Irvine resigns thread

[Northeastwrecks]

SeaJay once bubbled...
Some of us aren't intimidated. I recommend the position.

What you are saying, in essence, is that you don't care that what you are doing is illegal and that you will do it until someone forces you to stop.

That's works until someone decides to enforce their rights. I love the "deer in the headlights" look that defendants get the first time they show up in Court and realize that this is not a drill.

The most memorable was a student who was mirroring my university clients' website, then inserting his own commentary. We sued him, got an injunction, then expelled him.

His defense revolved around his claim that (1) the First Amendment allowed him to use our marks and copyrights; (2) we were persecuting him; and (3) copyright law was unconstitutional.

 

[Bob3]

© Copyright notice -- When a Web page is created, its contents are immediately copyrighted under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act: H.R.2281/Public Law 105-304 (whether or not it carries a copyright notice.)

*hijacking the thread even further*

How about that "Cyber Diver" website, their normal operating procedure is to plagiarize "news" articles. They've been doing it since day one & they haven't been busted for it yet.

 

[chrpai]

I've always wondered about that.

They post in the lightest shade of grey known to man kind at the bottom of the article who the original source was, and copy the whole dang article.

PS don't worry about hijacking, this thread wasn't really going anywhere anyways.

 

[Northeastwrecks]

It all comes down to economics.

IP litigation is expensive. It isn't worth policing every infringement unless you've got a good reason, the defendant annoys you or you want to make a statement.

 

[Genesis]

but what are you going to sue over?

Get an injunction? Sure. You. Now the next guy who they lift from has to do it too, and the next, and the next. In the meantime you have to spend a fair bit on the fees to get the injunction. Is it worth it? Probably not - isn't the point of publishing it freely on the net that lots of people read it?

Economic damages? Good luck. The article was published online in the first place, and freely accessible. He's not charging for the material. How were you harmed, exactly? Good luck making that case stick, especially since he attributes the material.

Statutory damages? Forgetaboutit. The individual work was not registered when lifted - that is a near-certainty. No statutory damages available.

So you can spend a few bucks getting a nasty letter written and send it, and he'll probably take it down. If he just ignores you though then you have some tough choices to make, since fees and costs are not always (in fact, almost never) awarded, and he may just string you along until a summons appears and then pull the item - now you've spent a few thousand on fees and your complaint is dismissed as moot. Oops.

People practice extortion-by-lawyer on these issues all the time. The lawyers love it, as its a nice revenue stream for doing nothing other than cutting and pasting a form threat.

15 minutes - taking longer to address the envelope than write the letter - for $250 - nice work if you can get it.

The problem is that clients are stupid, in general, about these things, and lawyers tend to encourage this. Why wouldn't they? Its not in the best interest of their billable time clock to tell a client who calls them about something like this to forget about it; that only generates $50 for the phone call. If you can get the client riled enough to file for an injunction, you might be able to turn that $25 into $5,000 worth of billing - or more.

(BTW, one of my best friends in Chicago was a high-profile IP litigator, and the guys who handled my legal work up there were "top shelf" business attorneys in a number of disciplines, including IP. We'd often chat about this stuff over a game of golf; I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I actually had them send a nastygram to someone. They were honest enough to force their clients to analyze the benefits/costs of such garbage - unfortunately, an awfully high percentage of counsel are not.)

 

[SeaJay]

Steve_S once bubbled...
Hello SeaJay

RE: Your site: http://www.deepsouthdivers.org/

Hosted by and their AUP: http://www.bblabs.net/BBL_AUP.html

This document says and Fair use Exstraction:

<snip>

My site is not hosted by BBLabs. The information that you have is outdated.

Am I to infer from your last posts that you have not obtained prior approval from the owners of the images posted on your site?

No. I have done so. The images - the ones with the appropriate credits as a footer - were used with permission. Legal or not, I consider it morally correct to ask permission before using someone else's work.

I've never felt otherwise... And have not implied otherwise.

What I said, specifically, is that I am not aware of any case where a defendant was tried and found guilty of copyright infringement for placing a link or a proper quotation on an Internet forum, or forwarding an email... And implying that someone is guilty of copyright infringement for doing the same is unwarranted and incorrect.

Prove me wrong. If you can show me a case, then I will retract my statements and apologize.

 

[SeaJay]

Northeastwrecks once bubbled...


What you are saying, in essence, is that you don't care that what you are doing is illegal and that you will do it until someone forces you to stop.

That's not what I said at all.

What I said was, "I am not aware of any case where a defendant was tried and found guilty of copyright infringement for placing a link or a proper quotation on an Internet forum, or forwarding an email... And implying that someone is guilty of copyright infringement for doing the same is unwarranted and incorrect."

Please don't put words in my mouth. That's basically what happened on the Quest list.

If you really have a problem with something that I am doing, then I invite you to sue me for copyright infringement. You're welcome to sue me if you like, but I don't think it'd go very far.

Give it a shot... See what happens.

 

[DIR]

http://www.aerialimages-photo.com/Copyrite.htm


http://www.tipz.net/sins_copyright.htm


http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/law/st_org/iptf/articles/content/1999060401.html

 

[Northeastwrecks]

SeaJay once bubbled...


That's not what I said at all.

What I said was, "I am not aware of any case where a defendant was tried and found guilty of copyright infringement for placing a link or a proper quotation on an Internet forum, or forwarding an email... And implying that someone is guilty of copyright infringement for doing the same is unwarranted and incorrect."

Please don't put words in my mouth. That's basically what happened on the Quest list.

If you really have a problem with something that I am doing, then I invite you to sue me for copyright infringement. You're welcome to sue me if you like, but I don't think it'd go very far.

Give it a shot... See what happens.

You said that you don't care what the law says, you know better and will do what you want because you don't agree with the law. That's your choice.

Your interpretation of the law is heavily flawed and lacks support. All a plaintiff would need to establish is that they have created the work, that it is entitled to copyright protection, that you violated their exclusive rights by copying or by some other act. If they want an injunction, that's about it (irreparable harm is presumed). If they want money, proof of registration in accordance with Sec. 411 or proof of actual damages is all that it takes.

Your claim that it has never happened before would not fly. Tasini and the other cases I cited earlier make it clear that the internet is not a copyright free zone.

I frequently remind my students that, when making an argument or writing a brief, "what you think the law should be is not important. What is important is your ability to show the judge why the law and the facts support your version of the case."

You can't provide anything that tells me that copying people's work is legal. I have provided you with plenty of support for the contrary position.

Sadly, I doubt that you've infringed enough copyrights to make it worth a client's money. But that doesn't make your behavior right.

Moreover, since Sec. 411 provides for registration after infringement in certain circumstances, it would be a pretty clean case.

DIR: Great links. thanks. The photo site is particularly good.

 

[Genesis]

As usual, the first site overstates his case. What else is new?

Statutory damages are only available in certain limited situations. Specifically, the work must be REGISTERED under 17 USC 412 to claim statutory damages.

Here is a SPECIFIC cite with case law to support it:

"A plaintiff may not recover an award of statutory damages and attorney's fees (emphasis mine) for infringements that commenced after registration if the same defendant commenced an infringement ofthe same work prior to registration." Mason v. Montgomery Data, Inc., 967 F.2d 135 (5th Cir.1992).

Photographs are almost NEVER registered individually.

Now books, music CDs, movies, etc almost always ARE registered, because (1) the publisher WANTS to be able to go after people for statutory damages, (2) it positively establishes authorship, and (3) its reasonably inexpensive, compared to the total production cost of the work.

You can always get ECONOMIC damages. But STATUTORY damages and fees are a special cases. Further, you can't register something AFTER the infringement commences and then sue for statutory damages - the effective registration date must be BEFORE the infringement.

This is just another example of people playing the "fear game" - complience by legal browbeating, distortion and perhaps even extortion.

Most of the time, if you did not register the work, there is no way its worth it for you to sue. Threaten, yes. Sue, no. You cannot recover your fees and costs, and even if you win you are limited to actual economic damages. Since fees and costs often exceed actual economic damages, you're an absolute idiot to bring such a case.

Copyright is a VERY LIMITED protection for most situations, and a legally worthless protection without registration in virtually all cases where infringement occurs. The exception is found where a very high-value dissemination of information has taken place through a "back-door" channel. Even there, the litigation costs may well exceed the economic damages! For most works, unless you register it BEFORE an infringement takes place, you are absolutely SOL in terms of ACTUALLY recovering anything IN YOUR POCKET (as opposed to in your LAWYERS pocket) for infringements, and bringing such suits borders on certifyable insanity.

In my non-lawyer (but well-read) opinion, of course. Barristers may see things differently, given that they get paid the same amount whether you receive enough money to even cover their fees from the ensuing judgment or not!