Effective date: July 10, 2026
Last updated: September 29, 2026
This Intellectual Property Policy ("IP Policy") is incorporated into the Orby Terms of Service and describes how Orby Social Inc. ("Orby") handles copyright and trademark matters on the Orby platform — how rights holders can report infringement, what happens when they do, how users can respond, and how we handle repeat infringement. It supplements (and should be read with) Section 11 of the Terms of Service.
Orby respects the intellectual property of others and expects everyone on the platform to do the same. At the same time, IP reporting systems are frequently abused to silence criticism, commentary, and competition — so this Policy is also designed to protect legitimate speech from fraudulent and mistaken claims.
PART I — COPYRIGHT
1. WHAT COPYRIGHT COVERS ON ORBY
Copyright protects original creative works — text, images, photos, video, audio, software, and more. Posting someone else's copyrighted work on Orby without permission or a legal basis may infringe their rights. This applies to full works and substantial portions; it applies whether or not you credit the source ("credit" is not a license); and it applies in every space on Orby, including private Communities and chat.
Not everything that copies is infringement. Depending on jurisdiction, uses such as commentary, criticism, news reporting, teaching, research, and parody may be lawful (in the United States, under the fair use doctrine; elsewhere, under similar exceptions such as fair dealing, quotation, and parody). Linking to lawfully posted content is generally not infringement. We consider these principles when reviewing notices, and we expect reporters to consider them before filing — U.S. law requires a copyright owner to consider fair use before submitting a takedown notice.
2. FILING A COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT NOTICE (DMCA)
If you believe content on Orby infringes a copyright you own or control, you (or your authorized agent) can submit a notice under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act through the copyright-report flow in the app, or to our designated agent:
Orby Social Inc., Attn: Copyright Agent
[Registered address to be completed]
Email: copyright@orbysocial.com
[Registration of the designated agent in the U.S. Copyright Office's DMCA Designated Agent Directory to be completed before public launch.]
A complete notice must include:
1. Your physical or electronic signature (typing your full legal name suffices);
2. Identification of the copyrighted work you claim is infringed (or a representative list, if many works);
3. Identification of the allegedly infringing material and information reasonably sufficient for us to locate it — on Orby, that means direct links to the specific posts, comments, images, or files;
4. Your contact information: name, address, telephone number, and email;
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, made under penalty of perjury, that the information in the notice is accurate and that you are the copyright owner or authorized to act on the owner's behalf.
Incomplete notices may not be actionable, and we may respond requesting the missing elements. Bulk reporters and rights-management agents can contact the Copyright Agent to arrange structured submission.
3. WHAT HAPPENS AFTER A NOTICE
When we receive a complete, valid notice, we act expeditiously to remove or disable access to the identified material. We then:
- notify the user who posted it, provide them the substance of the notice (including the reporter's identifying information, as the DMCA contemplates), and explain their counter-notice rights;
- record the event against the posting account's copyright history (Section 6); and
- preserve records as required for legal compliance.
We may decline to act on notices that are incomplete, that clearly target non-infringing use, or that come from reporters with a documented history of fraudulent claims — and we may restore content removed in error at any time.
4. FILING A COUNTER-NOTICE
If your content was removed due to a copyright notice and you believe the removal was a mistake or misidentification (including because your use is licensed, your own work, or fair use), you can file a counter-notice directly from the removal notice in the app, or with the designated agent above. A complete counter-notice must include:
1. Your physical or electronic signature;
2. Identification of the removed material and where it appeared before removal (the link from the removal notice suffices);
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, address, and telephone number;
5. A statement that you consent to the jurisdiction of the U.S. federal district court for your judicial district (or, if you are outside the United States, of the federal courts of the State of Delaware, where Orby may be found), and that you will accept service of process from the person who filed the original notice or their agent.
We forward complete counter-notices to the original reporter. If the reporter does not notify us within ten (10) to fourteen (14) business days that they have filed a court action seeking to restrain the infringement, we may restore the material. Filing a counter-notice has legal consequences — it shares your contact information with the claimant and can result in litigation — so consider consulting a lawyer if you are unsure.
5. MISREPRESENTATION AND ABUSE OF THE PROCESS
Knowingly making material misrepresentations in a notice or counter-notice can make you liable for damages, including costs and attorneys' fees, under 17 U.S.C. § 512(f). Separately from the law, Orby treats abuse of IP reporting as a platform violation: reporters who submit fraudulent, harassing, or systematically defective notices may lose reporting privileges or their accounts, and fraudulent counter-notices carry the same consequences. Using copyright claims to remove criticism, reviews, or competition is abuse, not enforcement.
6. REPEAT INFRINGERS
Orby maintains a strike-based repeat infringer policy, applied in appropriate circumstances as the DMCA requires:
- Content removed in response to a valid copyright notice results in a copyright strike against the posting account (a successful counter-notice or retraction removes the strike).
- Strikes expire after twelve (12) months.
- Accumulating strikes escalates consequences: warnings and educational notices, feature restrictions (such as media upload limits), temporary suspension, and — at three (3) active strikes, or in cases of egregious or commercial-scale infringement — permanent termination, which may occur on a first offense in egregious cases.
- Communities whose Moderators knowingly operate them as venues for systematic infringement may be restricted or banned as Communities.
7. RETRACTIONS
Rights holders may retract a notice at any time by contacting the Copyright Agent with the original notice reference. Retraction restores the content (where feasible) and removes the associated strike.
PART II — TRADEMARK
8. WHAT TRADEMARK COVERS ON ORBY
Trademarks protect names, logos, and other brand identifiers from uses likely to confuse people about source, affiliation, or endorsement. Using someone else's trademark is not automatically a violation — discussion, criticism, reviews, news, fan communities, and comparative commentary are generally lawful uses of a brand name. The line is confusion: content, accounts, or Communities that mislead people into believing they are, or are endorsed by, the trademark owner.
9. WHAT VIOLATES THIS POLICY
- Impersonation of a brand: usernames, profiles, or Communities that pose as a company or organization, or that a reasonable person would believe are official. (Impersonation of people is handled under the Community Guidelines.)
- Confusing commercial use: using another's mark to sell or promote goods or services in a way likely to confuse — including counterfeit sales, which also violate the Community Guidelines.
- Deceptive Community squatting: registering a Community under a brand's name and holding it out as official, or using it to deceive that brand's customers.
10. WHAT DOES NOT VIOLATE THIS POLICY
- Fan, discussion, criticism, and support Communities about a brand, where the Community makes clear it is unofficial (we may require a disclaimer in the Community description or an "unofficial" marker);
- Commentary, reviews, journalism, parody, and comparative statements using a brand name;
- Coincidental username matches without deceptive use, and descriptive or nominative uses of common words that happen to be trademarks.
Brand owners who simply want their name reserved should note that Orby does not proactively reserve names absent confusion or deception; Community names are first-come subject to these rules.
11. REPORTING A TRADEMARK VIOLATION
Submit reports to legal@orbysocial.com, including: your name and contact information (and, if an agent, who you represent); the trademark at issue, the jurisdictions where it is protected, and registration numbers where registered; the allegedly infringing usernames, Communities, or content with direct links; a description of the claimed confusion; and a good-faith statement that the use is unauthorized and that your report is accurate.
Remedies scale to the problem: requiring disclaimers, renaming Communities, reclaiming usernames, removing content, and suspending or terminating accounts engaged in deliberate brand impersonation or counterfeiting. We notify affected users and accept responses where the facts are contested. Abusive trademark reporting — attempting to seize fan communities or silence criticism — is treated the same as abusive copyright reporting.
PART III — GENERAL
12. SCOPE AND OTHER RIGHTS
This Policy covers copyright and trademark. Other rights — privacy, publicity/image rights, defamation — are handled under the Community Guidelines and applicable law; jurisdiction-specific reporting channels (including EU notice mechanisms for illegal content) are described in the Terms of Service. Nothing in this Policy is legal advice, and Orby cannot adjudicate ownership disputes between third parties — where a dispute is genuinely contested, courts, not platforms, resolve it.
13. ORBY'S OWN IP
The Orby name, logo, product names, and platform are Orby's intellectual property, licensed to you only as described in the Terms of Service. Use of Orby's brand is governed by any brand guidelines we publish. Open-source components of the platform are acknowledged in our Open Source Software Notices, available alongside this Policy in the app.
14. TRANSPARENCY
We report aggregate statistics about IP notices, counter-notices, and outcomes as part of our transparency reporting.
15. CONTACT
- Copyright Agent: copyright@orbysocial.com
- Trademark: legal@orbysocial.com
- All other legal notices: per the Terms of Service, Section 26.10.