Copyright Violations: What you need to know as a member

Mike

Well-Known Member
Anybody who has actually read the forum rules (and yes, we make you acknowledge that you read them before posting) knows that we have a policy against posting copyright protected material.

Some of you may feel like if it is on Google, it is free to use. This is not the case, and people have lost lots of money learning this the hard way.

These days, website owners are even stepping up to the level of hiring services to monitor and protect their content from being stolen. Typically, this results in me getting a threatening message and me finding and deleting the content as quickly as I get the message. Sometimes, it goes further than that and you guys end up costing me some money.

These removal threats sometimes come at the simple request of a website owner, but sometimes come in the forum of a DMCA takedown notice. DMCA: Digital Millenium Copyright Act. The DMCA is a real thing and it protects people's content online.

This has gotten to the point that I must now take the official steps in protecting myself. As a rule, the owner of a website such as this isn't usually responsible for what a member posts, but thanks to the DMCA, there are no additional steps I must take to ensure I am protected from what others may post on this website. That means, more money spent and some additional documentation added to the rules.

I am currently in the process of getting set up with a registered agent who will field all DMCA complaints, and their contact information will be added to the terms/rules of the website so anyone finding their content here will have an easy path to get their content removed. Once my agent fields a complaint, it will be forwarded to me confidentially, and I will then have specific steps I must take to resolve the complaint.

As a rule, as long as I take all steps to remove content, that removes any responsibility from myself ( unless it was me that posted the material, of course).

As a member of this or any other online community, it is important to know that you can be pursued by the owner of the content if they can truly prove ownership. This means, they can potentially file a lawsuit and pursue you personally for compensation. While this would require much time and effort by the content owner and their legal team, you need to know it is a possibility.

The protections put into place that require me to set up this official process has been around since around 2016, I believe. I'm not 100% sure on that because I have pretty much ignored it up until this point. DMCA has been around since 1998, so I have been pretty much winging it up until this point.

I should have all the protections set up for the website within the next week or so, hopefully sooner. I will update this once it is complete.
 
Everything ever posted by @ironpony was copied and pasted from a website I own. You must immediately delete it or I'll sick Johnny Cochrane on your ass. 😁


Seriously though, what's to stop random people from demanding stuff be deleted simply because they don't like it? Do they have to prove they own the copyright on stuff or is the threatening legalese stuff going to panic website owners into immediate compliance with every demand?
 
All you have to do when quoting is cite the source. It's easy. No copyright violations then.

I used to be a moderator on another forum. It's not a hard thing to enforce.
 
All you have to do when quoting is cite the source. It's easy. No copyright violations then.

I used to be a moderator on another forum. It's not a hard thing to enforce.

You can quote a very small portion of something and cite the source, and most likely be ok under a “fair use” practice. It’s still no guarantee. The owner of the content may not want you posting it anywhere else and has the legal right to come after you for doing so.

Many websites will clearly state in their terms that you cannot use any of their content without consent. This means they have legal grounds to come after you if they want for even using a small snippet of their content.

I’ve ran into these issues simply posting news items from other websites. It’s a fine line between stealing content and citing a source. Ultimately, that line is decided by the content owner.
 
Well I hope they put me in a country club prison...lol

Has any of my stuff been in violation?? Asking for a friend...
 
Anybody got a brief synopsis of the original post?
Sure.

Basically @Mike was getting threats to take down copywrite material and that somtimes it cost $, also he is reminding us to be careful of what we post from the web.

And that he will eventually hire someone to better protect him/us here.
 
Last edited:
Sure.

Basically @Mike was getting threats to take down copywrite material and that somtimes it cost $, also he is reminding us to be careful of what we post from the web.

And that he will eventually hire someone to better protect him/us here.

And that is all done. The responsibility of the content posted on this forum now officially lies with the person posting the content.

DMCA
 

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