I did. Explained the situation in detail, pointed to this thread too. So far no response. Even though i`m optimistic by nature and want to beleive that this shit will get solved soon and my site got relisted , i just dont see that happening anytime soon.

you already hear something from Model Flats or Hegre?

My site was removed for using Mac And Bumble free content. I talked to Eric about this and he talked to that perfect 10 guy.A list of bumble affiliates was given to him so he can notify google about re-listing. So if anyone is using Joy Behrman or Kerri Kendall of the bumble free content i suggest removing them until this shit clears..

such bullshit isn't it, I mean that perfect 10 guy keeps terrorizing so many people, up till now unpunished

we need a union, especially for the 'smaller' guys, the ones who don't have a lawyer on retainer

In the long run, I think that they are doing the right thing.

How would be doing the right thing?
There's more or less 100,000 people in this thread!

Hola Coolio, I dropped you a long awaited email.

From what i`ve read so far i think p10`s reasons are quite different..
And lets say that you`re right and he`s trying to protect his content, he`s doing a lousy job at that. Pulling sites of google just because he claims the right to some models and their content? I`m just amazed how google is responding to this.

might be because of the lawsuit perfect10 is having against google (concerning google images)

coolios and bods, glad to have you here.
welcome to the board! :)

Of course it is.
He's trying to win against Google, which is really what he does for a living, and in the process, he's ready to take some innocent victims, and trash their hard work, and that includes affiliates. There's a chance that he did not expect Google to ban affiliates, but since he's pretty smart, and elaborate, I'm assuming he took that possibility into account. For sure, he did not disclose his full intentions the people that sold him the photos.
That's exactly what it is. The whole story is an open book.

keeping it alive

Does anyone know ALL the companies that Perfect 10 bought content from. I want to drop every single one of those sponsors.

Hegre, Modelflats and Mac&Bumble is all I saw so far?

Sorry just not worth the trouble, content providers dont sell to this guy if you know his history.

honestly that's a short sighted vision + it's a wrong one, perfect10 should be punished, not anyone else.
Sure this time some of those above are hit for selling content, but in the past (and also now for some of those sites) he will attack other sites for just using the same models, he isn't interested whether his claim is justified, just in what damage he can do, also unless somebody fights back perfect10 and is able to hurt them bad, he won't stop

that's not exactly the right approach.

you should instead, contact every sponsor that you have received "free promo" content from so that you can verify with them that they have the full licensing rights to allow you (the affiliate) the right to display those images from your website.... and get that in writing (email).

you will probably need to tell them which sets/models you are using.

many sponsor programs have custom content shot for them for which they own the rights to the images. others include the affiliate in the licensing terms with the content producer.. but there are many content producers who do not allow for their content to be given out to affiliates... so it can be a paperwork mess for the sponsor to figure this out.

if the sponsor can't provide you with answers.. then you could have both a copyright and a 2257 issue (for those images that are "sexually explicit")

additionally, if you are using "sexually explicit" images on your website, then this would be a good time to double-check that you know which image belongs to which sponsor.. so that you can be up to speed on the 2257 regulations that have been around for last 10+ years.

this issue of copyright infringements has been brewing for a long time.. some, like P10, are making it a business model to sue for copyright infringements (and there are a few more out there like them).

So protect your business and your assets (especially if you are not incorporated) and be sure you know where you got all of your images from (for 2257) and to know which images you have the rights to display (copyright issue).

Any image where you don't have the answer for, take them down if you believe in better to be safe than sorry.



Fight the housecleaning!

the problems of fighting back are many-fold.

1) those that have been "attacked" would have to come together to form a defense group.. which could be made up of competitors

2) this defense group would have to put into a pool of money to hire an attorney for defendant or plantiff litigation (maybe some attorney might take this up on contingency and take a big chunk of the percentages, but you will probably have to come up witht he out-of-pocket expenses). some group members won't have deep pockets.. and others might.. so the group will have to figure out how to split the payments.

3) in order to prove damages, you may have to open up your books... so those that don't keep good records, have two books, shave, etc.. might be court-shy

4) you may actually be infringing on P10 images and have no legal grounds to stand on.

5) you may have images of the same model as in the P10 images, and could get targeted anyways by P10, and would have to prove otherwise.. which will take a court and a lawyer, and $$$..and in this case, you would be a defendant.. and if you prove yourself to be innocent, you may get attorneys fees back after alot of money spent during the process.


Litigation sucks both your money and your life.

Take precautions to review how you are running your biz in relation to copyrights (and 2257) as per my last post.


Fight the giant sucking sound!

this is amazingly fucked
 

bump

I just got the email this morning from met-art. As I looked over the DMCA at chilling effects I noticed some very big players on the list and also noted the fact that I compete with them directly on SE traffic. My fucking jaw was on the ground when I went to google and typed in their URLs and they were no longer listed.

This is totally fucked up. I immediately called my friend in Ireland who runs a very big and similar site like the ones listed and he hadn't heard a thing about this yet. Thankfully, he survived it, but that's why I'm bumping this topic because a handful of the sites listed in the google ban depend on SE traffic for up to 50-60% of their visitors. If my friend hasn't even heard of this yet, then this is still fresh and deserves a bump. I'm on IM right now trying to get ahold of a few other webmasters that are listed to ask them if they'd heard about this.

I'm totally blown away at this crap.

Just my thoughts (...and just a bump)

Of course, keep in mind that they did not know what P10 would have done to them. I'm keen to think that the only culprit is P10. As I said, he tried the same trick with us, but it did not work.

I received quite a few emails from affiliates, asking us if we sold photos too.
I spent hours writing back to them, explaining that no, we did not, and thankfully we dodged p10's trap.

If I published how p10 tried to convince / approach us, you'll see how sneaky he was. If we were in need of money, or if we were incensed by the praises, and promises, we would have believed the sweet looking intentions.
Articles, money, promotions, copyright protection, etc.
I think that he was also looking for sites that do not file with the US copyright Office. We do, and we register every single image we own. It's a pain in the butt, because we purchase more than 200,000 images a year, but at the end of the day it also helps avoid these setups by people like p10.
I think that it was extremely easy to take the fall, as he lied on the table several baits. If one did not work, the other would have. What saved us is:

1) Our policy of not selling our content to preserve exclusivity.
2) The freaky contract
3) The difference between the bait, and the reality.
4) ...This thread

To the people that defend, or justify p10, remember this:
He was out of infringements with Google, so he lured others, that might have had infringed content (And it looks like they did not), and used them.
He purchased, most likely, selected photos, in order to go against the people that he already knew, might be infringing the copyright.
Turns out that the victims were affiliates, but he did not care about them, he was going against Google.

one other thought.... P10 may have purchased the copyrights to images, but whoever they bought them from, the existing licenses would carry forward.

so if a sponsor/paysite licensed images from content producer and in the terms of the license was the rights to give images to affiliates for promo use, then P10 can't go after people for copyright infringements.

this might be something that p10 has overlooked in their zealous desire to nail google and affilaites.

so while he can file the DMCA notice, it is you (the affiliate) responsibility to be able to PROVE that you had the rights to use those images.. you could probably provide this evidence to google directly w/o an attorney to give them something to think about.

Fight the innocent until proven guilty!

I think you might be right, but Google took a stand, and to be safe, or out of retaliation, removed just everything associated with those URL (I suspect retaliation). I'm sure that Google, in it's TOS, has the right to remove what they want. They can care less about affiliates losing money, or who's right, and who's wrong. They've been harassed by P10, and made a clear decision. They're just avoiding the hassle.

Webmasters who were affected by google dropping them based on supposed claims of infringement.. should contact EFF.org.. they would probably be interested to hear your story since they have been tracking the P10 cases... BUT, you need to have proof that you were not using infringed material that P10 claims.. that which sponsor gave you the images, you check with them to see if they had SPECIFIC clause that covered your (affiliate) use of the images.

if you can prove that and were dropped from google, this does set up an interesting case.. where how does google know that P10 really is the copyright owner, clear of any existing license agreements..

so google can take the easy road out to accept DMCA at face value, and probably would be left out of any lawsuits, since if DMCA takedown was frauduently sent to google, and a website got banned from google as a result, then the damages and the lawsuit would be against P10.


Fight the notice!

I agree with you about Google but I think it's not a retaliation. Google are in business of indexing the world wide web, selling listing just like the traditional TGPs, and so on... They (Google) are not the ones to decide who's right and who's wrong...

couple of problems with that for a lot, if not most affiliates:

1. too many are (still) too small, to have an attorney on retainer
2. a lot of people are not living in the US (wouldn't even know who would have this knowledge in CZ, even Europe)
3. not many countries have this easy going approach of going to court as in the US, (especially since almost everything in European courts takes forever)

1) i hear ya, surprising number aren't even incorporated. which means if some biz deal goes bad and the affiliate gets sued and loses, personal assets (home, car, etc) are on the line. back in the acacia crazy days, i talked to alot of affiliate webmasters, and so many were not incorporated. i can't stress enough for people to get themselves incorporated.

2) true...but in this case of the copyright holder targeting the website via google.. no need for a court of law. it appears that the waiving of a DMCA notice to google can get your website banned. that's pretty broad powers, since if the webmaster is in Europe, it's harder for them to come to the US to sue P10.. and probably their only recourse is to submit to Google the evidence that the DMCA notice was fraudently filed against them...and hope that google feels that it's compelling enough to re-list, or google may tell the webmaster to deal with P10 directly.. and now back to the first problem of not being in the US.

3) in UK, canada, and probably rest of Europe, loser pays and some require you to put up money like a bond before going into court to discourage frivilous lawsuits.

Many webmasters felt themselves exempt from 2257 because they were based overseas.. this kind of "protection" is only at the US government level.

Private businesses can affect your business across borders, as in this google case, they can ban a EU website from the google listings and country jurisdiction means nothing when dealing with a business TOS.

It might also be an interesting coicidence that if most of P10's targets via google are non-USA-based, which would normally feel they were exempt from copyright infringement issues or US laws (of celebrity photos, of content, etc).


Fight the banned in the USA!

...And do you think the affected sites will sue P10? I think he also counts on them not doing it, to be honest with you.
I think he carefully prepared this.

i agree with you. When P10 sued Visa, CCbill, etc.. he was trying to hold them accountable for the infringements by the websites that they process for.

The judge dismissed his case.

So it looks like he went another way.. that he could still "take out" websites by targeting google (and probably web hosting companies next since they fall under DMCA notices as well)...especially if he perceives that non-US based websites are the major infringers and might be "thumbing their noses" at him from across the pond.



Fight the spitting in the wind!

thing is that in most European countries it's difficult and cost a lot of money to become incorperated. I know that in the US it's much easier and in some states dirt cheap to set up an LLC, but not in Europe, it's insane.

I really wouldn't start mixing 2257 (focus on legal age and record keeping) & copyright issues.

The fundamentals of copyrights are more or less global, unles you're in China where 'Copyright' means 'the Right to Copy'. You just don't use other people's stuff without paying or asking permission.

2257 is totally different, the last version that is, the record keeping for secundary producers (now struck down in court it seems), the protection for minors (how will making 'asking for 2 forms of identification' illegal, going to keep minors from doing adult in a country where there is no mandatory national ID card), 'targeting US citizens' enough reason to have to comply.

Let's be honest if the EU would have made up those rules, the US would be outraged about the arrogance the EU demonstrated in dictating law for the rest of the world. 2257 is no longer about protecting anyone, it's about attacking adult.
Bush and co. want something to go wrong:
1. 17yo with fake drivers license doing adult
2. adult performer being raped/attacked/murdered, because content producer had to give model info with address to 'secundary producer' and that info got out

it seems cynical, but I fear that's what they are after

OMG do you guys know what I just realised?
I didn't even hosted that "infringing" content on my own website, I just linked to another one with this content. Afaik I can't be held responsible for that... WTF am I on this list at all?

edit: Now I gonna buy a :ak47:

he didn't really ban that many galleries (except for the celebrity sites), as he banned mainpages (my galleries are all fine), but some big mainpages are down.

Did those mainpages have this content? sometimes, but just by having links or text with those search strinds was enough for a ban, because I came up in google for that search string

Too bad english is not my native language but i understand the story for 90%. In my constant try to protect my business and site i try to communicate closely with all the partners who run on my site. I'm lucky i'm kinda big and people respect me for the work i do. I'm always trying to anticipate on claims, also in respect with the 2257 regulation (which is another story). My message to all of you : try to communicate with the partners on your site. It's alot of work but after all it pays off on the long term and by doing this you can easily focus on your job running a safe site. When something happens you can always fall back to the partner himself and see what can be done about it. The story of what happened here is really amazing and crazy (by P10) but it shows alot of what's goin on in the industry. Anyway, this thread made me realise this board is very interesting. Good job to everybody and hope you succeed in your fights (and goals).

Does this guy go to shows?

don't think he has the balls for that :winkwink:

since he has been a pain in the ass for like 10 years

he is however on the poker tournament circuit I think

Shhh - still lurking :upsidedow

So, is anything being done about the situation?

Bods4Mods & Coolio finally on GFY, would have guessed that with such big sites, you would have been regulars

welcome anyway

A belgian in Prague, we should meet there some day. Love to go back there. It's in my agenda for 2006. Want to meet there some of my partners/sponsors (and of course visiting the beautiful city, been there just after the disaster couple of yrs ago)

your english is perfect and your message is right on :thumbsup


Fight the can't we all just get along!

yeah sure, you're Dutch, right? (or do I remember this totally wrong?)

ICQ: 245-833-968

who got unbanned already?
anyone heard anything from sponsors?

nothing yet...
I guess the best idea would be to contact google personally.
Did anybody do that yet? Or any other results?

Why am I not surprised about that not happening...?
Sad part is that this whole ordeal affected everyone, including
sites that had nothing to do with this. The widespread block of
so many affiliate's URLs, promoting so many different sites, is
affecting SE sales for a wide range of innocent websites.
My little black book just got thicker with a bunch of new names.
Anyway, who cares about us. If we lose 1, or 2% of the sales, it's absolutely
nothing, not even a scratch, but there might be affiliates that
have been killed by this. Think about the ones that relied solely on SE
traffic.

So why don't you do something to resolve the situation?

We're looking into that. We've been doing so since day one.
There're tons of obstacles.

Namely??

Anyone have an update?

Legal obstacles. High chances of losing time, and money for nothing.
If people could just avoid dealing with this guy, everybody would be better off. Tons of site, and affiliates are being damaged for the actions of a few. I'm finding out, more, and more, the extent of the general damage, but can I do anything if our site is promoted on the same page that is being banned because someone else sold a bunch of photos / copyrights to a guy? Most of us are suffering an inderect damage, and there's a good chance that P10 has actually legal grounds to do what he's doing. It's also true that he got what he wanted because he exploited the weakness of a bunch of people, namely money, not registering their own copyrights, etc. What can we legally do?
Probably nothing, beside not forgetting in the future these kind of things, so maybe we can avoid this happening, or thinking twice before signing something, or maybe having a Lawyer read it...You know, normal stuff! but we're checking.

I remeber me trying, a while ago, to contact them (before this story started) to ask if they deal with affiliates. Nothing heard since then. I was probably not that interesting enough for them ;)

Too bad, i only try once ... time is money :)

Hello, everyone, let me introduce myself. I started off writing sarcastic advice columns on http://orsm.net, and soon felt the need to administrate my own site. It started off as geocities/ page, and progressed to a .com. Activity died down, so I shut the site off. A few months passed, and I couldn't take it any more... I missed my site. I went to start it up again, but yahoo got into a huge arguement over who owned my domain (never buy your site through geocities was the leason I learned), and I settled with .net. It has been up and running for a year and half, with a small niche community. It's safe to say that I'm one of the very small guys on the list.

It's also fairly safe to say that my site is one of 'those' (probably being described here, in this thread at least, as a 'celebrity' site), where people join to share posts of images. I have no sponsors, or host any sponsor content, or full content for that matter. If anything I just index links to content.

While I understand this may not fall under 'legal' practices, I do see it as a possibility of being a loophole, but also being a very logistical and common sense orriented individual, I have a strong feeling that it's not.

The main issue that I have with this is my site is a small community in the process of expansion, and the search results that are derived from the terms (found in the legal notice) and my url point to pages that have not been functional in over a year. The content was never hosted on my site, yet I face the consequences of not being able to expand.

This is a tough message to the little sites like mine, thinking that posting images to stir up traffic BEFORE getting affiliated, to see if there'd be a pay off from it before the expenditure of effort, to not even bother.

I have a feeling that being a webmaster at one of 'those' sites may force me to be shunned by webmasters of sites that provide the internet with spectacular content, and am willing to face that. I have always had a clause that if any copyright holder stepped forward and just asked for his/her content to be removed, it would be done so in a heartbeat.

This is the double-edged blade that I face right now. I'm honored that my site is on a list with other great ones, but damned if I'm proud to be removed from google. How many people do you know of that go to google search for the term "The Advice Asshole"? According to my logs over the last year, about 2 a month. Most likely me, too. It was a nice to see my name show up first by searching specifically for my alter ego, and now it pains me to see that my profiles on other forums show up at the top of the list.

If anything, this makes me wonder how newsgroups have remained so popular over the years, and have yet to fall victim to such actions.

I've consumed far more time out of your day that I have probably warranted, and if you've read all the way through, I salute you.