[cc-community] An online place to post
drew Roberts
zotz at 100jamz.com
Mon Jun 16 12:24:56 EDT 2008
On Sunday 15 June 2008 06:55, Lloyd wrote:
> drew Roberts wrote:
> > On Thursday 05 June 2008 23:11:30 jonathon wrote:
> >> On Thu, Jun 5, 2008 at 7:29 PM, Bobbie wrote:
> >>> One could probably spend most of every day online trolling for illegal
> >>> use of our materials: it almost makes one decide to stop designing new
> >>> patterns, kits, books, etc...
> >>
> >> Why don't you retain a law firm to file DMCA take down notices on your
> >> behalf, and to pursue civil, and or criminal copyright violations
> >> against those whoa re infringing upon your copyrights?
> >
> > I would guess it is the hassle, expense, and poor cost/benefit ratio...
> >
> > People want places like youtube to guess which content is authorized and
> > which is not and proactively police postings. (Could be impossible or
> > close to impossible at this point, certainly so expensive for these free
> > hosters that the services they offer to us will likely go away...)
> >
> > This is a difficult problem. At least, I see it as difficult. If anyone
> > has any good, easy solutions, I would love to hear them.
>
> Sue Google into oblivion.
Not a good solution for those of us who want to operate outside of the old
copyright game though is it?
> Or hope that Viacom prevails in their action
> against Google WRT to youtube.
I for one will not be doing that.
> In many ways Viacom are correct that
> Google's entire business plan on these sites is based around copyright
> violation (if only Google could make youtube pay). The violating
> material brings in the clicks to the site and thus gives the hosting
> site an opportunity to deliver ad impressions.
I am sure no non-violating material has a part in this.
> Google, and other hosting
> sites cynically hide behind their safe-harbour status whilst allowing
> their users to infringe on copyright.
Why is this cynical? The DMCA already gives too much power to the big
copyright players. And now they don't like how the law that they asked for
works?
>
> For all the brouhaha about the DMCA it is the most effective way that an
> independent content creator can get some redress. Very few actually want
> to sue a blogger or uploader.
So, you don't want to deal with the person that you think actually violated
your copyrights?
> Not only is it expensive, but the only way
> you'll get compensation is if the work happens to be registered with the
> US copyright office, and entitled to statutory damages.
So, it is not worth it to you to stop the copyright violations? (I don't like
the statutory damages myself.) You can't actually prove you have been damaged
by the violations of your copyrights?
> Most small
> producers don't register their copyright as it could in the past be
> cumbersome, and time consuming.
Strange how the law always seems to benefit the big boys somehow...
> What one wants is the violation to stop
Why would you want it to stop if it is not harming you?
> and the DMCA is perfect in that respect.
So, it is "perfect" is it?
>
> The problem is that Google and other sites based around copyright
> violation make the process more difficult than it need be, one has to
> either send them the DMCA by snail mail or FAX which is not always easy
> outside of the USA. Then they will haggle over whether all the Is are
> dotted and the Ts crossed. All the while scrapping ad revenue from their
> Adsense program on the infringing pages.
I guess it can't actually be perfect then.
>
> Having successfully got them to react to a DMCA the chances are that
> they will leave the infringing account in place, despite the fact that
> most of the rest of the content is obviously infringing too.
What makes content obviously infringing? The fact that it is copyrighted? How
exactly is some host to know if the content is submitted with permission or
falls under fair use?
>
> Flickr happens to be one of the few sites that will not tolerate users
> uploading infringing material. The DMCA can be sent by email, and if the
> account is an obvious repository of stuff from other source it will be
> deleted.
And the offender can't just sign up again with a new email address and do the
whole thing again?
As I say, I think it is a difficult problem to permit approved uses and fair
use uses and deny the rest. I am still interested in hearing from people with
ideas on actually solving this problem.
all the best,
drew
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