DMCA & Copyright Policy
Where we stand on copyright
TIMES OF CANNABIS is a publisher, which puts us on both sides of copyright. Our journalism is our livelihood and we protect it; other people’s work is their livelihood and we respect it. This page explains how we use third-party material, how to notify us if you believe something on this site infringes your rights, and what happens after a notice arrives. It implements the notice-and-takedown framework of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and comparable regimes elsewhere, and questions about it can go to support@timesofcannabis.com with the subject line COPYRIGHT.
How we use material we did not create
News reporting necessarily quotes and references the work of others: legislative texts, court documents, company statements, scientific papers, and images. Our practice is:
- Government works such as statutes, regulations, and public court records are quoted freely, since public law belongs to the public.
- Excerpts from papers, filings, and statements are kept to what reporting and criticism require, always with attribution and, where possible, a link to the original.
- Images are used under license, from sources permitting reuse, or under fair use for news reporting, and are credited.
- Press materials distributed for coverage are used for the purpose they were distributed for.
We believe this practice keeps us within fair use and fair dealing. If you think we have gone beyond it with your work, we want to hear from you before you escalate anywhere else, because most disputes of this kind resolve in one email.
Filing a takedown notice
If you believe material on this site infringes a copyright you own or are authorized to enforce, send a notice to support@timesofcannabis.com containing all of the following:
- identification of the copyrighted work you claim is infringed;
- the URL on this site where the allegedly infringing material appears, precise enough for us to find it;
- your name, postal address, telephone number, and email address;
- a statement that you have a good-faith belief the use is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law;
- a statement, under penalty of perjury, that the information in the notice is accurate and that you are the owner or authorized to act for the owner;
- your physical or electronic signature.
Incomplete notices slow everything down, because we must write back for the missing elements before we can act. A complete notice is reviewed promptly, and if the claim is valid we will remove or disable access to the material and record the action. Where we can, we notify whoever supplied the material.
A caution about false claims
Takedown mechanisms are sometimes used to suppress reporting rather than to protect rights, and a cannabis industry that dislikes a story is not entitled to erase it by form letter. Misrepresenting a claim of infringement can expose the sender to liability for damages and fees under the DMCA. Before filing, consider whether the use you object to is quotation, criticism, or news reporting that the law protects. We evaluate every notice with that distinction in mind.
Counter-notices
If material you posted or supplied was removed and you believe the removal was mistaken, you may send a counter-notice to the same address containing: identification of the removed material and its former location; your name, address, and telephone number; a statement under penalty of perjury that you have a good-faith belief the material was removed as a result of mistake or misidentification; your consent to the jurisdiction of the competent court for your address, or, if outside the country concerned, to the jurisdiction where we may be found; and your signature. Where the law provides, removed material may be restored after a waiting period unless the original claimant informs us that it has sought a court order.
Repeat infringement
If any contributor or supplier of material to this site proves to be a repeat infringer, we will end the relationship. We hold our own use of others’ work to the standard we ask of those who use ours.
Our content, used by others
Our articles may be linked and briefly quoted with attribution, as our terms of service describe. Wholesale republication, scraping, and unattributed reuse are infringements, and we pursue them. If you want to license our work properly, write to us; we say yes more often than people expect.
