Copyright & Intellectual Property Complaints

1. Legal basis

Copyright in the United Kingdom is governed by the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. ChatNow stores content that users choose to post and, as a host, relies on the hosting defence in regulation 19 of the Electronic Commerce (EC Directive) Regulations 2002: we are not liable for material we do not know to be unlawful, and once we obtain actual knowledge we act expeditiously to remove it or disable access to it. Regulation 22 of the same Regulations describes what a notice should contain for it to fix us with knowledge; section 3 mirrors it.

ChatNow does not operate a procedure under the United States Digital Millennium Copyright Act; UK law applies to complaints about content on this service. Moderating content does not make ChatNow its author or publisher.

2. What this procedure covers

Use this procedure when content posted on ChatNow, such as a profile photo, a gallery image, an image or voice note shared in a room or private message, or text in a bio, reproduces a work in which you own copyright or uses your trade mark without authority. Copyright in a photograph belongs to the person who took it, so a photograph you took of yourself is yours; a photograph someone else took of you is theirs.

This procedure is not the right route for:

• an intimate image of you shared without your consent: email safety@chatnow.fr, which is removed within 48 hours of a valid report (see Report content);
• a photograph of you that you did not take, used to harass or impersonate you: report it under the Acceptable Use Policy through the report button or safety@chatnow.fr;
• a statement about you that you consider defamatory: see Defamation Complaints.

Guest content is deleted automatically 24 hours after the guest leaves; send your notice promptly and include the date and time you saw the content.

3. What to send in a notice

Email legal@chatnow.fr with the subject "Copyright notice" (or "Trade mark notice"), or write to Skyline Online LLC, 1209 Mountain Road Place NE, Ste N, Albuquerque, NM 87110, USA. A complete notice contains:

• Identification of the work you say is infringed, with evidence that you own it or are authorised to act for the owner (for example a link to the original publication, the date of creation, or a licence or letter of authority);
• The location of the infringing content: the room or conversation, the username of the poster, the date and time you saw it, and a screenshot or description sufficient for us to find it;
• A statement of good faith: that you believe the use is not authorised by the rights owner, an agent of the owner or the law (for example fair dealing under sections 29 and 30 of the 1988 Act);
• A statement of accuracy: that the information in the notice is accurate and that you are the rights owner or authorised to act on the owner's behalf;
• Your contact details: full name, postal address and email address;
• Signature and date: a typed name is acceptable in an email.

If a notice is incomplete we tell you what is missing within two working days; the time limits below run from the day we receive a complete notice.

4. What we do when we receive a notice

• Assess. A member of the Trust & Safety team checks that the notice is complete and that, on its face, the content reproduces the work or mark identified without an apparent licence or defence.
• Remove or disable. Where the notice is complete and infringement is apparent, we remove the content or disable access to it within two working days. Where the position is genuinely unclear, we may ask you or the poster for further information; if we cannot resolve the question quickly, we disable access while we do.
• Notify the uploader. We tell the person who posted the content what was removed, why, that the decision was taken by a human, and how to send a counter-notice or appeal. We pass on the substance of your notice and your name; we do not pass on your postal or email address unless you consent.
• Tell you the outcome and keep a record of the notice and the action taken (section 10).

5. Counter-notice and restoration

A user whose content has been removed under this procedure may send a counter-notice to legal@chatnow.fr within ten working days of our notification. A counter-notice identifies the content, states the grounds on which the user believes the removal was mistaken (for example that the user created the work, holds a licence, or relies on fair dealing), gives the user's full name and contact details, and consents to our passing the counter-notice to the complainant.

We forward the counter-notice to the complainant. Unless the complainant tells us within ten working days that they have issued court proceedings or applied for an injunction in respect of the content, we restore it. We do not restore content that breaches the Acceptable Use Policy or is unlawful for another reason, whatever the copyright position. Users may also challenge a removal through Complaints & Appeals.

6. Repeat infringers

Each upheld notice against a user's content counts as a strike. A user who accumulates three strikes in any twelve-month period has their account terminated and is banned by account, IP address and device. A single instance of large-scale or commercial infringement, or of posting content that is also illegal, may lead to immediate termination. Termination is notified with reasons and is subject to appeal by a different human reviewer.

7. Misuse of notices

A notice is a formal assertion of rights. Sending a notice that knowingly misrepresents ownership or infringement may make you liable to the user, and to ChatNow, for the loss it causes, and we may disregard further notices from senders who repeatedly submit unfounded ones. Copyright notices are not a way to remove criticism, reviews or content you simply dislike; if that is your concern, use the reporting or defamation routes instead.

8. Trade marks

Complaints that a username, profile or content uses a sign identical or similar to your registered trade mark in the course of trade, contrary to section 10 of the Trade Marks Act 1994, follow the same procedure. In addition to the items in section 3, give the registration number and territory of the mark, the goods or services it covers, and why the use on ChatNow is use in the course of trade rather than personal or descriptive use. Accounts that impersonate a brand or a person are dealt with under the Acceptable Use Policy whether or not a trade mark is registered.

9. ChatNow's own intellectual property and permitted uses

The ChatNow name and logo are trade marks of Skyline Online LLC, and the design, software, text and graphics of chat-now.uk are its copyright, except for the third-party components credited in the legal notice. Content posted by users remains theirs, under the limited licence in the Terms of Service.

Without asking us, you may:

• link to any page of chat-now.uk, including deep links;
• use screenshots of the service in reviews, journalism, research, teaching or criticism, provided you obscure other users' usernames, faces and messages, since they have not consented to publication;
• quote short extracts of our policies with acknowledgement, as fair dealing for criticism, review or news reporting permits.

You may not copy or reverse-engineer the service's software, scrape or republish user content, or use the ChatNow name or logo in a way that suggests endorsement or affiliation. Requests for other uses: legal@chatnow.fr.

10. Records and questions

We keep a record of every notice, counter-notice and action taken for twelve months as part of our moderation records, and the number of intellectual-property notices received and actioned appears in our Transparency Report. This page describes our procedure; it is not legal advice. Questions: legal@chatnow.fr.