DMCA

Last updated: November 2, 2026

Hearth Gift respects the work of photographers, illustrators, writers and designers, and we expect the same respect from everyone who uses hearthgift.shop. This page explains how to tell us if you believe something on our site copies your copyrighted work, what information a notice needs, how we handle it, and what someone can do if they believe material was removed by mistake. Trademark, logo and design-right concerns are covered separately in our Intellectual Property Policy.

1. Who we are and what this page applies to

Hearth Gift is an online shop selling family name signs, doormats, ornaments, kitchen and table pieces and memorial keepsakes. Our business identity is Hearth Gift, 535 E Patton St, Paxton, IL 60957, US. We are a single shop selling our own range; there are no third-party sellers or marketplace listings on hearthgift.shop.

This page applies to any material that appears on the site, including:

• Product photographs and the preview images used in the live personalization preview.
• Product descriptions, collection introductions and help or policy text.
• Graphics, icons, illustrations and layouts on product pages and on the items themselves.
• Anything a visitor or customer submits that becomes visible on the site, should we ever display such content.

The process follows the notice-and-takedown framework of the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. § 512. We apply the same approach to equivalent requests from Canada, Australia and New Zealand, the other countries we ship to.

2. Before you send a notice

A formal copyright notice is a legal statement, so it is worth a quick check first.

Is it copyright, or something else?

Copyright protects original creative expression: a photograph, an illustration, a piece of writing, a poem or a song lyric. It does not protect short everyday phrases such as “Home Sweet Home”, “Welcome Home” or “In Loving Memory”, or plain facts like a house number, a street name or a year. If your concern is about a business name, logo or brand, that is usually a trademark question, and the Intellectual Property Policy is the better route.

Could it be your own customer order?

Personalized items carry text typed by the person who ordered them, for example a family name and established year on the Family Name Established Framed Sign. Those items are shipped to the customer and are not displayed on our site. If you have seen one of our products in someone’s home or online post with wording that concerns you, let us know what you saw, but please understand that we only control what appears on hearthgift.shop.

Would a simple question resolve it?

If you are not sure whether something is yours, or you simply want to know where an image came from, an ordinary email is welcome. You do not need to send a formal notice just to ask.

3. What a copyright notice must include

To be complete, your written notice needs all six of the following:

1. A physical or electronic signature of the copyright owner, or of a person authorized to act on the owner’s behalf. A typed full name at the end of the email is acceptable as an electronic signature.
2. Identification of the copyrighted work you believe has been infringed, such as a link to the original photograph or a description of the artwork. If several works are involved, a representative list is fine.
3. Identification of the material on our site you believe is infringing, with the exact URL of each page, for example a link of the form https://hearthgift.shop/products/our-first-home-landscape-framed-sign/, and a description of which image or passage you mean.
4. Your name, postal address, telephone number and email address, so we can reach you.
5. A statement that you have a good-faith belief that the use is not authorized 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 the copyright owner or authorized to act for the owner.

Send the notice to support@hearthgift.shop with the subject line “Copyright notice”. Attachments such as screenshots are helpful. A notice that is missing elements may slow things down, because we will need to write back and ask for them before we can act.

What a complete notice looks like in practice

Imagine a photographer who finds one of their kitchen photos used as a background on a product page. A complete notice would name the photograph and link to where it was first published, give the full URL of our product page and say which image is the problem, list the photographer’s name, postal address, phone number and email, include the two required statements in plain words, and end with their typed full name. That is all it takes; there is no special form to download.

Notices from outside the United States

Rights holders in Canada, Australia, New Zealand or elsewhere can use the same six elements. Write in English if you can, tell us which country’s law you are relying on if it matters to your claim, and we will handle the notice in the same way.

4. How we handle a notice

If a product is affected

When a notice concerns a product image or design, we remove the material from the product page and, where needed, pause the product. If customers have open orders for that product, we contact them directly; they can choose a cancellation with a full refund, or store credit if they prefer. Your personal contact details are not shared with those customers.

If customer-submitted content is affected

Where removed material was submitted by a visitor, we tell that person it was removed and may share a copy of the notice with them, withholding your personal contact details where the law allows, so that they can respond through the counter-notification process.

5. Counter-notification

If material you submitted was removed and you believe that happened because of a mistake or misidentification, you can send a counter-notification to support@hearthgift.shop with the subject “Copyright counter-notice”. It must include:

1. Your physical or electronic signature.
2. Identification of the material that was removed and the URL 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, 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 Hearth Gift may be found, and that you will accept service of process from the person who sent the original notice or their agent.

When we receive a valid counter-notification, we forward it to the person who sent the original notice. Under 17 U.S.C. § 512(g), the material may be restored no sooner than 10 and no later than 14 business days after we receive the counter-notification, unless the original sender tells us they have filed a court action to stop the infringing activity.

6. Misuse of the process

Under 17 U.S.C. § 512(f), anyone who knowingly and materially misrepresents that material is infringing, or that it was removed by mistake, may be liable for damages, including costs and legal fees. Please do not use this process to remove content you simply dislike, to resolve a dispute with us about an order, or to target a competitor. Order problems such as a misprint, a delay or a return belong with our support team instead; the Help Center and the Returns & Exchanges page explain how those work.

If you are unsure whether your work is protected, or whether a particular use is allowed, you may wish to get independent legal advice before sending a notice. We cannot give legal advice.

7. Repeat infringement

If we ever allow visitors to submit content to the site, we will remove material from, and may close the accounts of, people who repeatedly submit content that infringes copyright. On our own side, when a valid notice shows that a product image or description was a problem, we review similar pages so the same issue does not come back elsewhere on the site.

8. How our own customers fit in

Most people who contact us are customers, not rights holders, so a word about personalization. The text fields on our five personalized products are meant for your own names, dates and short phrases, such as “THE CARTERS · EST. 2024” or a loved one’s name with the closing line “Forever loved”. We cannot print song lyrics, poems or quotes written by someone else, characters, team names or brand names, and we do not accept photo uploads. If an order’s text appears to copy someone else’s protected work, we will email you before printing and may cancel and refund the order. This protects the people who create those works and keeps your gift free of problems later.

Photos customers email us to show a problem with an order are used only to resolve that order and are deleted 30 days after delivery. They are never posted on the site.

9. Contact for copyright matters

All copyright notices and counter-notifications go to support@hearthgift.shop. We reply within 24 hours on business days. We do not offer phone support or live chat, and a written record is important for this process in any case.

Business identity: Hearth Gift, 535 E Patton St, Paxton, IL 60957, US. This page is governed by the laws of Illinois and applicable U.S. federal law. For questions about an order rather than copyright, visit Contact Us. Our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy explain how the site works and how we handle the personal details included in a notice.