Intellectual Property Removal Policy

Trademark Notices

Many trademark notices received relate to our Behance portfolio website for creative professionals. Before you file a trademark complaint about content hosted on Behance or other Adobe products or services, please consider the following:

• Is The Work You Are Concerned About in The Behance Portfolio of a Creative Professional Who Has Worked for You? Sometimes we receive trademark notices from brands asking us to remove work from the Behance portfolios of the very creative professionals who have created award-winning advertising campaigns for them. Typically, this is because they (or trademark-policing agencies they use) don’t understand what the Behance platform is or who uses it. Please take the time to make sure you aren’t asking us to remove content from the portfolios of the very creative professionals you employ. They deserve credit for what they have created!
• Is The Work Student Work? Behance frequently is used by art or design students to showcase work they have developed as part of a class assignment (such as “create a redesigned logo for [company ‘x’]). Sometimes we receive trademark notices from brands who claim that student work infringes their mark. Rather than asking us to remove student work, please consider asking the student to more clearly label their work “Student Work / Not Prepared at The Request of [Insert Your Brand].” You can message Behance users directly using the “message” button you’ll find on their profile. That way, you avoid any likelihood of confusion with your brand, while still allowing students to showcase their talent.
• Is Your Mark Protected in The Country Where the Creative Professional Resides? Creative professionals from all over the world use Behance to showcase their work. Before you file a trademark notice, please (a) check the artist’s portfolio for their country of residence and (b) determine whether you have trademark protections in that country.

Counter Notices and Appeals

If you believe your content on an Adobe service was disabled as a result of an improper DMCA infringement notice, you can file a DMCA counter notice using our online form, sending it to the United States fax number or mailing address above. Adobe will only take action in response to DMCA counter notices that contain all of the following:

• A clear description and the location of the disabled material (specific URL(s) where it was hosted before it was disabled);
• A statement that you consent to the jurisdiction of the United States Federal District court for the district of your residence (or of Santa Clara County, California if you reside outside of the United States) and that you will accept service of process from the person who filed the DMCA notice you are responding to or their agent;
• Your contact information (such as your name, physical address, and email address and telephone number); and
• A statement made and signed by you under penalty of perjury that you have a good faith belief that the content was removed or disabled as a result of mistake or misidentification.

Before you file your DMCA counter notice, please carefully consider whether your use of the material at issue is infringing. If you file a DMCA counter notice when your use is infringing, you may be liable for costs and attorneys’ fees. If you are unsure whether your use of the content at issue amounts to infringement, you may want to contact an attorney. You might also want to consult publicly available resources such as the U.S. Copyright Office website or the Lumen website.

Users whose content is restored as a result of a counter-notice will not have the original DMCA notice counted as a ‘strike’ against them for repeat infringer purposes.

If you are objecting to a trademark or other intellectual property notice you received, you may submit your appeal using our online form, sending it to the United States fax number or the mailing address above.

Recidivism Policy

We have adopted the following policy to address repeat copyright, trademark, and/or other intellectual property infringement by our users on our user generated content (“UGC”) Services. When one effective notice is filed with Adobe against a user regarding one or more pieces of allegedly infringing content, the user will receive one 'strike' against their account. If the user receives three 'strikes' within a one-year period, their user account will be terminated.

There are exceptions to this policy:

1. DMCA counter notices, appeals, and court actions are taken into consideration. If a DMCA counter notice is filed by a user and remains uncontested regarding the allegedly infringing material in question, the corresponding 'strike' will be removed from the user account. In the event a court action is filed to restrain the user from reposting the allegedly infringing material, the outcome of the legal proceedings will determine if the 'strike' will be removed.
2. Retraction notices from the Rights Holder or their authorized agent will trigger the removal of the corresponding 'strike'.
3. Users that repost allegedly infringing material that was subject of a prior notice, or otherwise blatantly infringe the rights of others are subject to immediate deactivation as a violation of the Adobe General Terms of Use and/or applicable law.
4. Rights Holders attempting to game the policy by submitting multiple notices on the same day or within a few days regarding content that was previously posted by the same user will be flagged. For the purposes of the policy, we will count these reports as one 'strike'.
5. Storefronts and Websites (Adobe Commerce, Portfolio, etc.) that are reported for infringement are reviewed on a case-by-case basis. When we receive an effective infringement notice, we evaluate how many accounts are managed by the user (webmaster), as well as the scope of the allegedly infringing material to make a determination if the behavior falls under the policy and/or applicable law.

Thanks for respecting the rights of creative professionals everywhere.

The Adobe IP Agent