The unauthorized post of me in the buff has been removed. A lawyer friend gave me the tip that as the person who took the photo, I own the copyright and can deny someone permission to publish it on their Tumblr as per Tumblr’s DMCA copyright policy. Here’s my tip: Don’t send an email through the Help Center, as the documents suggest. Instead, submit a DMCA Copyright Notification. I got no response from the Help Center but the photo was removed within two days after I went through Tumblr’s legal channels.

All websites should have DMCA copyright policies, and this has been a lesson for me to become familiar with them. I’m not promising miracles (because life isn’t fair), but this process has given me a happy ending. Maybe it can work for other people, too.