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Record Label Infringes Own Copyright, Site Pulled
AnonCow sends in a peculiar story from TorrentFreak, which describes the plight of a free-download music site that has been summarily evicted from the Internet for violating its own copyright. The problem seems to revolve around the host's insistence that proof of copyright be snail-mailed to them. Kind of difficult when your copyright takes the form of a Creative Commons license that cannot be verified unless its site is up. "The website of an Internet-based record label which offers completely free music downloads has been taken down by its host for copyright infringement, even though it only offers its own music. Quote Unquote Records calls itself 'The First Ever Donation Based Record Label,' but is currently homeless after its host pulled the plug."
I mean, the market for hosting is so huge they shouldn't have a problem finding a company that actual understands CC and won't pull their site right away. I hope they do.
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Copyright holders by definition cannot violate their own copyrights. They have the (copy)right to do with their own material as they see fit.
Their host chose to pull the plug on this website because they thought it was a risk, and because of their own lame policies. It's not like anyone actually sued for copyright infringement. The host, not the band, is who loses here. They can just go find another host who is more worthy of their service.
Well, most hosting providers actually expect their customers to use a significant amount of the bandwidth they provide, and enforce quotas when reached. If a customer used 100% of their allocated bandwidth they would at most be cut off for the duration of their payment period, or given the option to purchase additional bandwidth. This isn't like a cable company offering "unlimited" bandwidth and retroactively redefining the meaning of unlimited.
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The advantage to copyright registration is to be able to prove ownership if questions arise. Anything created is immediately copyright by the creator, but that can be challenged by a thief if there's no record. The creative commons is just a license people stick on their material, but it's still not proof that they own the copyright. Someone can just come along, challenge the material in court as their own, and maybe win that challenge without a copyright registration. It's not all that expensive to do, and the owner can always release the work under creative commons. AFAIK, there's no restriction to that.
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But then you get into resellers selling hosting as unlimited (which is quite common these days) when it's just a virtual server with no such lack of restrictions.
And there's thousands of these guys out there now. Fly by nighters that disappear after they take in a few bucks and hit their limits.
The website was pretty well made, and they had Bomb The Music Industry! signed. Silly name aside, they are a really marvelous blend of punk, twee, and brass, something I could normally never appreciate
They gave away stencils and cds at shows for free, so that fans could make their own t-shirts. They've got a brilliant DIY ethic going on, and they became something of an underground hit without even properly releasing a CD.
So I don't know who tagged this "andnothingofvaluewaslost", but you don't know what you're talking about.
It's very easy to complain about how the RIAA does things, but you need to think up solutions, as well as identifying problems, or you're just being annoying. Quote Unquote make the perfectly valid point that some artists aren't interested in wealth, and can get by on donations alone. Obviously it suits some bands better than others, but it's _a_ solution, not the only solution
In fact, EVERY web site that is not empty has copyrighted material on it. Copyright comes into being at the time of creation.
Well, you could put up a website with only public-domain content on it.
No, you're completely wrong there about forums. Fortunately, the chances of it being tested in court are slim to none. But anyway: it's libel if it's published and ANY third party (beyond the sender and the person being defamed) see it. So an email to one person is not libellous. If however you CCed it to even one other person, then it is potentially libellous. Having right of reply is irrelevant.
I hear what you're saying...it's baffling that anyone could defend current US copyright law. But in this case, isn't the problem with a very uninformed web hosting provider taking the wrong action? There was not a DMCA notice issued, but rather the host just decided to pull the site because they (wrongly) assumed it was copyright violations. The RIAA was not behind this, as the content was not even in their reach.
:q!
The deletion summary on Wikipedia says "GFDL presumed". All images on Wikipedia must have a proper license - in this case, it doesn't appear to have had a free license (it was tagged with {{logo}}, which at the time doesn't seem to have included any information regarding copyright). If you want to use it on Wikipedia, you'll have to release it under a free license.
>Fair enough
Not fair at all. First of all, if the blog and myspace post are accurate, then the ISP is citing their TOS as the agreement that requires this. The TOS here dated June 16:
http://www.ixwebhosting.com/index.php/v2/pages.tos#q21
says *nothing* about copyright registrations being required or any other provenance for hosted content. If they don't have some other reason for the service outage, I'd speculate that they're making up the "terms" as they go.
>why record label dude doesn't simply register
I see no indication of how many files we're talking about. Depending on how it's structured, $35/file could add up to cash that a struggling artist does not have. They probably would not be needed later either, as I think most folks are inclined to respect CC license provisions.
Still, it's hardly a problem going forward. If the label's report bears scrutiny, then the IX brand is toxic.
The problem is that there WAS no DMCA notice.
What likely happened (I speak from experience as someone who did this) is that the server that they were hosted on was over X% of disk space usage.
So the $8/h technician assigned to that server goes on the server and does a find for any files larger than X and maybe files matching some "bad" extensions like "mp3,avi,mpeg" etc.
Technician finds ANY mp3 files on a account and immediately asks for "proof of copyright" (they mean proof of authorization to distribute). 'Quote Unquote Records' fails to provide "proof" and is suspended.
This was part of my responsibilities as a level 3 tech at large shared hosting provider.
The main issue here is IX is not being as "copyright" hero or even protecting their own legal ass; they are simply out to reduce the costs of their overselling.
The practical solution to this problem when HOSTING any files that could possibility be considered "copyrighted content" by the dumbest moron you can find is to CONTACT YOUR HOST FIRST and have them note on the account that the content is YOURS.
The ideal solution is to a) host your own shit b) go with a reputable provider.
I looked up a few wikipedia pages on corporations and they had the company logos on them.
I think wikipedia succeeds _despite_ the efforts of the admins.
Maybe one day the admins will have the wikipedia exactly the way they want it to be. All the nonfree pictures removed, all the "not notable" information/pages deleted.
And that's the day everyone else starts using something else.
here's a partial transcript from Live Chat with an IX Webhost Rep (be warned. there's a lot of incoherent rambling because the customer service rep is from Ukraine, and i think there was a slight communications barrier):
The same thing happened to Kahvi.org a few years back. Kahvi.org hosts free legal music, sent for release by the artists themselves under various licensing, many a times Creative Commons etc. Someone decided that nobody can really be giving legal music away for free, and called Kahvis ISP, which promptly pulled the plug without even consulting with Kahvi staff. They were understandably pissed off, and terminated their contract with said ISP immediately. Theyre still going good, and serving free and good electronic tunes...
The moment you write it, you have the copyright. If you want to extend your copyright, only then do you need to do something.
Copyright is a default.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
doing it on-line only costs $35, much less than an attorney would charge you just to discuss the issue.
I have some experience with lawyers, as my ex-wife once successfully sued the city of Springfield when I was married, and I've been divorced and bankrupted, both endeavors of which necessitate legal council. A lawyer will NOT charge youto "discuss the issue" unless you already have him or her on retainer. (S)He will tell you if you have a case or not for free.
If it is you who is doing the suing, in most cases the lawyer will take 1/3 of any settlement and 1/2 of any judgement, meaning if you lose you don't pay him or her. If someone is suing you you have to pay, but in many cases your lawyer can countersue.
In almost all cases, when you need a lawyer a lawyer is worth the money.
However, you are correct that you need no lawyer to register a copyright; I've registered two of them (IIRC the fee was only ten bucks when I registered mine). Should you need to sue someone for copyright infringement, yes then you need a lawyer and no, you don't have to pay the lawyer to tell you if you have a case or not.
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You're partly right. As soon as you record something "in fixed form" (on paper, hard drive, CD, or whatever), the copyright is yours. But if you want to go to court over it, you'll want to have it registered.
From the Copyright Office website: