Copyright Policy (DMCA)

Scope

Who Passed On respects the rights of copyright owners. Our obituary listings link to notices published by funeral homes and show a brief excerpt of them. Photos in those listings are displayed from the funeral home's website or its website provider. Obituaries that funeral homes publish directly on Who Passed On are shown in full. This policy explains how to tell us about material on whopassedon.com that you believe infringes your copyright, and how we respond under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (17 U.S.C. §512).

Where to send a notice

Send copyright notices and counter-notices by email to support@whopassedon.com, with “Copyright notice” in the subject line.

What a notice must include

Under 17 U.S.C. §512(c)(3), your notice must be in writing and include:

  1. Your physical or electronic signature, as the copyright owner or a person authorized to act for them.
  2. Identification of the copyrighted work you believe is infringed (or, for several works, a representative list).
  3. Identification of the material you believe is infringing, with enough detail for us to find it, including its web address (URL) on whopassedon.com.
  4. Your contact information: name, postal address, telephone number and email address.
  5. A statement that you have a good-faith belief that the use of the material is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent or the law.
  6. A statement that the information in your notice is accurate and, under penalty of perjury, that you are the copyright owner or authorized to act on the owner's behalf.

What we do with a valid notice

When we receive a notice that meets these requirements, we remove or disable access to the material, and we notify the person who provided it where we are able to.

Counter-notice

If material you provided was removed and you believe that was a mistake or a misidentification, you may send a counter-notice under 17 U.S.C. §512(g)(3) to the same address. It must include:

  1. Your physical or electronic signature.
  2. Identification of the material that was removed and where it appeared before it was removed.
  3. A statement under penalty of perjury that you have a good-faith belief that the material was removed or disabled as a result of mistake or misidentification.
  4. Your name, postal address and telephone number.
  5. A statement that you consent to the jurisdiction of the federal district court for the judicial district in which your address is located (or, if your address is outside the United States, any judicial district in which Who Passed On may be found), and that you will accept service of process from the person who sent the original notice or their agent.

After a valid counter-notice, we forward it to the person who sent the original notice. We restore the material in 10 to 14 business days unless they tell us they have filed a court action to stop the infringement.

Repeat infringers

In appropriate circumstances we terminate the accounts of users who repeatedly infringe copyright, including funeral home partners, photographers and other users who upload content.

Misrepresentation

Under 17 U.S.C. §512(f), a person who knowingly and materially misrepresents that material is infringing, or that it was removed by mistake, may be liable for damages.

Other removal requests

If your request is not about copyright, for example you would like an obituary of a family member taken off Who Passed On, please use our obituary removal form.