Rip Off and Defame ( rather important)

The first question is: Does he really have a case of copy right infringement? They are stringent laws covering copy right, is it the trademark, art, writing registered under copy right?

b) If you are talking about the Marcello thread, you are barking up the wrong tree cause I am not taking any of Marcello's words. So he can back off that - if this is the case - which is fairly bizarre.

c) If the copy right is located on the internet, good luck. As with most internet dealing copy right is extremely hard to establish. IE. Think about that the next time you are downloading a song off of the internet.

d) Defamation - a case of defamation is also very hard to prove. Defamation is more than calling someone a cunt, bitch, asshole. Defamation of character is only brought forward towards the court if the defamation has seriously injured that person's professional reputation.

d) ie. If someone where to go online and say that 'so and so is unable to do such and such job because so and so has a such and such addiction.

That would be a clear cut defamation suit.

Or if someone where to go to the community that someone lives in and says: 'so and so enjoys child molestation'.

And that information would have to spread in such a way that so and so would lose their job, their standing in the community or experienced severe hardship.

But if someone were to steal something outright - ie. Elastica stealing the Wire or Strangler songs then it would be a case of copyright infringement. But if someone were to use lyrics from a well-known song then that would be difficult to prove. ie. See Oasis' back catalogue.

A queer skinhead ( the good , working class use of that word, i can explain the origins if you wish) is having his art refarmed in a racist point of view . So basically , a man who has worked hard at being inclusive has his work stolen and used by people who are agisnt what he stands for . Its on the web yeah and maybe not deframtion , but a definite infringement .

Ok, Anthony - from what you are telling me is that an anti-gay organisation has put the artist's artwork on their own webspace but in a such a manner where it is insulting to that person's professional reputation.

First - yeah, he's got a case - if he does not have money - my advice is to go to a human rights/gay rights law firm. They will take it on as a glory case.

But remember - law suits are very expensive and most often the internet is complete anarchy - that is the con. The best thing to do is to contact the server in which the anti-gay pieces are being held on and make a complaint there. If the server did not do anything he could bring a case against the people running the server - who will be the people with the deep pockets. More than likely they will take the site down and that will be that. But get a lawyer to write the letter - it willl be a better scare tactic than your friend.

However if the artwork in question is being criticised it will be harder...

Free legal advice from the internet is generally worth no more than one has paid for it.

nned to find who hosts the site (I think I know taht tis is about btw), then get a legal firm, or civil liberties union, to wrtie a cease and desist - get them pulled from thier site if they don't remove all artwork...that nromally does the trick.

try here http://www.chillingeffects.org/ for more info.

Anthony: I can personally* vouch for the fact that the legal departments for larger hosts -- who could really care less about their clients' potential free speech protections -- are more than happy to yank anything you want off of the net. In fact, I'd imagine that if a commercial server was hosting a racist site, they'd love any excuse whatsoever to legitimately pick at it.

* And I say that having been on the complaining end -- some site was giving me a byline on an article I would never have written, and one pretty sloppy email to the host got the entire site immediately axed.