Forum Moderators: martinibuster
Here's the url that applies specifically to "online works": [copyright.gov...]
Has anyone here ever done this? If you did, did you simply burn your site to a cd, pop it in an envelope, and mail it off?
1) Copyright isn't universally respected.
2) It's easier to register a copyright than it is to enforce it.
3) Copyright registration doesn't prohibit "fair use."
Actually, I can live with "fair use" (I guess that's the altar at which scrapers pray). Wholesale copying of a site is what I'd like to defend against, at least somewhat. And if a registered copyright holds at least some promise of exacting monetary pain on a content thief, it's worth the 30 clams to me.
EFV, did you just burn your site onto a disc and mail it?
Don't forget that registration isn't a requirement to obtain a copyright, it mostly helps with enforcing your rights. But honestly, if some scraper site in another country is grabbing your content and publishing it, how exactly will the registration help you?
the lost opporunity cost of the time you'll spend filling out the forms and gathering all the content.
Seems like it would only take less than an hour to burn your site to a CD and fill out a form?
Not much of a lost opportunity to help protect your intellectual property.
I think the cost is only 30 dollars. If your site doesn't make at least 30 dollars each month, I guess you're right. It's not worth the effort.
"mostly helps with enforcing your rights."
Exactly. Isn't that worth 30 bucks? Sounds like a no-neuron, no-brainer to me.
"how exactly will the registration help you?"
By allowing you to pursue damages, which, in itself, may be a sufficient threat to thieves you UNVEIL the threat to. Also, having your site copyrighted eliminates the issue of "who had the page or site in question first". That probably makes it a lot easier to prove your point with an offender's domain registrar, hosting service, etc.
"Seems like it would only take less than an hour to burn your site to a CD and fill out a form?"
Right. What's so hard about that? My dog could probably do it.
EFV, did you just burn your site onto a disc and mail it?
Yes.
Registration is worthwhile for two reasons:
1) It may come in useful if you need to support a DMCA complaint; and...
2) In the United States, at least, statutory damages (what you can get if your copyright is registered) can many, many, many times higher than real damages (which is all you can hope for if your copyright isn't registered).
I've made copies of the form the copyright office returns to you as proof of registration and sent the copies to hosting companies when filing a DMCA complaint. I would like to think that doing so helps them understand that if legal action were to persue (from their lack of action) that I could easily prove the infringement.
I've also made mention of the fact that the copyrights associated with my site are registered when sending letters to minor copyright infringers. I've forgotten precisely what the advantages are but in terms of awards and/or court costs having registered the copyright gives you some distinct advantages during a leagl proceding. Informing an infringer of this fact makes a nice threat and helps them want to cooperate.
1) Copyright isn't universally respected.
But the search engines we most rely on, like Google, are located in a country that does enforce them meaning your best defense against foreign web sites is usually a DMCA complaint aimed at all the search engines.
2) It's easier to register a copyright than it is to enforce it.
Which is why I'm happy enough when the DMCA shuts them down, if I managed to get some compensation out of the mess it's icing on the cake.
3) Copyright registration doesn't prohibit "fair use."
How much scraping from a page would you consider "fair use"?
A few sentences, a few paragraphs, a whole page?
Fortunately, none of these could reasonably be confused with either scraping or outright page/site theft.
several years ago i had some old mpeg video content of a bikini model online, and a major t.v. station in l.a. "fair-use'd" some of it when the model sued dennis rodman.
at the time they were also putting their entire newscast on the internet, so it wasn't just t.v... pre-dmca, no recourse but to sue 'em... unfortunately that has to be done in federal court, this isn't a small claims issue.
so balance that $30 registration fee against the cost of a lawyer in federal court... it's kinda like carrying a gun to protect yourself, but you'll never be able to use it.
Copyright for my site is frequently violated by overseas - mostly Russian - sites who just steal to their hearts' content. Nothing can be done according to my legal counsel.
Fire your lawyer and hire a programmer :)
If your site isn't really useful for russia [except to steal from], and you don't make any money from russia, just block all the IPs from russia and they'll stop stealing. I had a similar problem with china both downloading my site and spamming the heck out of me, so I just said "ta ta" to china, blocked all of china's IP's and the problems went away.
If the big search engines like Google/Yahoo/MSN are showing the results of the russian sites with your stolen content you can still file a DMCA complaint and the search engines will need to honor it, otherwise they lose the safe harbor provision in the DMCA, did I mention firing your lawyer?
[chillingeffects.org...]
You may want to let the russians continue stealing to replace all the stolen content by CLOAKING when russia's IP's show up and send them page after page of "stop stealing my content - stop stealing my content" before you block them altogether :)
So, your lawyer may be correct in that you can't do anything directly to the the russians, but there is FAR from anything you can do and protecting yourself both with technology and using the DMCA safe harbor.
so balance that $30 registration fee against the cost of a lawyer in federal court... it's kinda like carrying a gun to protect yourself, but you'll never be able to use it.
Fair use still requires that they credit the source, did they even ask permission?
Forget copyright, I would've went after them for USAGE fees.
What photographers do which isn't unethical is on the terms and conditions section [or include a PRICING POLICIES PAGE] on your web set include a PRICING section that details the price per usage of pages, images, video files, etc. and define price per usage be it web, TV, magazine, etc. Photographers do this all the time and set the fee high, like $1500 per image for unauthorized usage. When you find a violation then you simply send them an invoice and give them 30 days to pay for the unauthorized usage of your "stock" materials and give them a link back to the terms page for review.
Therefore, if they violate the terms of your web site it's a whole different issue that COULD possibly end up in small claims if they amount is low enough as it's not an intellectual property problem, it's a simple billing problem and failure to pay. I know some photographers who do very well with this approach and I've personally never made it to court yet as the checks come after invoicing and huffing and puffing.
When I made my first web page in 2001, I was surprised how easy it is to copy and paste someone else’s content and images. Now, when keywords are for sale – copyright infringement is a growing epidemic.
I am from the former Soviet Union. After college I had a mandatory work in R&D department at the large manufacturing plant. Out President used to bring different products from his oversea trips and made us copy it. We would take it apart, measure it – and few months later fill the empty shelves with new products.
There is a Patent Law in Russia (I think the government still owns the rights for it), but there is no copyright law as we know it.
In any case, I mentioned this site in my AdSense blog recently and I think you'll find it very useful:
[ivanhoffman.com...]
Eric
the photog idea of using website t.o.s. to get compensation is a good one... i would think that you'd have to get web surfers to click on a t.o.s. of some sort first, which could have ramifications for s.e.o.(?) ...interesting.
commie ba#&@*ds
still, being able to fight back in the non-cyrillic world is still an advantage.
But how did you do that? I've never been able to find anyone who could give me an answer as to how you ip block a whole country.
Usually, the answer I get is that you have to geo detect ip's and block them as you find them which is ridiculous-----because by the time you detect them they may have already copied your whole site.
You can still sue someone for copyright infringement without a registration.
Incorrect. See Title 17 Sec. 411(a).
"No action for infringement of the copyright in any work shall be instituted until registration of the copyright claim has been made in accordance with this title [17 USCS Sects. 101 et seq.]."
Except for an action brought for a violation of the rights of the author under section 106A(a), and subject to the provisions of subsection (b), no action for infringement of the copyright in any United States work shall be instituted until registration of the copyright claim has been made in accordance with this title.
An author can sue for the violation of an unregistered copyright; the author just can't get statutory damages and attorney fees unless the copyright is registered.
and let me tell you from personal experience----no attorney will work for you unless he can get paid.
Do try again.
Sure, my pleasure.
Except for an action brought for a violation of the rights of the author under section 106A(a), and subject to the provisions of subsection (b)
106A(a) is a VERY limited exception to the general rule that a valid copyright registration must be in effect prior to commencing an action for infringement. It will not be applicable in 99.99% of cases related to website copyrights.
Furthermore, Sect. 411(b), which is the other exception, applies only to "a work consisting of sounds, images, or both", and only in limited situations dealing with transmission.
FYI - most website copyrights are filed under literary works.
But how did you do that? I've never been able to find anyone who could give me an answer as to how you ip block a whole country.Usually, the answer I get is that you have to geo detect ip's and block them as you find them which is ridiculous-----because by the time you detect them they may have already copied your whole site.
I located a free database of IP ranges by country, which seems pretty accurate, had to translate their numbers into actual IP# format ranges and built a table of blocked IPs into my IPTABLES on Linux.
The easy way to stop just the abusers you're seeing is to go to someplace like ARIN and type in the IP # and it will tell you what country and block the IP belongs to and just block the whole dang block which most likely will nail shut one groups of abuser IPs easily. Repeat as needed until the problem stops.
He was amazed that none of the hosting services (not even westhost) seem to offer the ability to simply AUTOMATICALLY DENY VISITS FROM CERTAIN COUNTRIES.
To me it's a no-brainer that hundreds and hundreds of webmasters here in these forums would pay for the ability to simply deny all traffic from specific countries like russia and china.
I am NOT talking about waiting for people from these countries to show up, detect their IP block, and then deny them ('cause maybe by then it's TOO LATE)----I am talking about the ability to simply say "India, china, russia, romania, hit the road, you can't access my site.
It seems the hosting services allow you to block individual ip's. But none of them have tools that allow you to---from the day you launch your site---deny all access from certain countries.
When is someone going to come up with this and offer it?
