Copyright Complaint Policy

1. Purpose and Legal Reference

This policy describes how Shinsekai Community receives, reviews, and acts on copyright complaints for community resources stored at the direction of users.

Community resources are user-provided content. The Service provides hosting, indexing, download, and notice-handling tools; it does not act as a rights clearance agency and does not guarantee that user-uploaded resources are authorized, lawful, safe, or suitable for any particular use.

The process is designed to align, where applicable, with online service provider safe-harbour practices under the Hong Kong Copyright Ordinance (Cap. 528) and the Code of Practice for Copyright Protection in the Digital Environment, while also accepting notices submitted in a DMCA-style notice-and-takedown format. This copyright process does not make commercial payment transactions Hong Kong transactions and does not change the separate Stripe payment disclosure.

2. Scope

This policy applies to user-uploaded community resources, including character packs, background packs, voice-related metadata, descriptions, tags, and hosted files. Community resource hosting is free; copyright takedown handling is not a paid service and does not transfer ownership of any content.

A resource appearing in a public library, search result, download page, preview, tag list, or recommendation area does not mean that the Service has reviewed, endorsed, approved, or verified the copyright, voice, likeness, trademark, privacy, publicity, contractual, or fan-work status of that resource.

Uploaders are responsible for ensuring that character assets, background assets, voice IDs, cloned or synthetic voices, voice-related metadata, descriptions, and tags are uploaded with all rights, permissions, and consents required by applicable law and upstream provider policies.

3. Copyright Contact

4. Takedown Notice Requirements

A copyright owner or authorized agent should submit a written notice containing:

1. Your legal name, contact email, and, where legally required, address and telephone number.
2. Identification of the copyrighted work claimed to be infringed, with enough detail for us to verify the claim.
3. Precise identification of the allegedly infringing material, including URL, resource ID, file name, or other information sufficient to locate it.
4. A statement that you have a good-faith belief that the disputed use is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law.
5. A statement that the information in the notice is accurate and that you are the copyright owner or authorized to act on behalf of the owner.
6. Your physical or electronic signature.

5. Our Response to a Valid Notice

1. We may remove, hide, or disable access to the allegedly infringing material as soon as reasonably practicable, including temporary restriction while a complaint is reviewed.
2. We may notify the uploader or account holder and provide information about the complaint where appropriate.
3. We may preserve relevant logs, notices, and counter-notices for at least 18 months or longer where needed for legal, safety, or dispute purposes.
4. We may reject incomplete, abusive, obviously false, or insufficiently detailed notices.

6. Counter Notice

If your content was removed due to mistake or misidentification, you may submit a counter notice containing:

1. Your legal name and contact information.
2. Identification of the removed material and its prior location.
3. A statement under good-faith belief that the material was removed or disabled due to mistake or misidentification.
4. Your physical or electronic signature.
5. If you rely on a Hong Kong safe-harbour counter-notice process, a statement that you consent to the jurisdiction of the Hong Kong courts for the relevant copyright dispute. If another mandatory law applies, include the jurisdiction statement required by that law.

After receiving a valid counter notice, we may forward it to the complainant. We may restore the material if the complainant does not notify us within a reasonable period that they have commenced legal proceedings or obtained an order requiring the material to remain disabled.

7. Repeat Infringer Policy

We may warn, restrict, suspend, or terminate users who repeatedly upload infringing material. A typical escalation path may include warning on first valid notice, temporary upload restriction on repeated valid notices, and account termination for persistent or serious infringement. We may act faster for clear, serious, or bad-faith infringement.

8. No General Monitoring Obligation

We do not undertake a general obligation to proactively monitor all user-uploaded content or to verify rights before each item becomes visible. We may, however, perform targeted review, automated checks, or manual moderation where needed for safety, copyright, abuse prevention, or operational reasons.

9. Misrepresentation

Knowingly submitting false or materially misleading notices or counter notices may create legal liability. We may refuse abusive requests, preserve evidence, suspend accounts, or seek further information before acting.