DMCA & Copyright Policy
Our position on copyright
AKRON SCORE respects the rights of creators, and we expect the same in return. The words, images, graphics and layout we publish are ours or are used with permission, and reporting is expensive to produce. If you own material you believe has been used here without the right to do so, this page tells you how to have it removed. It also tells you what we do when someone copies our work, because the same principle runs both ways.
This policy follows the notice-and-takedown approach set out in the United States Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which is the framework most widely used online. If you are outside the United States, the same process still works, and we act on valid notices under the equivalent law that applies to us.
What counts as fair use, and what does not
Quoting a passage from one of our articles with credit and a link back is fair, welcome, and how journalism is meant to spread. Linking to us is always fine. Building on a fact we reported, in your own words and with attribution, is the ordinary business of the web.
Republishing an article in full, lifting our images, or scraping the site to rebuild our reporting elsewhere is not fair use, whether a human or an automated system does it. Copying does not become permitted because it is done at scale or by a machine. If you want more than a fair quotation, ask us about licensing at support@akronscore.org and we will usually say yes on reasonable terms.
How to send a takedown notice
If you are a rights holder or an agent acting for one, and you believe material on AKRON SCORE infringes your copyright, send a written notice to support@akronscore.org with DMCA at the front of the subject line. To be actionable, and to be valid under the law, your notice needs to include the following.
- Your physical or electronic signature, as the owner or a person authorised to act for the owner.
- Identification of the copyrighted work you say has been infringed.
- The exact location of the material on our site, with a direct link to the page, so we can find it without guessing.
- Your name, postal address, telephone number and email address, so we can reach you.
- A statement that you believe in good faith the use is not authorised by the owner, its agent or the law.
- A statement, made under penalty of perjury, that the information in your notice is accurate and that you are the owner or are authorised to act.
A notice missing these elements may be one we cannot act on, and false claims of infringement carry legal consequences for the person making them, so please only report material you genuinely own.
What happens after you send one
When we receive a complete and good-faith notice, we act on it promptly. In most cases that means removing or disabling access to the material while we look into it, rather than leaving it up and arguing. We keep a record of the notice, because copyright complaints are part of our accountability trail. We may also let the person who published the material know that a notice came in and what it concerned.
Removal is not an admission that the material infringed. It is the cautious first step the process expects, and it protects everyone while the question is resolved.
Counter-notices, and repeat infringers
If your material was removed and you believe that was a mistake, or that the use was lawful, you can send a counter-notice to the same address. It should identify the material and its former location, include your contact details, and state under penalty of perjury that you have a good-faith belief the removal was an error. It should also include your consent to the jurisdiction of the appropriate court and your agreement to accept service from the party who complained. Where the law provides for it, we may restore the material after the waiting period unless the complainant files a court action.
We take repeat infringement seriously. Anyone who repeatedly posts material that infringes the rights of others, in a comment or any other submission the site allows, can lose access. Copyright is not a formality here, and neither is the process for defending it.
When someone copies us
We use the same tools to protect our own work. If you find AKRON SCORE reporting republished without permission, we would like to know at support@akronscore.org. We send takedown notices to hosts and platforms, we pursue search-engine delisting where that is the right remedy, and we escalate against operations that copy at scale. Genuine quotation with credit is never the target of this; wholesale copying is. How the wider rules of use fit together is on our terms of service.
Last updated: August 2026
