No, It isn't a joke but a scam. Just reading their FAQs section gives the scam vibes.
One of their victims took professional help, here's what he found: I saw a copyright attorney yesterday. He agrees with some of the other posts here-the letter was not written by an attorney! Yes, they are a real organization, but basically these are cease & desist letters. They are putting us on notice that they are watching us. If you buy something else now-they can sue you. My attorney is 99.9% sure they will not go through with this-as they would have to hold court in the Dallas Cowboys stadium! This is a copycat of how the music industry went after the people using Napster. Whoever wrote the letter is quoting non-existent laws, no such thing as Federal Copyright Law, it's just Copyright Law. Also, the sections of the law they are quoting are incorrect. The ESPC has no right to enforce "fines." Until you receive something with court documents attached-it means nothing. And-they would have to send it certified mail.
So, after suing McDonalds for not explicitely stating "hot" on a cup of hot coffee, people are suing Google for caching the content they posted on usenet.
Some people here do not side with Google. Interesting. Let's say I publish a book on the internet and charge through credit card to let people read it, through access control. But Google caches this book of mine and enables people to read it without having had to pay me. Most probably Google also makes money by doing it cuz they put relevant ads on the search results for my book. I am a non-techie and come to know too late of such things possible on internet. I get angry. First, I take all precautions to ensure google does not index my book. Probably I even remove it from the net. But Google's cache lives! And my book is forever available on the net. I use Google everyday to find out about movies, books, coding, viruses, news, recipes or whether my next date has a criminal record. I sue Google cuz the same feature that enables the above-mentioned usage also infringes on my copyright.
My emotions - Understandable. Logic in this argument - Questionable.
oh! the human ignorance! Think abt it!
The server my site is hosted on, also has a copy of my book. They also store multiple copies of all my data in case they need failover. What if someone working on the server is an avid reader and reads my book from that copy! Is it theft? What about copyright? I can get angry about it allright. But shud the ISP be taxed for my ignorance about how internet works? The guy in question seems to be not-so-dumb (hopefully) and the point is even further diluted: he is talking about newsgroups! When was the last time you thanked God, it's available indexed!
All search engines enable is a quick and efficient search of internet's data. Google goes a step further in the search and caches old contents. If I do not know about this and post something which I do not intend to be available on the net, it is same as saying I did a transaction but I do not intend the bank to keep a log of this transaction [net=bank, post=transaction]. I am not the only owner of the transaction. Similarly internet as a system is also an owner of my postings, be it on forums, websites or anything else. The system allows me to configure it. How can I complain cuz a part of the system (in this case, Google) lets people search the rest of the system.
I'll not be surprised to see caught criminals suing google cuz it made it easy to identify them. Or if Mr. Parker lives, I'll not be surprised to see him suing Google tomorrow for defamation, cuz he can't get a date as Google has kept a log of all news pertaining to this case;)
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No, It isn't a joke but a scam. Just reading their FAQs section gives the scam vibes.
..8 3
One of their victims took professional help, here's what he found:
I saw a copyright attorney yesterday. He agrees with some of the other posts here-the letter was not written by an attorney! Yes, they are a real organization, but basically these are cease & desist letters. They are putting us on notice that they are watching us. If you buy something else now-they can sue you. My attorney is 99.9% sure they will not go through with this-as they would have to hold court in the Dallas Cowboys stadium! This is a copycat of how the music industry went after the people using Napster. Whoever wrote the letter is quoting non-existent laws, no such thing as Federal Copyright Law, it's just Copyright Law. Also, the sections of the law they are quoting are incorrect. The ESPC has no right to enforce "fines." Until you receive something with court documents attached-it means nothing. And-they would have to send it certified mail.
And so on
original link http://forum.freeadvice.com/showthread.php?t=2024
So, after suing McDonalds for not explicitely stating "hot" on a cup of hot coffee, people are suing Google for caching the content they posted on usenet.
;)
Some people here do not side with Google. Interesting. Let's say I publish a book on the internet and charge through credit card to let people read it, through access control. But Google caches this book of mine and enables people to read it without having had to pay me. Most probably Google also makes money by doing it cuz they put relevant ads on the search results for my book. I am a non-techie and come to know too late of such things possible on internet. I get angry. First, I take all precautions to ensure google does not index my book. Probably I even remove it from the net. But Google's cache lives! And my book is forever available on the net. I use Google everyday to find out about movies, books, coding, viruses, news, recipes or whether my next date has a criminal record. I sue Google cuz the same feature that enables the above-mentioned usage also infringes on my copyright.
My emotions - Understandable. Logic in this argument - Questionable.
oh! the human ignorance! Think abt it! The server my site is hosted on, also has a copy of my book. They also store multiple copies of all my data in case they need failover. What if someone working on the server is an avid reader and reads my book from that copy! Is it theft? What about copyright? I can get angry about it allright. But shud the ISP be taxed for my ignorance about how internet works? The guy in question seems to be not-so-dumb (hopefully) and the point is even further diluted: he is talking about newsgroups! When was the last time you thanked God, it's available indexed! All search engines enable is a quick and efficient search of internet's data. Google goes a step further in the search and caches old contents. If I do not know about this and post something which I do not intend to be available on the net, it is same as saying I did a transaction but I do not intend the bank to keep a log of this transaction [net=bank, post=transaction]. I am not the only owner of the transaction. Similarly internet as a system is also an owner of my postings, be it on forums, websites or anything else. The system allows me to configure it. How can I complain cuz a part of the system (in this case, Google) lets people search the rest of the system.
I'll not be surprised to see caught criminals suing google cuz it made it easy to identify them. Or if Mr. Parker lives, I'll not be surprised to see him suing Google tomorrow for defamation, cuz he can't get a date as Google has kept a log of all news pertaining to this case
--- Pooja.