently Asked Questions, "Copyright in General" (when is my work protected; why register): https://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-general.html
- 2. U.S. Copyright Office, "Section 512 of Title 17: Resources on Online Service Provider Safe Harbors and Notice-and-Takedown System" (FAQs on pictures, representative lists, repeat infringers, foreign sites, voluntary compliance): https://www.copyright.gov/512/
- 3. 17 U.S.C. 512(h), United States Code, 2024 Edition, U.S. Government Publishing Office: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCODE-2024-title17/html/USCODE-2024-title17-chap5-sec512.htm
- 4. 17 U.S.C. 412, United States Code, 2024 Edition, U.S. Government Publishing Office: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCODE-2024-title17/html/USCODE-2024-title17-chap4-sec412.htm
- 5. U.S. Copyright Office, Frequently Asked Questions, "Registering a Work" (public record; fees): https://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-register.html
- 6. U.S. Copyright Office, Registration Portal, "Photographs" (group registration options): https://www.copyright.gov/registration/photographs/
- 7. 17 U.S.C. 410(d), United States Code, 2024 Edition, U.S. Government Publishing Office: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCODE-2024-title17/html/USCODE-2024-title17-chap4-sec410.htm
- 8. Google Search Help, Google's policy on removing intimate images shared without consent: https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/16305143
How this page is made
This guide's facts were checked against the sources listed above as of the "Last reviewed" date at the top of the page, and those sources may have changed since. This is a check against sources, not a legal review. It has no person byline. Our editorial policy explains how guides are made, sourced, checked and corrected. If you find a mistake, write to hello@leakvoid.com.