Hello.
This is important. Somone in charge/responsible should pay attention to this.
I've recently become aware that one of your pages was linked to an image on my website in spite of a specific copyright admonition on the main page of my site specifically forbidding this behavior. Apparently one o the moderators has removed the offending linke from the New York City is for Sellouts thread. Thank you.
However a cursory viewing of the other img tags in the thread, and subsequent visits to some of those web sites seems to indicate that there is a real problem with widespread copyright violations on this site. It is my opinion that this message board, it's owners, managers, hosting and dns providers could be liable for this widespread copyright violation. I am not a lawyer, and I am NOT attempting to provide legal advice. However my common sense perspective is that in the absence of a stated policy and easy remediation process for violation of copyrights leaves you wide open for copyright enforcement action by companies large and small, not to mention individuals.
Many of the images that are contained in the New York City is for Sellouts thread are linked directly from the source website. As I've stated in another post, this is a triple whammy against the copyright holder: First, without permission to use an image, you are stealing it from the owner. Second, by linking directly to the image file, you are using the copyright owners bandwidth to server the image, in effect theft of service, and then to top it off, you are depriving the creator of the work the recognition her rightly deserves for having created the work, in effect stealing goodwill and publicity. It's ugly.
It seems to me that it's time for a change on this message board.
Here is a really good general description. It includes a discussion of "linking issues":
http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html
Good luck.
Stevem
― Mr_Steve (Mr_Steve), Wednesday, 18 February 2004 18:26 (twenty-two years ago)
It doesn't make it right or okay. A great example is what the RIAA is doing to people for making copyrighted music available on p2p networks. Sure, EVERYONE was doing it... But it was a violation, and the RIAA is making examples of a very small percentage of the culprits.
Some user education, an obvious, easy complaint process, coupled with users posting links to complete pages rather than component parts being inlined would likely go a long ways toward satisfying copyright holders.
stevem
― Mr_Steve (Mr_Steve), Wednesday, 18 February 2004 19:07 (twenty-two years ago)
How many homeboys have you shot so far, Steve?
― donut bitch (donut), Wednesday, 18 February 2004 19:53 (twenty-two years ago)
I think it's only fair to give Steve his proper slice of the extensive revenue this site generates.
― Gear! (Gear!), Wednesday, 18 February 2004 21:47 (twenty-two years ago)
exactly.
one free subscription to Bucket of Dicks Quarterly is winging its way to him.
― Kingfish Beatbox (Kingfish), Wednesday, 18 February 2004 23:28 (twenty-two years ago)
I haven't been reading ILE at all hardly so I've no idea of the specific violations.
What we could do is when ppl link a picture autogenerate some code saying "Photo Source: [url]". That would be quite simple to implement, wouldnt it?
We already have a complaints process: this is it.
Someone leeched the elk picture that was on FT last month actually - I was quite excited about it!
― Tico Tico (Tico Tico), Friday, 20 February 2004 15:01 (twenty-two years ago)
This is the point I was making too- were it my pics I'd be glad of the exposure. I'd make sure my pics online were watermarked of course so wherever they go, my name's on them. Otherwise, why put anything online and hope everyone will respect your art by leaving it alone? IT ISN'T GOING TO HAPPEN.
― Trayce (trayce), Saturday, 21 February 2004 04:45 (twenty-two years ago)