Affiliate sites sued over copyright infringement

[vinism]

Thanks Vin

From my standpoint, I just started to post reviews, articles and whatnot.....after this, I will no longer link to any articles or other sites. Wether its a snippet with link or any mention. Why take the chance? The only links and mentions on my sites will be from my other sites.


In the end, we all lose from this.

I'm sorry to here this Joe. And I do hope you reconsider. As Caruso said, quoting and linking is the lifeblood of the Web, and I'd hate to see you give that up because of what's happened in Mojo's case.

[pdjoe]

Awesome article Caruso. But I still don't see a reference to Righthaven suing anyone for publishing excerpts of articles.

Here ya go Terry sorry about being late.

Link

[thepokerkeep]

OK - I did find one small reference to people being sued for publishing partial articles:

At least five websites, for instance, had been sued through July 30 for posting the same four paragraphs of a six-paragraph blog by R-J Publisher Sherman Frederick about a Transportation Security Administration watch list of peeved travelers.

Source: Las Vegas Sun

I would really appreciate links to any other sources that refer to similar suits.

[pdjoe]

Thanks Vin,

In my case, its just not worth it.

Call me old, I just wouldn't take the time any more.

[thepokerkeep]

Here ya go Terry sorry about being late.

Link

Awesome! TYVM Joe. That's exactly what I'm looking for!!

[pdjoe]

the pleasure is only mine my friend!

[pgaming]

There are some PDF Court Papers dating back to May 2010 as well.

greek39

[Caruso]

Very nice Caruso always count on you for doing something!!While I am here would you mind if I quote and link to the article on my blog?

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010...fighting-back/
thanks

greek39

You don't have to ask, I wouldn't sue.

Yes, you're welcome to quote as much or as little as you want.

The only place where you and I part ways on this issue (I think), is when it comes to reposting an entire article. To me, that crosses the line. If you want to quote and link to it, that's fine. But don't copy the whole thing.

No, I don't disagree. Probably you should only quote bits, and probably most do anyway. But selected bits or the whole thing, LVRJ and the Righthaven legal trolls are out of order.

[pdjoe]

No, I don't disagree. Probably you should only quote bits, and probably most do anyway. But selected bits or the whole thing, LVRJ and the Righthaven legal trolls are out of order.

Don't quote anything from the Las Vegas Review Journal or you will be sued!

Even a few lines or a title will get ya!

Link

[pdjoe]

I have to say too,

This is just the beginning. This firm is involved with 70 different companys and papers. This is all just the beginning of things to come.

Law suites and trolling out the ass.

[TheGamblingGuru]

If they were concerned about their property, they'd fire off an email and say "kindly delete".

Been there, done that...it don't work!

Then they'd do the DMCA thing if that failed.

Been there, done that...it don't work! And in the slim chance that it does work, it takes forever and the original stolen article and title has already propagated through out the net and diminished and damaged the original work beyond repair...so what's the point?

THEN they'd sue.

Working on that one right now. I'm not going to tolerate content thieves any longer either. Too much time and effort and for what...the simpler solution is just to sue!

Perfect example of why your first two suggestions do not work Caruso, on July 30th I noticed where one of my game review articles was stolen and copied in full context here on this ass wipes site and republished in its entirety on July 28th, without even as much as a link-back:

xxx.gamblr.info/old-slot-machines/boy-kings-treasure-real-series-slot-game-review-gambling-gurus/

My original from first publishing on Jan. 27th 2010 is here:

www.thegamblinggurus.com/2010/01/boy-kings-treasure-real-series-slot.html

This ass wipe has been emailed, posted to on the site there and reported to the DMCA...nothing has happened to date as the stolen article is still live and in these type of situations with the serp's active every minute of every day then time is of the essence here...

I even tried going thru the affiliate program route that is currently advertising there on the page with my stolen content. I sent off an email to Keith Williamson of eToro on July 31st making him aware that his program was advertising on a website page with an entire word for word article stolen from my site.

Keith got back in touch with me on Aug. 1st asking me for my username with his program...I don't have a username with eToro because i'm not part of that program but why would or should that make a hill o' beans difference anyway?

Keith did say though that he sent an email to his director to start to look into this...err ok, have not heard anything back as of this moment.

eToro and also Cake Poker both have 120 x 600 banners there just to the left of the stolen article. IMO, that's guilt by association, condoning the theft, if you will, and indirectly profiting from it, and the thing that amazed me about this is the fact that my attorney agrees with this!

Cake Poker, I still have not heard from!
____
____

[pgaming]

Been there, done that...it don't work!

A wee bit different situation here. This lawyer dude went straight to lawsuit without any sort of notification. At least in your situation you took the time to follow certain procedures. Another difference these so called copyright infringements most provided credited the originating source.

We who labour in content hate to see it lifted, stolen, etc... it is real **** off. And lets face it is not a perfect system following certain procedures. I for one half dealt with likely thousands of content thieves in my days most cease upon first notification. If not I do other things basically treat them as they treat themselves. Let them chew on the same same standards they have imposed on themselves.

So Guru who is infringing on your content. Can I have a precise URL and I will swat the content from the page. The jerk is doing other sh*t your likely not aware of. Another one of those types of people.

Correct me if I am wrong but gamblr.info is hosted by hostgator and their Terms of Service is very clear.

2.) Content
All services provided by HostGator may only be used for lawful purposes. The laws of the State of Florida, the State of Texas, and the United States of America apply.

The customer agrees to indemnify and hold harmless HostGator from any claims resulting from the use of our services.

Use of our services to infringe upon any copyright or trademark is prohibited. This includes but is not limited to unauthorized copying of music, books, photographs, or any other copyrighted work. The offer of sale of any counterfeit merchandise of a trademark holder will result in the immediate termination of your account. Any account found to be in violation of anothers copyright will be expeditiously removed, or access to the material disabled. Any account found to be in repeated violation of copyright laws will be suspended and/or terminated from our hosting. If you believe that your copyright or trademark is being infringed upon, please email abuse@hostgator.com with the information required. A list of required information may be found here. If the request is of a licensing issue, we may require further documentation.

source: http://www.hostgator.com/tos/tos.php

As for programs endorse the crime, go ahead cake with standards so low maybe you will eventually dig a hole big enough for all of us. Take a freaking stand grow some ethics and hopefully this bizz maybe around for another year. Strike this aff from the program period.

Thanks

greek39

[TheGamblingGuru]

A wee bit different situation here. This lawyer dude went straight to lawsuit without any sort of notification. At least in your situation you took the time to follow certain procedures. Another difference these so called copyright infringements most provided credited the originating source.

Yep agreed, Thanks Greek....

I'm not even an a$$hole about it if like most they give a linkback to my original article...

So Guru who is infringing on your content. Can I have a precise URL and I will swat the content from the page. The jerk is doing other sh*t your likely not aware of. Another one of those types of people.

Yep, http://gamblr.info/ and here is all of the info that I have managed to track down so far on this puke....

To the best of my knowledge at the moment his real name is S**** S***** and one of his alais is DuckbillJones...also have found several of his social networking sites as well as some of his other websites....

http://gamblr.info/

http://digg.com/users/duckbilljones

http://nl.linkedin.com/in/*****

http://www.blogcatalog.com/user/DuckbillJones

hxxp://twitter.com/*****

hxxp://www.facebook.com/****

hxxp://www.blogged.com/profile/***

s*****.s****@gmail.com

duckbill.jones@gmail.com

http://vimeo.com/user2996833

http://jensca.dk/2009/03/23/5-freeware-photoshop-alternatives-and-web-based-photo-editing/

http://www.webtrafficagents.com/Whois/www.incrediblyfastcash.info

http://whois.domaintools.com/actofrage.com

http://whois.domaintools.com/gamblr.info

https://picplz.com/user/duckbilljones/

http://allyouneedislists.com/

http://*********.com/

http://www.last.fm/user/DuckbillJones

BESTFASTCASH.INFO

makemoneyonlineshop.info

moneycreation.info

http://www.sxc.hu/profile/*****

******@*********.com

mymakemoney.info

http://www.facebook.com/pages/ActOfRagecom/106142109434187

hxxp://onlineprofitforums.com

hxxp://allyouneedishotness.com

http://intensedebate.com/people/DuckbillJones

Correct me if I am wrong but gamblr.info is hosted by hostgator and their Terms of Service is very clear.

Yep, thats it Greek...

[PokerNations]

Sorry to hear that Mojo is having to deal with this, please keep us posted!

I just went through all the previous posts but didn't find anything about your liability if a member of your forum reposts an article from another site. Can they come after you if the republished content is on your site but wasn't put there by your company? Or would they have to contact you to remove the content first before making it a legal issue?

[thepokerkeep]

Sorry to hear that Mojo is having to deal with this, please keep us posted!

I just went through all the previous posts but didn't find anything about your liability if a member of your forum reposts an article from another site. Can they come after you if the republished content is on your site but wasn't put there by your company? Or would they have to contact you to remove the content first before making it a legal issue?

There are a number of forum owners who have been named in suits to date. A couple are in Canada. These guys are booking on quick settlements....

The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) settled a $75,000 for less than $3,000.

In one publicly disclosed settlement, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws agreed to pay $2,185 to settle allegations an R-J story was posted on its site. NORML attorneys said they arrived at that amount by examining the number of people who could possibly have viewed the article on a codefendant's servers (247), and multiplying that number by $2.95, which is what the R-J charges to purchase the story from its website archive. That dollar amount was then tripled to remove any doubt about the reasonableness of the settlement offer, the attorneys said.

Source

Here's a snippet from the Sun's article about third party posts:

But Ryan Gile, an intellectual property attorney at the Las Vegas law firm Weide & Miller, said the YouTube ruling may be of little assistance to some defendants, particularly small website operators that can’t afford to litigate against Righthaven.
“For those websites where the R-J articles were posted by third parties, the DMCA was always going to be their best defense against copyright infringement liability. But in order to successfully invoke the DMCA safe harbor, the defendant website may still have to endure months of discovery by Righthaven to show that the website meets the specific criteria for protection under the DMCA. If the defendant is a corporate entity and must hire a lawyer to represent it in court or if the defendant is an out-of-state individual and must hire a local lawyer to represent them in court, then just proving that you are completely immune from any liability is still a large financial burden that most little guys simply can’t afford," Gile said.

And here's a link to a PDF document showing a response from a forum owner: (hope it works!)
LINK

If the above link doesn't work, try this one.

[Betpartners]

I am not surprised by these actions, the writing has been on the wall for a while now.

What Righthaven are doing is wrong and a money grab without any doubts but the publishing industry is striking back and striking back very hard.

News International owners of The Times, Fox network etc have been leading calls for some time now at various conferences and seminars that their work should not be available for free even in link form.

They have already instigated a pay wall round The Times and intend to do that across all their websites, they have forced newsnow to stop linking to them and will go after anyone that does link to them, even if it is just a headline that is being linked to.

They have the support of a lot within the media industry although their biggest target remains the BBC, they feel the BBC is undermining quality journalism by giving its content away for free (Though British TV License payers will argue its hardly free)

There is a drive across the industry now to go against copiers, linkers, downloaders etc, they want piracy stopped, they want their content protected and are prepared to go after anyone that stands in their way and considering how much money is at stake you can be assured they will never give in.

I dont know how much The Times is now charging, i think its something like £1 a day and unless they get subscriber levels up then they stand no chance of attracting advertisers and so failure to get subscribers will cost them fortunes and they will not allow that to happen if they can help it.

I sympathise to a certain extent but it is now going too far and the web as we know it is changing, nothing will be free soon, the lawyers will make sure of that

What Righthaven have done smells awful but i fear they are just the tip of the iceberg and i would not be surprised to see the likes of News International and other publishers employing such companies to carry out their dirty work for them, they want to protect their assets now no matter the cost to smaller website owners, even when those small websites are in fact sending quality traffic through to them and doing nothing more than just linking.

[Caruso]

Oh come on. HTF is a link a copyright infringement? That's staggering bullshit.

Of course, if someone copies a whole article and DOESN'T even provide a link, that's out of order. It'd be out of order, though bizarre, to quote a bit without a link. If they copy the whole article but do provide a link, maybe that's marginal - I've done that myself on just one occasion. But the internet is built, in large part, on quoting and linking. INTER-NET: the clue's in the word. Hello??

Do these people not understand the value to their websites of links?

Is it the lack of the link credit that is causing this grossly ill-informed overreaction?

Been there, done that...it don't work!

But the point is that you did it. Your interest is clearly the integrity of your property. Obviously, if contact doesn't work you take it as far as you can. But that isn't the case here.

[pgaming]

Yep, thats it Greek...

Guru,

I contacted Host Gator early this morning. Host Gator confirmed with me the infringing domain holder is in violation of their Terms of Services on MANY levels. They were very clear and supportive that this is clearly conduct they do not support and have zero tolerance for.

Anyway refile a DMCA and send it along they are expecting it. From there all sites connected to the scraper's host will be shut immediately. As I mentioned this person is in gross violation of their Terms of Service.

Host Gator is also aware of this thread. They are very supportive!

Hope this helps.

greek39

[universal4]

Guru,

I will pm a short list of violations I found on the domain you posted...it is pretty clear this individual copies a LOT....

Rick
Universal4

[pgaming]

Guru,

I will pm a short list of violations I found on the domain you posted...it is pretty clear this individual copies a LOT....

Rick
Universal4

Host Gator took the complaint very seriously not only with the one domain but several. I be thinking all this persons work are mere copies.

Thanks for the help Rick in the end it really does affect us all.

greek39