Wrongly accused: how the six strikes independent review worked, and what replaced it

Archive summary, written 2026. Many people who received a Copyright Alert were sure it was a mistake: a guest on the Wi-Fi, a neighbor, a misread file. This page explains how the review process of the Copyright Alert System, the six strikes program of 2013 to 2017 handled those cases, and how people dispute copyright claims now. This site is not the Center for Copyright Information, which ran the program.

The rules come from Attachment C of the Memorandum of Understanding dated July 6, 2011, the agreement that created the program. What each alert said before review was possible is covered in our explainer on the six alert stages.

01Who could ask for a review

Not everyone, and not at every stage. Review opened only when an alert said a mitigation measure was about to be applied, which was usually the fifth alert. At that point the subscriber could challenge that alert and the earlier ones on the same account.

The deadline was short. The 2011 text required the review package to be filed within 10 business days of the relevant alert. The notice before a penalty ran 10 business days or 14 calendar days, at the provider's choice, so many guides at the time described a 14-day window. While a review was pending, the provider had to hold off on further steps.

The process kept the subscriber anonymous to the studios and labels, except where the chosen defense required the subscriber's identity to be shared, such as showing written permission from the owner.

02The grounds for review

The 2011 agreement listed six grounds. In our words:

1. Wrong account. The address or the match to the account was a factual error.
2. Unauthorized use. Someone outside the household used the connection, such as through an unsecured router, and the subscriber could not reasonably have stopped it. This defense could be used once, unless the subscriber later showed clear and convincing evidence of reasonable security.
3. Permission. The owner had authorized the use, shown with documents.
4. Fair use. Sharing the work was a fair use under prevailing copyright principles.
5. Wrong file. The file did not mainly consist of the work named in the notice.
6. Old work. The work was published before 1923.

The detection systems were presumed to work as designed, so the subscriber carried the burden on most grounds. Reviewers were neutrals chosen by the American Arbitration Association.

Critics said the list was too narrow. The Electronic Frontier Foundation wrote in July 2011 that works can enter the public domain in other ways than being published before 1923, and that a subscriber could raise no defense outside the list. Supporters answered that the review was optional and that the courts stayed open: the 2011 text said review did not stop anyone from going to court.

03The fee and the outcome

The 2011 text set a $35 filing fee, refunded if the reviewer ruled for the subscriber on any alert. When the program launched, The Register reported on February 25, 2013 that CCI would waive the fee for some people. That covered households under 300% of the federal poverty level, full-time students on need-based aid, and people in some federal benefit programs.

A win made that alert invalid. The provider removed it from the account and could not apply a penalty based on it. Other alerts stayed on the record. A loss let the provider go ahead. There was no appeal within the program, and the decision had no effect outside it: it did not decide anyone's rights in a court case.

04How often reviews happened

Rarely. In its May 28, 2014 progress report announcement, CCI said subscribers filed 265 review requests based on the more than 1.3 million alerts generated during 2013. CCI put that at 0.27% of mitigation alerts that qualified for review, and 0.02% of all alerts.

CCI said 47 challenges succeeded in 2013, most on the unauthorized-use ground, and that no review found an invalid notice or false positive. CCI read this as proof the system was accurate. Critics read the low numbers differently: a fee, a short deadline and a fixed list of defenses could also explain why so few people tried. The page on the program's reported results sets the figures side by side.

05Disputing a notice today: counter-notices

There is no six strikes review process today. If your provider forwards a notice, its own customer process applies. If a website or platform removes something you posted after a copyright claim, the main tool is the counter-notice in section 512(g) of the Copyright Act, part of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998.

A counter-notice is a sworn statement that the material was removed by mistake or misidentification. Under section 512(g), the platform restores the material in 10 to 14 business days unless the claimant tells it that a lawsuit has been filed. Section 512(f) also allows claims against people who knowingly misrepresent infringement. Our guide to sending, answering or countering a DMCA takedown notice walks through the form.

A counter-notice can lead to a lawsuit, so talk to a lawyer licensed where you live if the stakes are real.

06When your work is wrongly called AI-made

The newest version of being wrongly accused is not about file sharing at all. Writers, students and artists are told their own work "looks AI-generated", or a platform removes it on that basis. There is no arbitration panel for that either, but the lesson from six strikes still holds: evidence you keep before a dispute matters most.

Drafts, version history, notes and sources do not prove authorship on their own, but together they tell a story a reviewer can follow. Our guides cover how to show you wrote something yourself and takedowns over copying by AI, or claims that your work is AI-made.