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Originally Posted by Forkbeard
That's not a fact. In fact, it's not what's going on. Yes, it appears that GUBA archives (fairly briefly) material from UseNet, and hosts some of that material on its own servers. Just as Google hosts a cached version of every site on the internet on its own servers. But GUBA bills itself as a search engine and archive, and what it's selling, in my view, is access to its search interface and archival services. I don't see how making money from a monthly charge is any different than making money by placing adwords ads nearby, the way Google does.
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Thanks for your responses. I'll rebutt here....
It still seems that no matter how it's spun, a site that charges a membership fee to view porn is IN FACT "a paysite". That is in fact the very definition of what a paysite is.
And bringing up Google at every turn isn't relevant at all, I'm sorry to say. Placing adwords near someone else's displayed content is nowhere near as impudent as brazenly charging a fee for people to view content you don't own. Last time I checked, Google does not charge a membership fee to view my content, and they provide a direct link to the originating site that the content comes from, commonly called a courtesy link, something that from what I understand, GUBA fails to do.
The google argument is out. Very few people have a beef with Google, most likely for the reasons I've stated. They DO however have a huge beef with GUBA and all sites like it.
Let's continue...
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Originally Posted by Forkbeard
Well, it's my contention that they are misplacing their "upset" by directing it at GUBA. GUBA is just one of dozens of such interface services,
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None of those other "services" had the audacity skin GFY yesterday.
And when the cops catch a thief and that thief cry's "But I'm not the only one, there are 12 other guys who do the same thing!", the cops don't say "Oh, okay... sorry, you're not the only one, we won't single you out, you're free to go." :D
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Originally Posted by Forkbeard
and the content they index and archive is an unimaginably huge mixed bag. There are hundreds of thousands of images on GUBA that don't infringe anyone's copyright
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But, there are lots that DO infringe on other's copyright, right?
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Originally Posted by Forkbeard
(yes, there really are images that predate current copyright periods) and there are millions more images that do infringe somebody's copyright, but that rights-holder is long gone from the market. Scans from a magazine that went bankrupt in 1953 are indeed under copyright, but unless the magazine is Playboy, who could hope to find the current rights owner in most cases? Content that's currently available in the market makes up just a tiny tiny part of the images that flood Usenet. For every post to content that infringes a copyright owner here on GFY, I could post a dozen images that infringe nothing. I won't, because it's unpaid work, but I could.
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One: I'm quite familiar with the whole "public domain" schtick, the laws in the USA and Canada are quite cut and dried on that. Again, I'm sensing the justification argument, that since everyone's doing it it should be okay for these guys to do it. The problem with that argument is that no everyone is gathering up content they don't own and charging a membership fee to view it. That's the difference. All of what you mentioned may be hypocritical, unfair, shady, underhanded, but in THIS particular example a certain line has been crossed with respect to webmasters. Last I checked it was virtual suicide for an affiliate program to alienate this many webmasters (aka "potential affiliates")
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Originally Posted by Forkbeard
Attacking usenet index, search, and archival services is like attacking Google for crawling babe blogs of stolen nudie pictures. Google doesn't want or need that sort of sites in its index, but it can't do much until somebody tells them about it. It's insane to think anybody could pre-filter the entire contents of UseNet, and rather odd to suggest they ought to have to try.
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Again, I haven't seen anyone bitching lately about what Google does as far as archiving images etc, for the reasons I stated above.
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Originally Posted by Forkbeard
GUBA has a good reputation of trying to work with content owners who are willing to step up and identify inappropriate content; why not work with that instead of screaming and attacking?
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This question is pointless because we both know that anything this contraversial is going to draw venom on GFY, it's a given. You've been around long enough to know this, and saying what you just said isn't going to change it one witt.
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Originally Posted by Forkbeard
The true villian here is the person who rips paysite content and posts it to UseNet in the first place. I hate those bastards too, with as much passion as a person can have who's not a content owner.
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Actually, both are villains. The difference is that the paysite and content owners have ways of dealing with the usenet posters. It's not a great situation there, but at least they have ways of manipulating some benefit out of it, and rightly so they should see some benefit.
But GUBA and other's like it give little to no opportunity for benefit to the rightful copyright holders. Surfers who have already paid GUBA to view such content aren't likely inclined to pay for it again somewhere else, most surfers don't pay attention to who holds copyright.
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Originally Posted by Forkbeard
I'm sorry you're having trouble, but it's really true to the best of my ability to discern. I'm not your lawyer and I can't write you a thirty page legal opinion with citations and footnotes and precedents, but I've talked at length with lawyers who can, including my own legal counsel. GUBA appears to fall squarely within the purview of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act and, as such, their compliance with that act and with appropriately-worded "notice-and-take-down" provisions provides them with all the legal cover they need.
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I refer you to the post I made in another thread then, where I said that something can be legal within the boundaries of the law and still be morally wrong.
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Originally Posted by Forkbeard
I know it looks like that to you and to a lot of others here. But as I've said before, I consider that a fundamental misunderstanding of what GUBA's doing.
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Every particle of my being as a webmaster says that it is fundamentally wrong to take content that doesn't belong to you, set up a pay site, and charge money to surfers to view content that I don't personally own or have rights to.
There are a few things in this business I am unwilling to do... sending out mass unsoliscited spam emails, fuck over anyone on business deals, and I do not steal content or designs of others, no exceptions. I will admit I made a few mistakes in that last area back my early days online, but learned quite quickly what the drill was and acted accordingly.
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Originally Posted by Forkbeard
I can't speak to that, since I came to this business in 2002. But I do know there have been some major changes in the law -- especially the Digital Millennium Copyright Act -- since the time period you're siting. I'm not sure older precedents have that much bearing on the current discussion.
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This one does, actually. It wasn't the law that got most of those sites to change their ways, it was other webmasters. If you ran such a site and wanted to trade traffic with one of the larger more repsonsible sites out there, you would quickly find that they wouldn't have anything to do with you until you removed the content that wasn't yours. I'm telling you, guys with babe and bikini free sites were all over, showing scans from playboy, penthouse, hustler, plus model's pics from individual photographers by the thousands. All were hiding or trying to hide behind the posted disclaimer of "we believe all content to be in the public domain" etc, all professed that they would "work with anyone to remove any copyrighted materials" etc.... just like GUBA. Granted they weren't charging a membership fee, but they were still making money off that stolen/unauthorized content nonetheless, just like GUBA.
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Originally Posted by Forkbeard
Because what they are doing is legal, and, in many cases not involving commercially available content, quite beneficial.
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In my mind the jury is still out on just how "legal" their position is. In the US anway, anyone can sue anyone. I'll wait and see if anyone steps up to the plate and takes a shot at them over this issue, because although I'm no lawyer either I can see where what GUBA does may very well violate certain aspects of existing copyright law.
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Originally Posted by Forkbeard
I respect your opinion on this -- indeed, I've always respected your input on this board -- but I can't agree with it, for the reasons stated.
I hope this was helpful to you.
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It was. I suppose I will just have to see what transpires over this issue, if anything. It may be that this will all blow over and nothing comes of it. If that's the case, I still don't expect feelings to change much though. Those who are up on arms about this aren't going to forget, and I would imagine that companies like GUBA won't see near as much revenue from affiliates as they would like to.
Hey, it's something.
Their business model doesn't sit well with me, that much I can tell you. At this point I won't be promoting them on my own network. If something new comes to light that might change my view I will certainly keep the door open for consideration though.
Cheers.