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Toyota Demands Removal of Fan Wallpapers
An anonymous reader writes "TorrentFreak reports that Toyota's lawyers have recently contacted computer wallpaper site Desktop Nexus in a blatant example of DMCA abuse. Toyota issued a blanket request to demand the immediate removal of all member-uploaded wallpapers featuring a Toyota, Lexus, or Scion vehicle (citing copyright violation), regardless of whether Toyota legally holds the copyright to the photos or not. When site owner Harry Maugans requested clarification on exactly which wallpapers were copyrighted by Toyota, he was told that for them to cite specifics (in order to file proper DMCA Takedown Notices), they would invoice Desktop Nexus for their labor."
All you're doing is taking down free advertisements all around the world and giving yourself a bad name...
Is any more evidence required for average people to avoid these 'too large for their own common sense' companies?
What I'd like someone to do is to produce a DMCA takedown order for Toyota on a piece of clothing that is worn by an actor in one of Toyota's ads.
It would be better to serve them an order to remove all ads containing clothes for copyright violation and then invoice them when they ask you to indicate which ads are violating copyright.
"Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
Directly attacking the fans who are providing free advertising of your product is about as stupid as it gets.
Ignore the notice. It's clearly not properly formed, and should provide great evidence, should Toyota decide to start suing this guy.
~ C.
Just because somebody sends you an invoice doesn't mean that you have to pay it.
This, in fact, is a common scam technique, where somebody will send to a small business some sort of random invoice (sometimes to larger businesses) demanding payment for some random "service" that has been provided.
They (Toyota) should know full well that if they actually take legal action to collect on these invoices, that they would be thrown out of court.
But of course that does mean you have to appear in court (often not in a convenient venue) and defend why you have refused to pay on the bill if you are refusing payment.... and you have to give formal notice to the person submitting the invoice that you dispute the terms of service.
Still, if I were running this website, I would refuse payment as the DCMA is quite clear about what the law is here in terms of legal requirements to take down photos or "copyrighted content".
At the same time, who "owns the copyright" on a picture of a Lexis or other vehicle is something that can be debated in court. Yes, the photographer who made the image in the first place has rights, as does the property owner (if it wasn't in a "public" place). The physical structure of the vehicle itself can also be considered "a work of art"... which is what I guess Toyota is trying to do here. So yeah, they do have a slight point even if Toyota didn't physically take the photo.
Still, this is a P.R. nightmare and something most companies don't want to either bother with or are usually tickled that somebody is promoting their product over and above their competitors. Frankly, rather than demanding a take-down of the pictures, they ought to be sending professionally looking pictures with full republication and distribution rights granted.
If they cannot point out the specific photos they own copyrights with, Nexus does not have to comply out of obscurity of the notice. Simple as that. Try to bring that to court Toyota!
While we're at this spread the word to all major news network and let them broadcast the clip for a few minutes in evening news (or better yet, put that in the Morning section of Headline News). Let's see who is the ultimate winner here.
The proper response? Bill Toyota right back for each and every takedown.
Don't tell us, tell the board members of Toyota. Write a polite, well formed letter expressing your above stated concern. Your letter won't make a difference. My letter won't either. But when they get enough of those, the idiots responsible for this fiasco will be found and taken out of the loop.
The difficulty here is that some of those wallpapers might have official Toyota photos that have been airbrushed or had something added. That would make them derivative works, and they would be under Toyota's copyright. But there is no way for the site owner to know that. And if Toyota won't tell him which ones, then he is kinda stuck.
Legal question here: Is the site owner safe under DMCA safe harbor? He hasn't received a DMCA request, and he isn't advertising or selling the images. He is just a content provider. What if the owner puts a check box during the upload process saying "[ ] I certify that this image is copyrighted by USERNAME and is not created from any copyrighted works" and someone lies?
I know Wikipedia handles this by having a big paragraph about copyright when images are uploaded, and when you click on the image you see that boilerplate.
... he was told that for them to cite specifics (in order to file proper DMCA Takedown Notices), they would invoice Desktop Nexus for their labor."
My first reaction was, "What idiot laywers, no court would award them that. Maybe they hope that the website won't spend the money to fight them." But I thought about it for a few seconds, and if the onus is on the infringer to make sure that they are not infringing, then it makes sense for them to be billed. I'm not saying it is the responsibility of the infringer to be sure they're not infringing, but if that's the case, then it's a little easier to see where this seemingly crazy statement actually came from.
Except the site owner isn't the infringer and the DMCA makes sure they can not be treated as such.
Yes, and there is something else many people seem to forget: An invoice does not necessarily indicate a debt owed.
In other words, "Invoice me all you want, you morons. I ain't gonna pay it!"
Sheesh...
You have the right to remain silent. If you don't, anything you say will be misquoted and used against you.
Maybe they aren't so stupid after all.
This entire discussion consists of 2 parallel discussions -
1) These DMCA notices will draw all kinds of attention to the website in question.
2) The website in question is completely favorable to Toyota, why would they shut it down?
Answer is pretty obvious, my friends.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
You might want to look that one up.
I really think the penalty for trademark abuse is loss of all IP rights.
A Shadeless room is a brighter room.
That just doesn't matter. Don't prosecute things that are benefitting you. To make an analogy: Suppose you were standing on your front lawn with your wife when she collapsed, unable to breathe. When you ran inside to call an ambulance, someone off the street ran up and successfully administered the Heimlich, saving her life. Do you prosecute him for trespassing? Do you quibble about whether the law is on your side?
Think about it. Yeah.
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
Note that I've no idea if he's actually a Christian or not: it was just an example.
This is America. You can assume that any given American is a white christian male, because most of us are the first two, and most of the notable ones are the latter.
Your situation is not analogous.
Your content was put up by you or your agents whereas the content put up on the site in question is put up by **users** and is held to a different standard of liability. The website owner is protected by the Safe Harbor provision of the DMCA, which is why this thread is specifically about the DMCA.
I am looking to buy an economical pickup truck. I was going to buy a Toyota, Think I'll get a Nissan instead, send a copy of the invoice and canceled check to Toyota, and tell them why.
Ignorance is curable, stupid is forever.
Please specify what law are you basing your argument on. Nothing in law supports your reasoning. In fact DMCA forbids it. As a copyright owner you have to specify under oath (perjury) exactly the thing that infringes your copyright for the website to take it down. The website owner does not have to go on a hunting spree.
As it is, Desktop Nexus should simply ignore it because it is not a proper DMCA take down notice, and if the idiot lawyers should prosecute, they should be counter demanded for negligent practice plus damages, plus pain and suffering
And there goes coffee through my nose.
What you describe is something that existed in copyright law even before the DMCA. If you are the one making the decision about what to put up, then you are responsible for making sure you don't put up anything that infringes on any copyright. While the DMCA can be applied even to such cases, it doesn't even have to. The copyright owner can use the traditional legal methods against you.
What this part of the DMCA is for is to deal with cases where the web site does NOT make the decisions. When user postings are involved, the DMCA included a provision to protect internet access providers (and this includes web sites hosting user submitted material, not just an ISP running a hosting service for user web sites) ... provided the ISP does certain things spelled out in the law to gain this safe harbor (register their agent, do the takedown, etc). As long as the ISP does these things, the DMCA protects them from liability.
So if you as a webmaster put up copyrighted content, the ISP hosting your website would be protected if they follow the DMCA, but you would not be protected. The copyright owner could still pursue you for the past damages even if the site stays down. Having it taken down may be enough to make many copyright owners happy enough not to pursue you, but that option is open to them.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
You can ignore physics all you want, rest assured that it won't forget you.
but this is /. and no one is ever wrong here!
What are you talking about? Anyone who disagrees with me is wrong. ;)
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
It's called impact absorbtion.
Her car absorbed the impact, yours didn't. If you'd been hit by another SL-1 you'd both have ended up with injuries as neither car would have absorbed the impact. Hint, being in a rigid steel box that doesn't absorb impact is a bad thing. Without the car absorbing anything, you get hit by your car as hard as it was hit... which leads to things like hospital trips.
As it was, she subsidized you, and you walked away unhurt. Be glad.
And why in the heck did you pick the Mustang for your example? You do realize that it is, in no way, a cornering machine? It's made to go (kinda) fast in a straight line and that's it. Hell, it has a live rear axel!
Physics. It's a wonderful thing.
i don't want my car to fragment on impact. I want my car to protect me, no matter what Detroit says about crumple zones, i will never drive a car that is designed to fail.
Oh. So rather than having the crash energy absorbed by predictable crumple zones you'd rather have it focus straight into the passenger compartment and into your body and brain. Well, I suppose it's one example of Darwinism.
BD Phone Home!
Shameless plug. Like you weren't expecting it.
The consequences of everyone doing what they want would be the country we live in. Improvement is always possible, and I applaud your goals if not your methods. Shout your message from the rooftops, its a fine thing to believe so heartily in improving the world we live in.
Unfortunately, you choose to see most people as too stupid to comprehend your message, and goals, that is evident in your tone and manner of spreading your ideas.
You propose to dictate to people how they should go about their lives, telling them how they should do things. This directly contradicts with the Declaration of Independence and several articles of the Bill of Rights.
DoI:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
Not your happiness, each their own.
Chuck
You propose to dictate to people how they should go about their lives, telling them how they should do things.
Ah yes, well, those are called "laws". I'm for them, in principle. Sorry you're not. To be more precise, I'm rather for telling people what they can't do (basically, behaving unsustainably or abusing commons). As for what they can, I will offer only suggestions there, but I have some good ones :)
This directly contradicts with the Declaration of Independence and several articles of the Bill of Rights.
If you interpret "Liberty" (or whatever) as the freedom to do whatever you like, then sure. In which case, I'm sure you can see that the quotation/interpretation you furnished provides perfect justification for me to insert a piece of rutabaga into your left nostril. Or dump carcinogens, toxins, greenhouse gases, etc into air that you were thinking of breathing...
The people who wrote that were trying to start a war. It was a political document, not a philosophical one. They were influenced by political philosophy, to be sure, but also by rhetoric, and for that matter completely ignorant of what problems the future would bring. Treating it as gospel is almost as bad as, well, treating gospel as, er, gospel.
"The biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place."
Children, watch carefully now: this is natural selection in action.