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Am I the only one who chose a DMCA takedown over a cease and desist letter, and now I'm out $200?
Last month a guy in Austin lifted 12 of my product photos and dropped them on his Shopify store like nothing. I could have sent a $75 cease and desist letter from a template, but I paid a lawyer $200 to file an actual DMCA takedown with his host instead. It worked in 4 days and his listings disappeared, but he never replied to me and I never saw a dime. I kind of wish I had just sent the cheap letter first and used the DMCA as a backup. Has anyone here had better luck getting the host route to actually shake money loose, or does everyone just eat that loss?
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bell.harper24d ago
Twelve photos is a lot, so the $200 was probably worth it just to get his store shut down fast. Here's the thing most people miss though: the DMCA and the money are two totally separate tracks. Your host never owed you a dime, they only owe it to themselves to pull infringing content once they get a valid notice. Same with Shopify, they just kill the listing. So the takedown was never going to shake money loose no matter how much you paid. The cease and desist letter is actually the money track, because that's you making a claim against him directly, and sometimes that alone scares a small seller into paying a few hundred to make it go away. The move people sleep on is sending the cheap letter first with a deadline and a stated amount, then filing the DMCA the day that deadline passes. That way you get the fast removal and you keep the paper trail that shows you tried to settle before going nuclear, which helps if you ever do want to chase him in small claims. You didn't waste the $200, you just did the two steps in the wrong order.
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