How to remove an obituary from an aggregator site
The path depends on which kind of site you are dealing with. Identify it first; then escalate in order.
Contracted partners (not piracy — a settings problem)
If the obituary appears on a platform you or the family actually syndicate to — legacy-media obituary sections, platforms your website vendor feeds — removal is a support request, not a legal notice. Check your website platform's syndication settings and your service agreement before treating any copy as unauthorized. (Obituary Watch keeps an approved-domains list per customer precisely so partners are never flagged.)
Aggregators with removal forms
Several large obituary aggregators publish removal or "claim this obituary" forms. Use them first — they are faster than legal process. State that you are the funeral home of record (or writing for the family), give the URL, request removal. Keep the confirmation email.
Aggregators without forms: DMCA
Send a DMCA notice to the site's published contact or copyright agent: original URL, infringing URL, statutory statements, signature. Cite Thomson v. Afterlife Network Inc., 2019 FC 545 (CAD $20M awarded over mass obituary republication) as precedent context. If there is no contact at all, skip straight to the infrastructure:
- Host abuse desk — find the host via ICANN lookup or an IP lookup; hosts process DMCA notices independently of their customer.
- Registrar abuse desk — same lookup; registrars matter for repeat patterns.
- Google removal — a DMCA request to Google deindexes the page from search, which ends most of the practical harm even if the page survives.
Keep the paper trail
Save every notice, reply, and confirmation, dated. A site that accumulates notices becomes easy to escalate; and if a family ever asks what you did, you can show them, specifically.
Common questions
Q: The aggregator says obituaries are "public information". Are they right?
A: Facts of a death are not copyrightable — but the written obituary text and the photograph are, and that is what they copied. The $20M Afterlife judgment settled this line of argument in practice.
Q: Should the funeral home or the family send the request?
A: Either works; funeral homes usually have standing via their service agreement and are better equipped for the escalation steps. A one-line authorization from the family removes any doubt.
Q: A removed obituary reappeared on the same site months later. Now what?
A: Re-send the same notice referencing the earlier removal, and this time file the Google deindex in parallel. Repeat republication after a notice is the strongest possible signal for the host abuse desk — include both dates.
See where your obituaries are republished right now. The free scan checks known republication domains in minutes — no account, private report. Continuous monitoring: Obituary Watch from $29/month.
Related answers
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- Third-party sites are selling flowers on our obituaries
- What is obituary piracy?
Obituary Watch provides monitoring assistance, not legal advice, and is not affiliated with any funeral home, streaming provider, or platform. Findings are similarity signals that require human confirmation — they are not accusations about any website or company.