Copyright and DMCA Policy

Effective August 8, 2026. These form part of the Terms of Service.

Members can post photographs of their own cards. This page says what to do if something posted here infringes your copyright, what happens after you tell us, and what a member can do if their material was taken down in error.

1. Designated agent

The VBC Market has designated an agent to receive notifications of claimed infringement under 17 U.S.C. § 512(c)(2). That designation is registered with the United States Copyright Office and listed in its public DMCA Designated Agent Directory.

Email is the fastest route and is the one we check. The address and telephone number are published because the statute requires them, not because they are a good way to reach us quickly.

2. What is and is not hosted here

Two different things appear on this site, and only one of them is a member's.

Photographs of cards are uploaded by members and stored at their direction. Nothing screens an upload — there is no automated matching, and no human looks at a photograph before it appears. If one of those infringes your copyright, this page is the route.

Card scans, the checklist and the site's own text are published by us, not by members. A complaint about those is not a § 512 matter and does not need any of the formality below — write to the address above and say what the problem is.

3. Sending a notice of claimed infringement

Send it to tim@thevbcmarket.com. To be effective under § 512(c)(3)(A) it has to include all six of the following:

• A physical or electronic signature of the copyright owner, or of a person

authorised to act for them.

• Identification of the copyrighted work you say has been infringed.
• Identification of the material you say is infringing, described precisely

enough for us to find it. A link to the card page and a description of which photograph is enough; "a photo somewhere on your site" is not.

• Your address, telephone number and email address.
• A statement that you have a good-faith belief the use is not authorised by the

copyright owner, its agent, or the law.

• A statement that the information in the notice is accurate, and — **under

penalty of perjury** — that you are authorised to act for the copyright owner.

A notice missing these may not be effective, and we may come back to you for what is missing rather than act on it.

§ 512(f) is real. Anyone who knowingly, materially misrepresents that material is infringing is liable for damages, including costs and legal fees, incurred by the member whose material was taken down. Consider whether the use might be fair use before sending.

4. What we do about it

• We remove or disable access to the material expeditiously. A photograph is

taken down by moving the stored file out of public reach, not merely by hiding the row — the bytes still exist so they can be produced if a court asks for them, but they are no longer served.

• We tell the member whose material it was, and pass on your notice.
• We keep a record. Every moderation action on this site is logged with who

did it, what it was, and when.

We may take a photograph down on a notice that is not perfectly formed, if what it describes is clear enough to act on. Doing so is not an admission that the notice was effective.

5. Counter-notice

If your material was removed and you believe that was a mistake, or that you are authorised to use it, you can send a counter-notice under § 512(g)(3) to the same address. It has to include:

• Your physical or electronic signature.
• Identification of the material and where it appeared before it was removed.
• 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 name, address and telephone number, and a statement that you consent to

the jurisdiction of the Federal District Court for the district where you live (or, if you are outside the United States, for any district where we may be found), and that you will accept service of process from the person who sent the original notice.

If we receive a valid counter-notice we forward it to the person who complained. We may restore the material in 10 to 14 business days unless they tell us they have filed a court action seeking to restrain the member.

Your counter-notice is forwarded, including your contact details. That is what the statute requires, and it is worth knowing before you send one.

6. Repeat infringers

We terminate the accounts of repeat infringers. This is a condition of the safe harbour, and it is applied rather than merely stated.

How it works in practice:

• Every effective notice is recorded against the account that posted the

material. A notice withdrawn by the complainant, or answered by a counter-notice that is not followed by a court action, does not count against the member.

• Three recorded infringements ends the account. A terminated member cannot

post, and their listings come off the site.

• Fewer than three can still end an account where the conduct is flagrant —

uploading somebody else's photographs wholesale, or re-uploading material that has already been taken down.

• Account termination is a moderation action like any other here: it is

logged, it names who did it, and it is reversible if it turns out to have been wrong.

We do not require a court judgment before counting an infringement, and nothing in this section obliges us to wait for one.

7. Reporting without a formal notice

Members can report a listing or a photograph from the site itself, using the Report control on the listing. That reaches the same people and is the right route for anything that is not a copyright claim — a photograph that is not of the card, someone else's picture lifted from a sales listing, or anything that does not belong here.

A report is not a DMCA notice and does not carry the statutory consequences of one. If you are the copyright owner and you want the protections and obligations of § 512, send the notice in section 3.

8. Changes

We may update this page. The designated agent's details are also registered with the Copyright Office, and if they change here they change there too — a designation that has gone stale protects nobody.