Forum Moderators: not2easy
I'm interested to hear from (you may use PM or write here) someone who's dealt w. similar repetitive violations to hear how you responded & whether you resolved the matter to yr satisfaction.
I do have an attorney, but suing the #*$!s would be so costly. I really want to get one of the sites in particular which is a fake blog established fraudulently in my name taken down entirely. But so far the webhost has refused siting Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.
The fact that there are multiple DMCA violations should argue in my favor & place them in greater jeopardy. If anyone can give me further details about these issues I'd appreciate hearing fr. you.
I should add that another of the websites is hosted by a Canadian company. Do Canadian hosts have to obey DMCA? How do you deal w. infringement when the host isn't U.S. based?
Do Canadian hosts have to obey DMCA?
Why on earth would you expect a Canadian host to have to obey a U.S. law?
The DMCA is the U.S. law that implements the 1996 WIPO international treaty, which the U.S. has ratified. Canada has not ratified the treaty.
How do Canadian hosts deal w. copyright violations?
Through their courts, presumably.
All they need to know is that you are the owner of the content. Check archive.org and see if your site has been cached. Check the infringing website's archive.org results too to find out when exactly they started duplicating your content. Send this info as a proof that you are the actual owner.
Also find out as much info as you can abt the infringing website. You can find out place of operation by sending a fake inquiry email and then scanning the email headers to find the location.
Once you have found out where they are located, you can threaten them with litigation.
Keep repeatedly contacting the abuse dept of the hosting company to ensure they abide by your request.
The only way you can use the DMCA against someone hosting in another country is to send the DMCA to the US based search engines to keep the sites from being found.
The form of notice specified below is consistent with the form suggested by the United States Digital Millennium Copyright Act (the text of which can be found at the U.S. Copyright Office Web Site, [copyright.gov)...] but we will respond to notices of this form from other jurisdictions as well.
From [google.com...]
Syzygy
Posting a picture of you (even if that picture is owned by you) for the purpose of ridiculing you is probably protected by fair use if you are a famous or public enough figure to merit someone posting a picture of you to ridicule you.
UPDATE -
I went through and read your posts from your blog. The people using your images are most likely protected under the fair use provisions in copyright law and the DMCA. You are engaging in a political debate about publicly important issues. Further, they seem to be making derivative works by editing the images.
Even though the other side has gone the lowbrow route, the courts will not examine the content of their speech. Also, you may be opening yourself to liability by submitting improper DMCA notices if their use of your images is protected.
I'll speak w. my attorney about this issue but he hasn't mentioned this issue to me at all. The way I understand "derivative work" is if you take a photograph and alter it in order to make a new artistic statement then it becomes derivative. That's hardly what they're doing.
I have other grounds besides DMCA though they would require a lawsuit. Namely, that the fake blog created in my name actually uses my name in the URL AND in the contact email address, which is a blatant attempt to confuse people into believing that I am actually the owner of the site. This damages my reputation & provides legal grounds.
I assure you I am not a public figure and my blog is not a major one.
Forget about copyright, go for the kill. Watch them pee their pants when they get that
Posting a picture of you (even if that picture is owned by you) for the purpose of ridiculing you is probably protected by fair use if you are a famous or public enough figure to merit someone posting a picture of you to ridicule you.
I don't think that's a correct interpretation of fair use. I just looked up the provisions of the law & it doesn't take into account ridicule. It DOES take into acct. parody as a legitimate form of fair use. But these images do not parody me, they attempt, along w. the accompanying text to shame or defame me.
Another thing to keep in mind: the fake blog site originally appropriated an image of me & my then 3 yr old baking cookies & added a caption saying that we were preparing bombs for Palestinian terrorists. I hope to God that fair use can't be used to protect sickos like that.
Thanks for that terrific advice & pep talk.
Unfortunately, the fake blog exists only to attempt to embarrass me. It's not commercial. But the C&D notices are a great idea as it lays the groundwork for possible lawsuits.
In these cases, send a DMCA notification to Google, referring to the fact that the infringing site is using Google Adsense to monetize the site. Works wonders! And pretty fast, too.
Background: Google Adsense does not want to deal with copyright infringing sites, thus these sites are threatened to be banned from Adsense right away. And this is something most sites want to avoid at all cost, so they remove the infringing content.
For me this has worked each and every time, even with sites where no contact information could be found on site.
