WebCite Takedown Policy 

1. Before you ask for removal of material from the WebCite archive, please carefully consider if it can't remain under a fair use policy. After all, it used to be available free of charge on the Internet. Material in WebCite has been cited by scholarly authors, thus we usually assume that keeping a snapshot of the cited material is important for readers of the source article, and covered under fair use exemptions under the copyright law.
2. WebCite will take down (ie. remove from public access, but keep the physical page(s)) any material which violates our terms of use, immediately when it comes to our attention. Endusers are reminded that WebCite is intended to preserve webreferences in the context of scholarly use. Any other uses, including use for legal purposes, is a violation of our terms of use. We cannot allow or afford to be dragged into legal controversies.
3. We take down material if:
   1. a copyright owner submits a DMCA compliant notification, notifying us that they are the copyright owner (this is a sworn statement).
   2. if the content is offensive, pornographic, or contains private (e.g. credit card data) or illegal information, AND it is not used/needed in a scholarly context, and we are notified that content is offensive. We will inform the "citing author" (the one who took the snapshot) that the page was taken down from the public eye, and will only reinstate it if it can be shown that the webpage was cited in a scholarly work, such as a peer-reviewed article or book. Even then, we will make a judgement call, balancing the potential harm from keeping this page public, against the need for the reader to access the page for scholarly purposes.
   3. if it violates our terms of use in any other way, in particular if it is clear that it was used for legal purposes rather than scholarly purposes. We will inform the "citing author" (the one who took the snapshot) that the page was taken down from the public eye, and will only reinstate it if it can be shown that the webpage was cited in a scholarly work, such as a peer-reviewed article or book. Even then, we will make a judgement call, balancing the potential harm from keeping this page public, against the need for the reader to access the page for scholarly purposes.
4. Requests of copies from our archive are a strain on our resources. In case of legal controversies or evidence requests from third parties other than law enforcement, we can send (mail, email) copies from our "dark archive" available for a nominal fee of $200 (up to 5 snapshots) plus $100 for each further 10 snapshots. We obviously also cooperate with law enforcement and comply to court orders (free of charge)

We will not take down material that is licensed under Creative Commons, as this implies explicit non-revocale permission to use or archive the page or document in question.

DMCA Notification

You must provide at a minimum:

1. A physical or electronic signature (i.e., /s/NAME) of a person authorized to act on behalf of the owner of the copyright that is allegedly infringed.
2. Identification of the copyrighted work claimed to have been infringed.
3. Identification of the material that is claimed to be infringing and information reasonably sufficient to permit the service provider to locate the material.
4. Information reasonably sufficient to permit WebCite to contact the complaining party, such as an address, telephone number, and, if available, an electronic mail address at which the complaining party may be contacted.
5. A statement that the complaining party has a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner.
6. A statement that the information in the notification is accurate, and under penalty of perjury, that the complaining party is authorized to act on behalf of the owner of the copyright that is allegedly infringed.

Please submit your notification to support@jmir.org

See also:

• What is WebCite?