Forums under Legal Attack

[BirdOPrey5]

About to mail it today actually.

[Boofo]

Well, to be honest, it sounds more like a scam than anything else.

[BirdOPrey5]

Originally Posted by Boofo

Well, to be honest, it sounds more like a scam than anything else.

It's possible I guess but look at this link:
http://www.copyright.gov/onlinesp/

Every major website in the United States from Amazon to Ebay to Craigslist and CNN have all fallen for the same "scam." At least I'll be in good company...

If everyone was jumping off a bridge, wouldn't you?

[Boofo]

Originally Posted by BirdOPrey5

It's possible I guess but look at this link:
http://www.copyright.gov/onlinesp/

Every major website in the United States from Amazon to Ebay to Craigslist and CNN have all fallen for the same "scam." At least I'll be in good company...

If everyone was jumping off a bridge, wouldn't you?

No, I wouldn't jump.

I guess I'm confused as to what that form will really do or prevent. Too much lawyer-speak for me.

[Digital Jedi]

Originally Posted by BirdOPrey5

It's possible I guess but look at this link:
http://www.copyright.gov/onlinesp/

Every major website in the United States from Amazon to Ebay to Craigslist and CNN have all fallen for the same "scam." At least I'll be in good company...

If everyone was jumping off a bridge, wouldn't you?

Yes. Yes I would. Especially if there's donuts.

So is this knucklehead is still exploiting this loophole actively? Is he even bothering with niche sites that don't generate revenue? I mean, you could try and sue me for $75,000. But my occupation is stay-at-home-dad. I'm pretty sure my daughter can't be garnished.

[BirdOPrey5]

I'll try again...

currently if someone on your forum decides they are going to paste the full text of the Harry Potter books into your forum your forum is now breaching copyright... The publisher could sue your forum (and by extension you) for up to $150,000 per copyright claim. Even though you personally didn't post it, it's you forum held responsible under the old copyright laws which never considered the internet. They would treat you like a newspaper who printed an entire copyrighted book as an article.

The DMCA was enacted because it was obvious old copyright laws would be foolish to apply to modern websites where users contribute content rather than an edtior of a paper say. So under DMCA you are protected from being sued under the old rules so long as you agree to take down stuff the copyright owner sends you official notice to take down (a 'take down' notice.) - Many admins believe by simply putting instructions for others to follow in their Terms of Service on how to request a "take down" they are covered by DMCA. However this isn't true- to be truly covered by DMCA you MUST have a take down agent registered with the Copyright office. That is what this form does.

--------------- Added [DATE]1292696288[/DATE] at [TIME]1292696288[/TIME] ---------------

Originally Posted by Digital Jedi

Yes. Yes I would. Especially if there's donuts.

So is this knucklehead is still exploiting this loophole actively? Is he even bothering with niche sites that don't generate revenue? I mean, you could try and sue me for $75,000. But my occupation is stay-at-home-dad. I'm pretty sure my daughter can't be garnished.

Yes he is and you are the target... he sues regular people for $75K knowing they can't pay... he also wants you to forfeit your domain name to him... but he settles for a few thousand dollars, whatever he thinks you could pay him if you try really hard.

[Boofo]

So what happens if they post only like 25% of something and then a link to the actual of the story?

[BirdOPrey5]

Originally Posted by Boofo

So what happens if they post only like 25% of something and then a link to the actual of the story?

This is a point of argument, what is "fair use" - I've researched this and the answer is there is no answer- it is decided on a case by case basis. If you quote 1 sentence of a book, that is probably fair use. If you quote one paragraph of a 3 paragraph article (33%) now you're really pushing your luck.

Unfortunately since there is no magic line where you can say "I only used 20 words so I'm safe." RightHaven, or anyone, could sue you for using as little as 1 sentence if they want- and the RightHaven model is to sue people who can't fight back so no matter how little someone might copy you would lose more money defending yourself that it is worth, even if you did ultimately prevail- but RightHaven knows you won't even try.

RightHaven usually sues people who copy full or significant parts of articles but have also sued people for using as little as 1 full paragraph.

--------------- Added [DATE]1292698884[/DATE] at [TIME]1292698884[/TIME] ---------------

The thing is the guy behind RightHaven is both trying to make money but in a way he's also trying to "save" newspapers who are hurting. With the Internet people have decided they should be getting all their news for free when this had never been true in the past... You either paid for a newspaper or watched network tv news in which case you watched commercials, or paid for cable which in turned paid for cable news.

On the Internet now we expect free news and that means the news sites lose big money. Their only hope is to sell advertising, but anytime you or a user copies any significant part of an article that is money lost to the news site- because likely the visitor will not click on the link and not be subject to the advertisements they'd otherwise see.

So he has a valid point- it's not something I ever worried about before as an admin- if a user copied all or most of a short article I never thought twice about it- but in fact that wasn't a "victimless" crime... if everyone copied every article elsewhere online the news site that published the article to begin with would go out of business... RightHaven's goal is to make admins think twice about this behavior and while I don't agree with his tactics I can agree with his goals.

[Boofo]

Sounds like his goal is to make money, not care about what it right or wrong. He found a loophole and he is going to exploit it for all it is worth. In the past, when I had my Father's Rights Forums going, I ALWAYS got permission from authors of any posts I made of their articles. My rule of thumb on other articles was no more than 25% and a link to the "Rest of the story...". That worked pretty well and I never had any complaints of copyright infringement.

[Digital Jedi]

Originally Posted by BirdOPrey5

I'll try again...

currently if someone on your forum decides they are going to paste the full text of the Harry Potter books into your forum your forum is now breaching copyright... The publisher could sue your forum (and by extension you) for up to $150,000 per copyright claim. Even though you personally didn't post it, it's you forum held responsible under the old copyright laws which never considered the internet. They would treat you like a newspaper who printed an entire copyrighted book as an article.

The DMCA was enacted because it was obvious old copyright laws would be foolish to apply to modern websites where users contribute content rather than an edtior of a paper say. So under DMCA you are protected from being sued under the old rules so long as you agree to take down stuff the copyright owner sends you official notice to take down (a 'take down' notice.) - Many admins believe by simply putting instructions for others to follow in their Terms of Service on how to request a "take down" they are covered by DMCA. However this isn't true- to be truly covered by DMCA you MUST have a take down agent registered with the Copyright office. That is what this form does.

--------------- Added [DATE]1292696288[/DATE] at [TIME]1292696288[/TIME] ---------------



Yes he is and you are the target... he sues regular people for $75K knowing they can't pay... he also wants you to forfeit your domain name to him... but he settles for a few thousand dollars, whatever he thinks you could pay him if you try really hard.

But again, he's likely not going to sue anyone with no income. When it comes to litigation, you only sue when there's money in it. When you think there's a chance that person might settle. It wouldn't be worth the cost of litigation or arbitration to go after people who can't offset the cost. Anyone who litigates like this is treating it like a business. He isn't concerned about "getting" people. He's concerned about how much money he can make off of them. Penny anti forums like mine might be fun if he's just mean spirited, but he'd get nothing out of it, other than a domain name that doesn't get that much traffic to begin with.