Copyright & IP Policy

DS Colony · Last updated 1 October 2026

[Beta draft — flagged for legal counsel review, particularly the safe-harbour characterizations. This is an engineering-honest policy document, not legal advice.]

1. What you may share

Allowed

Your own work — code, write-ups, analyses, project results.
Appropriately licensed work (MIT, Apache 2.0, CC-BY, etc.) with attribution and the licence stated.
Links to original sources — preferred over pasting.
Technical discussion quoting the minimum necessary from a source, with citation. (Indian law recognizes "fair dealing" for research, study, criticism and review — a fact-specific judgment, not a blanket license; when in doubt, link and quote less.)
Public resources only where the licence explicitly permits redistribution.

Not allowed

Pirated or unauthorized courses, books, PDFs, or other paid material.
Copied proprietary code or datasets you don't have rights to distribute.
Any copyrighted upload shared without the owner's permission.
Plagiarism — presenting someone else's work as your own.

2. Our honest posture

DS Colony does not pre-screen user content, and we cannot guarantee that user content does not infringe third-party rights. What we do: remove reported content after human review, disable access to content we are ordered to remove by a court or government direction, and act against repeat infringers.

3. Filing a copyright complaint

If you believe content on DS Colony infringes your copyright, email [email protected] with the subject line "Copyright complaint" and include:

Identification of the copyrighted work you claim is infringed.
The exact URL of the infringing content on DS Colony.
Your contact information (name, email, phone if you wish).
A statement that you have a good-faith belief the use is unauthorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law.
A statement, under penalty of perjury, that the information is accurate and that you are the owner or authorized to act for the owner.
Your physical or electronic signature.

Complaints are acknowledged within 24 hours. Our review target is a decision within 15 days: hide (reversible), dismiss with reasons, or request more information. This is our voluntary notice-and-takedown process — Indian law does not currently codify a DMCA-style procedure; it is our chosen best practice and risk-management posture.

4. Counter-notice and appeals

If your content was hidden after a copyright complaint and you believe this was in error, reply through the same channel with your side of the story and any licensing evidence. A human re-review follows; hidden content is non-destructively stored and can be restored.

5. Repeat infringers

Accounts with repeated verified copyright violations follow the escalation ladder: warning → suspension. We track violations through resolved report records (which survive without identity only after account deletion — the audit trail is the counter).

6. Court orders and government directions

Upon receiving a court order or government direction to remove/disable access to content, we act within 36 hours and log the action as part of the moderation record.

Complaints: [email protected] · Companion documents: Terms · Guidelines · Moderation