AWS DMCA take down notice was not replied within 24 hrs and my site was suspended
I was on tour and could not reach my inbox for two days due to I was travelling. Unfortunately I got my first DMCA takedown notice from AWS. I was hosting 2-3 sites regarding auto/cars and someone sent a DMCA to AWS which was forwarded to me. AWS policy is to ask their customer to take down the content within 24 hours and reply them accordingly. But I could not. So they just suspended my entire site. How to people usually handle DMCA notices? I came to know from a reddit user that The-Online.com is quite liberal about DMCA and allows 72+ hours to respond if a site is hosted on their American server? If that’s correct, then I might think to migrate my websites from AWS to The Online in coming days. Which other web host have longer-duration or completly igone DMCA?
The DMCA requires that a hosting provider like AWS to get the benefits of the Safe Harbor, they must act quickly to remove or disable the content or suspend the site if owner does not responds, and that they wait at least 10 days and no more than 14 days to restore it, in case of a counter notice sent by site owner. If you could not check the DMCA notice sent to you by AWS on your email and could remove the infringed content or submit counter notice to them then they either disable/remove that content like photo or an article, etc. Some web hosting companies just completly suspend the account (Hetzner). Also if AWS gets too many DMCA complaints (repeat infringers) then they’ll suspend/deactivate your entire AWS account as per their TOS.
So either you respond to DMCA notices in timely manner or you can move your sites to some better and leinent provider like the-online.com which offers 72 hours or more to comply with DMCA notices and never suspends sites or domain names just because a DMCA is sent to them by somebody in the wild. If you are more concerned about your content, like most forums or social media sites or sites having user generated content (UGC) usually host with a DMCA ignored hosting provider in Europe or Asia. You can try the-online.com’s Netherlands server location. Or other hosts like Vsys, Alexhost, etc.
AWS cloud is quite strict about DMCA notice. I’ve got my site suspend since I had 3 notices in a week. Then I moved to OVH. I’ve heard The-Online.com is also quite good bulletproof hosting provider if user chooses Netherlands server location when they buy shared / cpanel / wordpress hosting. Even Shinjiru is good one. They are Malaysia based host.
Yeah.. AWS, Hetzner, Godaddy, Strato, OVH too are strict about DMCA notices. You have to reply within 24 hours or less or might suspend your content or site entirely. Some web hosts don’t even like receiving more DMCA complaints in their inbox (like easydns in Canada) and they’ll show you the door. If you want to have safe sleep at night better host with reliable and lenient provider.