BattlemapDB

Copyright and DMCA

Last updated: 6 September 2026

Designated agent

BattlemapDB has a designated agent registered with the U.S. Copyright Office to receive notifications of claimed copyright infringement.

Service Provider: Michael Pippenger Designated Agent: Pippenger Law Address: 7350 East Progress Place, Suite 100, Greenwood Village, CO 80111 Phone: (303) 665-8660 Email: admin@pippengerlaw.com _Registered with the U.S. Copyright Office. Registration number: DMCA-1079678._

Use admin@pippengerlaw.com for all copyright and DMCA correspondence. It is the correct and only address for these notices.

Our position, stated plainly

We take copyright seriously to an unusual degree, because a library of openly licensed maps only works if the licences are real. A map uploaded by someone who had no right to license it poisons the whole collection — every person who downloaded it in good faith now has something they cannot lawfully use.

So: one upheld infringement report is a permanent ban. First offence. No strike count. This is stricter than the law requires, and it is deliberate.

How to submit a takedown notice

Send a written notice to admin@pippengerlaw.com including all of the following. These elements are what 17 U.S.C. § 512(c)(3) requires, and a notice missing them may not be actionable.

  1. A physical or electronic signature of the copyright owner or a person authorised to act on their behalf.
  2. Identification of the copyrighted work you say has been infringed.
  3. Identification of the material you say is infringing, with enough detail for us to find it — the URL of the map's page is ideal.
  4. Your contact information: name, address, telephone number, and email address.
  5. A statement that you have a good faith belief that the use is not authorised by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law.
  6. A statement that the information in the notice is accurate, and under penalty of perjury, that you are authorised to act on behalf of the copyright owner.

Please note that under 17 U.S.C. § 512(f), a person who knowingly materially misrepresents that material is infringing may be liable for damages, including costs and attorneys' fees.

What happens after you send a notice

  1. We review it. We check that the notice is complete and that the material is identifiable.
  2. We act expeditiously. Material that is the subject of a complete, apparently valid notice is removed or disabled promptly.
  3. We notify the uploader. We tell them their material was removed, and why, and we provide a copy of the notice.
  4. We give them a defined window to respond — 5 business days. Weekends and US federal holidays do not count against that window. This is the response window described in the repeat-infringer policy below.
  5. If the window closes without a successful dispute, the report is upheld and the permanent ban in the next section takes effect immediately.

Counter-notice

If your material was removed and you believe that was a mistake or a misidentification, you may send a counter-notice to admin@pippengerlaw.com containing:

  1. Your physical or electronic signature.
  2. Identification of the material that was removed and the location where it appeared before removal.
  3. A statement under penalty of perjury that you have a good faith belief the material was removed as a result of mistake or misidentification.
  4. Your name, address, and telephone number, and 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 we may be found), and that you will accept service of process from the person who filed the notice or their agent.

If we receive a valid counter-notice, we may forward it to the original complainant. If they do not notify us within 10 business days that they have filed an action seeking a court order to restrain the allegedly infringing activity, we may restore the material.

Sending a counter-notice within the 5-business-day response window is what constitutes disputing a report. A dispute pauses the ban until the matter is resolved.

Repeat infringer policy — one strike, permanent

This is the policy referred to throughout the site. It is deliberately zero-tolerance.

The rule

A single upheld report of copyright infringement results in the permanent termination of the account. There is no three-strikes count, no warning, and no probation.

What "upheld" means

A report is upheld only when all three of the following have happened, in order:

  1. Review. An administrator has reviewed the report and found it credible and complete.
  2. Response window. The uploader has been notified and given 5 business days to respond or to file a counter-notice. Weekends and US federal holidays do not count against that window, so a deadline never expires over a holiday.
  3. Closure. That window has closed without a successful dispute, and the content has been removed.

A report that fails at any of these steps is not upheld. An uploader who successfully disputes a report is not banned.

What a ban does

The moment a report is upheld:

  • The account is permanently terminated. This is not a suspension.
  • The account's email address is added to a permanent blocklist, preventing future signups.
  • Every IP address recorded for that account is added to the same blocklist. This is why we log IP addresses at signup and upload, as explained in the Privacy Policy.
  • All of the account's uploads are removed from the library.

Bans are recorded in an audit log — who took the action, what action, against which account, when, and which report triggered it.

Reversing a ban

Only the site owner can reverse a ban. Administrators and moderators can issue bans and manage the report queue, but cannot undo one. This is enforced in the software itself, not by policy alone.

If you believe a ban was issued in error, write to admin@pippengerlaw.com with the account email and an explanation.

What already-granted licences mean for removal

Removing a map from this site does not revoke the Creative Commons licence granted to anyone who downloaded it before removal — no one has the power to do that, including us. Removal stops future distribution from this site. It cannot claw back what was already lawfully licensed.

This is one more reason the one-strike policy is strict: an infringing upload cannot be fully undone.

Reporting something other than copyright

For an incorrect AI/Handcrafted tag, adult content, harassment, or spam, use the Report button on the map's page. Those go to the moderation queue and do not use the DMCA process.

For child sexual abuse material, we operate an automated detection gate on every upload, and any confirmed match is removed, results in a permanent ban, and is reported to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children as required by law. If you believe something has slipped through, report it immediately using the Report button and mark it as urgent.