DMCA claims - All of my web sites and e-mail was disabled

[Terry Polevoy]

I am very upset that someone filed a DMCA copyright violation against me. They claimed that I included a picture (jpg) of a DVD on one of my web sites.

The commercial DVD is about the alleged healing powers claimed by a notorious Canadian cancer quack. The DVD has been for sale for over two years and is available on Amazon and on the quack's own web site. The legal department at Bluehost told me that it might take 10-14 days to decide what they would do. I responded by filing the usual Counter DMCA response within twenty-four hours.

The person who filed the DMCA violation has tried to do this before and our difficulties go back for the last 2-3 years. He claims to be able to heal cancer over the telephone and runs seminars that bring in tens of thousands of dollars to his company.

I'd like to have anyone who has dealt with Bluehost.com in any DMCA matter contact me personally or share it with anyone in this forum.

There is no logical reason why Bluehost.com's lawyer should delay putting my web sites and e-mail back online. It is costing me a lot of time, and my business, and personal contacts are being inconvenienced. Not only that but my office's web site is now down, and my patients can not reach my home page.

Thanks for your help and assistance. If you need details, I'll send them.

Terry Polevoy, MD

[MrDelish]

There is no logical reason why Bluehost.com's lawyer should delay putting my web sites and e-mail back online. It is costing me a lot of time, and my business, and personal contacts are being inconvenienced. Not only that but my office's web site is now down, and my patients can not reach my home page.

Sadly, many hosting companies don't have the resources (or just act like it) to completely review every single DMCA complaint and most often will shoot first and ask questions later. I don't think it makes much sense, as forwarding the complaint to the "offender" and letting them act on it if they so choose and then only getting involved if necessary is a much more reasonable method. One recent example comes to mind: http://www.boingboing.net/2009/10/06/the-criticism-that-r.html

[redsox9]

You need to contact BH directly and ask what can be done to resolve your issue. As this is a user-to-user forum, none of us can do anything to resolve your issue. I will, however, leave this thread visible in the off-chance that people have some information for you and can contact you through PM.