Notice of DMCA Content removal from Google Search

Question

I have spend the past couple of hours reading about DMCA complaints and I am more confused than before I started, a complicated technical issue on my side is also not making things easier for me, so I am turning to this great community for help once again.

I have 110-pages/posts of proper quality content on my website, all of the content is legit and self produced except for 7-content pieces, which I admit is from another website...my website ranks nr 1 for those 7-urls.

Google Search Console Message

Google has been notified, according to the terms of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), that some of the material found on your site allegedly infringes upon the copyrights of others. We’re in the process of removing the allegedly unlawful materials from Google Search results.

The notice that we received, with any personally identifying information removed, may be found on the website of Chilling Effects, a third-party aggregator of legal complaint notices, at http://lumendatabase.org/notices/xxxxxxxxx.

Please note that it may take several weeks for the notice to be posted on the above page.

What you can do next:

File a Counter Notice If you feel that your sites or pages were mistakenly removed due to a DMCA request filed against you, Google can reinstate these materials into our search results upon receipt of a DMCA Counter Notification. Speak to a lawyer If you have legal questions about this notification, you may wish to speak to your own lawyer. Here are the affected URL(s):

www.example.com/example-post1

www.example.com/example-post2

• The DMCA is a United States copyright law that provides guidelines for online service provider liability in case of copyright infringement. We’re in the process of removing from Google Search results the materials that allegedly infringe upon the copyrights of others. If we didn’t do so, we could be subject to a claim of copyright infringement, regardless of its merits. See this DMCA FAQ for more details.

• Read about the Google legal removal process in

Legal Removal Requests in our Help Center.

• Ask questions in our forum for more help - mention message type [WNC-594600].

Questions:

1. Considering I have 1 and only 1 complaint from 1 source about 7 different urls on my website, is it likely to effect my rankings, for other pages? If yes will I ever be able to recover from this?
2. What should I do just leave pages and everything as is or delete and remove the pages with a 410 (gone response), the pages still gets a lot of traffic from social despite it not being in the google index anymore?
3. Ideally I would just like this to blow over, with as little effect on my site as possible...what is the adviced strategy I should take here

SIDE NOTE: The domain I took the content from has no privacy or usage policy, can this count in my favor should I dispute the claim.....it simply says at the footer of the page copyright www.example.com, all rights reserved

Many Thanks for reading

Answer 1

In the U.S., and indeed likely most all countries that take copyright seriously, will recognize copyright at the creation of a work. This is important to recognize. Copyright is automatic.

It is recommended that you remove all work you did not create yourself or created for you. If you only have 7, then remove them immediately. One DMCA complaint, especially one that is resolved without issue or hesitation, will not hurt your site. However, 7 might. Google does not want a site that appears to be low quality and content theft has a long standing history as a significant trigger for spam and low quality sites.

Do not wait or take a chance. Act now to remove these 7 pages and you will be okay. Do not look for excuses to retain work that is not yours especially now that you know people are looking.