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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."

14 of 282 comments (clear)

  1. And people say by kidde_valind · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...the copyright system works and is perfectly sane.

    1. Re:And people say by Bootarn · · Score: 5, Funny

      Copyright fault (Lawyer dumped)

  2. The copyright notice by symbolset · · Score: 5, Informative

    It's right here

    --
    Help stamp out iliturcy.
  3. Well. by Warll · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I wouldn't be all that surprised to hear that this is just the host's way of kicking off a heavy bandwidth user.

    1. Re:Well. by Restil · · Score: 5, Informative

      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.

      --
      Play with my webcams and lights here
  4. Re:Not exactly copyright's fault... by NormalVisual · · Score: 5, Informative

    And in case anyone was wondering, it looks like their host is IX Web Hosting.

    --
    Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
  5. Re:There are plenty of hosts out there by Edgester · · Score: 5, Informative

    If you RTFA, then you would know that the ISP is denying him access to his data, and he has no other copies because his local hard drive died. Summary: Murphy struck and his ISP is holding the only copy of his data hostage until he can prove that he owns the copyright on the files.

    One could argue that his local hard drive was the backup to his ISP and vice versa. I have a co-worker who says you should always keep three copies of important data in different places. This lends weight to the three copies idea.

  6. Re:Might want to check that title... by philspear · · Score: 5, Funny

    Copyright holders by definition cannot violate their own copyrights.

    You say that, but I've violated my own copyrights several times. I can send you a video for $20, assuming you're over the age of 21.

  7. Re:There are plenty of hosts out there by SpacePunk · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I don't see any reason that the site owner couldn't contact the feds, and charge the ISP for data theft. If it were me, I'd look into something like trademark dilution also since the ISP is hosting ads on the domain name.

  8. Re:Not exactly copyright's fault... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Wow, that talking woman that pops up sure is annoying.

  9. Evite once rejected my logo... by mi · · Score: 5, Interesting

    There is a feature on Evite.com, which lets you associate your own icon with your "account". Obviously, using copyrighted images is prohibited.

    Well, the geniuses at Evite have deleted my logo, which I created in Paintbrush back in 1993 (before switching to Unix for good), because — they thought — it can't possibly be my own creation...

    Well, ass-covering, ignorant dimwits working for a corporation... Spit-spit-spit...

    Years later, the same image is forcibly deleted by Wikipedia — where it was only used on my own user-page.

    The idiocy spreads...

    Maybe, there is some artistic merit to that poorly-drawn cat on a castle wall? Should I try selling it or something?

    --
    In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
  10. Re:Not exactly copyright's fault... by Dachannien · · Score: 5, Informative

    Hilarious! A website I co-maintain switched away from IX just last week, because when they last recompiled PHP, they set the register_globals setting to "on", thus allowing our site (and who knows how many others) to get hacked. When we asked them about it, they claimed that the default setting in PHP 4 and 5 is "on", which isn't true (the default has been "off" since 4.2.0, in 2002, and the setting is being done away with altogether in PHP 6).

    They have horrible service, with response time to service tickets measured in days. We've had numerous issues with the database servers being pegged as they've expanded their customer base without upgrading their servers. You can't restore from backups without contacting customer service. Sure, it's cheap, but as they say, you get what you pay for.

    The incident mentioned by the OP is apparently the frosting on the cake.

  11. Quote Unquote are actually really good! by Stormx2 · · Score: 5, Informative

    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

  12. Re:There are plenty of hosts out there by frieko · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Hold on now. He contracted the storage of his data to professionals (the ISP) and retained a personal backup. What's stupid about thinking that would be sufficient? What's wrong with thinking that the people you contracted and paid to store and serve your data would actually do those things?