Actions is where the documents live: the case Warden builds from an investigation, and the letters written from that case.
Nothing about that changes what a package has to prove. Delivery is a step at the end, and the grounds are what make a document worth delivering at all.
Actions has two views. The first, Letters to platforms, is one list of everything you have prepared, in five states.
| State | What is in it |
|---|---|
| Drafted | A case with no letter written from it yet |
| Ready for you to send | Written and waiting on you |
| Sent by you | You told Warden you sent it, and no reply yet |
| Answered | You told Warden they replied and it is still open |
| Closed | Resolved or refused by their reply, or withdrawn by you |
The last three are yours to set, because today Warden does not watch a send or see a reply. Those dates are your own statements and are kept as yours. A reply cannot be recorded before a send, a send cannot be recorded before the letter was written, and neither can be in the future. When Warden delivers a letter itself, it will fill those in from what it did rather than from what you told it, and the two will still be told apart.
flowchart LR
I(["Investigation"]) --> C("All four grounds?")
C -- "Missing one" --> X["No package"]
C -- "All four" --> P(["Package"])
P --> N["Notice"]
N --> S["Sent, by you for now"]
S --> R(["Reply, on the record"])
class I,P,R warden
class C ask
class X quietThe package
An enforcement package is the case, written out. It is built from one investigation, on that investigation, and only where Warden can show every ground it would rest on. A package prepared on a file shared in a channel covers, in one document, every finding in that channel that you have confirmed as yours.
A package holds the listing as one observation recorded it, the version of your policy that was in force, every rule of that version read against the facts, what Warden checked and what it could not check in Warden's own sentences, and your own statement about authorization. It gets a number of its own.
Four grounds have to hold before one can be built:
Whose design it is. You confirmed it, against that exact state of that listing.
What the listing distributes. The source said the listing sells a file.
Your own rule. A policy is in force and prohibits it.
Whether you authorized it. Your own statement, made for this package. It is not a standing answer.
Most investigations end without one, and the refusals are stated rather than hidden: the design is not confirmed, you said it is not yours or that you were not sure, nothing is in force, your policy does not prohibit it, or the source never said what the listing sells.
A customer relationship is not among the refusals. An entitlement is context and never a veto, so a seller who holds one can still be the subject of a package. What an active entitlement does is make your own statement matter more. See Commercial verification.
A package cannot be edited, and there is no way to make one that reads differently later. A package that recomputed itself would be no use as the basis of anything. If it is wrong, withdraw it and prepare another from the investigation as it stands. Withdrawn packages stay readable.
Today a package can rest on one basis, unauthorized distribution of your digital files. A matched render reaches possible conflict on the investigation and has no package behind it, which is worth knowing before you go looking for one.
The two notices
A notice is written from a package and addressed to the platform hosting the listing. Never to a person, and never to a seller.
| Notice | What it is |
|---|---|
| Digital File Removal Request | Asks the platform to review the listing under its own process. It swears to nothing and carries no legal weight of its own |
| DMCA Takedown Notice | A notice under 17 U.S.C. 512(c)(3)(A). You sign it, and two of the statements in it are yours to make, one under penalty of perjury |
The statutory notice asks for four things the request does not: the work itself, identified on the package; a claimant record with your legal name, address and phone, which is frozen into the notice when it is prepared; your typed signature and the capacity you sign in, as owner or as an authorized agent; and two separate affirmations, a good faith belief and, sworn, that the notice is accurate and that you are authorized to make it. Missing any of them refuses the notice by name.
Knowingly misrepresenting that material is infringing carries liability for damages and costs under 512(f). Warden states this where you sign it and does not soften it.
Warden composes the evidence and you write the covering letter. Both are kept. A notice is written once and nothing in it can be edited afterwards. Several notices can come from one package, for different platforms or after a withdrawal.
Warden's assistant can explain a package or a notice. It cannot write one, choose a kind, fill in an affirmation, or supply a signature.
Letters to your own customers
A commercial access enquiry is a different kind of letter. It goes to somebody who is already your customer, and it is a question about the relationship rather than an allegation. Enquiries have the second view in Actions, Enquiries to your members. They move through the same states except Drafted, because an enquiry has no package behind it, and they are withdrawn the same way. An enquiry is otherwise a separate record: its own numbering, its own composer, and no link to an enforcement package in either direction. A person chooses which of the two a situation calls for. Neither disables the other.
This is the one place where the record as it stands decides whether something may be written, and the direction is the point. Warden refuses to compose the letter if the entitlement now reads in force, if it reads unknown, if it has gone from your records, or if it has gone stale. Current state can stop a message. It can never authorize one. Enforcement reads no current entitlement at all, so a customer relationship cannot become a veto from the other direction either.
Enquiries have no sidebar entry of their own. They are written from an investigation, with Contact member, and listed under Enquiries to your members.
Coming soon
Warden sending a letter itself: a notice into a platform's own process, an enquiry to one of your customers, and a filing where one is owed. The delivery mechanism is built and proven end to end against an inbox Warden owns, and nothing reaches anybody outside Warden yet. That needs a destination for each place, a directory of who receives a statutory notice, and somewhere to keep a customer's contact details, none of which exist yet.
A counter-notification. That document is written by the seller, whom Warden has no relationship with.
A second statutory scheme. Another country's would need its own notice kind with its own required fields.
A second basis for a package, including render reuse, which today reaches possible conflict and no further.
For enquiries: the case where Warden could not link the seller to anybody at all, which is the largest group, and a path from an enquiry into enforcement.