That is, of course, bullshit. You're well aware of my position that GUBA is not selling or reselling content of any kind. You may not agree with me, but you're knowingly lying when you say I'm in favor of such reselling.

I've never said theft is OK, and I don't think it is. Anybody who says different is engaging in ad hominem attack bacause they can't engage my position on its merits.

Thanks, Brad, for clarifying your position.

forkbeard, I have a feeling that if I looked, I would find you working the Guba offices. Your arguments are very, very transparent and require a pretty big jump.

Your position has few merits. It is hard to engage someone who is saying "theft is okay" and "we can keep stealing until someone sends us a C&D". That isn't very high moral ground to start a discussion from.

Alex

I can see how you're understanding me that way. I'm just not explaining myself properly. All I am trying to say say is that I would like to someday see an agreed upon set of laws. I don't know how we could ever get from here to there. Accomplishing that could be done by simply modifying existing legislation or proposing new ones. I'm not saying at all that I would support an obscenity prosecution, I am overall saying that they seem to make themselves an easy target if the government is looking for easy targets.

Unfortunately, it is my own personal belief that the government would surely fuck that up and end up with something that is likely far from what I would agree with. It's not wrong of me to say that I just wish the government would make up their mind. I find the whole subject frustrating because what I'd really like to see is a standard that says anything between two consenting adults is OK. That is what I would like our rights to be but that currently is NOT the case, to my dismay.

Brad

Whats pretty cut and dry is that GUBA does not even remotly qualify to get Visa/Mastercard processing.

Period.
How they are transacting is certainly a miracle and one should question the integrety of whom ever is processing for them and perhaps a well placed call to VISA/Mastercard would go a long way.

Clearly they are in violation of Visa/Mastercard TOS regarding adult content.

Penthouse - http://www.guba.com/noauth/search.cg...744000&x=7&y=7

http://img.guba.com/public/image/e/cf/66121678-b.gif

PENTHOUSE? Wow!

Where is the 2257 Disclaimer?

Visa requires it.

Your position has no merits.

And of course the outfit you sell access to stolen content for has the legal documents and contracts to back up what you say above?

Oh wow!

THis thumb belongs to:

GUBA complies with 18 U.S.C. hahaha167;2257. GUBA licenses content from entities that represent that they comply with 18 U.S.C. hahaha167;2257. To the best of GUBA's knowledge and according to representations received by GUBA from its content licensors, models appearing in GUBA promotional materials were at least eighteen years of age at the time of the creation of such materials. GUBA does not itself produce any adult oriented content. GUBA does not produce, hire, contract for, or otherwise arrange for the participation of performers engaging in sexually explicit conduct. As provided in 18 U.S.C. hahaha167;2257(h)(3), GUBA is not a primary producer of Usenet content and is therefore exempt from the provisions of 18 U.S.C. hahaha167;2257.

Custodian of records:
Sam Simpson
GUBA LLC
617 Front Street
San Francisco, CA 94111

Problem with that disclaimer is simple...

They are hosting it.


http://img.guba.com/public/image/7/0f/66121479-b.gif

Effectively bringing them into non compliance with Visa/Mastercard.

:1orglaugh :1orglaugh

Don't we all look foolish now?! Sam owns his own thumbs.

That would surely stand up in court.

Thats right I guess.

He owns the thumb and therefore takes the roll of Producer and therefore would be required to have documentation for the work.

So maybe a few heavy weights will get on the phone with Visa or Mastercard or even Verisign on the matter.

GUBA will be toast within a couple days.

Forkbeard, help me reason this out once and for all.

Let's say there's paysite owner A, and he finds his content being displayed on GUBA. Now, considering the fact that GUBA harvested said content, put it up on their own servers, and is now charging money for surfers to view it, probably says to paysite owner A that GUBA is in fact a pay site. Not only that but it says that GUBA is a pay site who is making money off of paysite owner A's content with no direct benefit whatsoever to paysite owner A or his business.

No visible link to his sites, no % of the profits that GUBA makes from said content.

Now, help me out here.... is it really your contention that paysite owner A has no reason to be upset by this? And, can it possibly be true that he has no leg to stand on concerning legal action?

I am having serious trouble believing that.

From where I sit, it looks to me like GUBA gathers the content of others, puts it on their servers and charges people a fee to view it. In short, they charge a fee for surfers to view your content. Fuck me if I'm wrong but a lot of guys back in the late 90's running free babe sites tried this and DIDN'T charge a viewing fee and they were roasted for it. Hell you couldn't spit without hitting a site that had the disclaimer "if any of our content is in violation of your copyright and you want it removed please email us"..... those guys and their sites are long since a thing of the past.

How is it possible that GUBA gets away with it?

It really does seriously appear to me to be a cleverly spun form of theft, period.

I'm interested to read any reply you'd care to give me.

:D

My guess could be that Sam gets a visit from the DA in short time for a records inspection.

this is what comes up under Perfect 10 http://www.guba.com/noauth/search.cg...oor=1137744000

FUCK YOU and the technicalities that you are so lameassedly attempting to stand on.

I SALE AIR!

i'm really not selling anything though!

YOU MAKE MONEY FROM CONTENT YOU DID NOT BUY AND YOU DON"T HAVE THE RIGHTS HOLDERS PERMISSION TO SELL IT. THEY HAVE NO PERMISSION TO USE IT, NO ONE GAVE THEM ACCESS TO IT. MEMBERS OF PAYSITES STOLE IT AND ILLEGALLY UPLOADED IT.

Office of the District Attorney
Hall of Justice
850 Bryant Street, Room 325
San Francisco, CA 94103
ph: (415) 553-1752



Umm less than 5 miles away!

You are correct.

I'm just trying to understand the rationale behind the argument that GUBA is doing nothing wrong and that they aren't stealing and everything is legal and no one should be upset at them at all. But every time I read that I can't help but envision the picture of the Iraqi foriegn affairs minister with his hands up. :D

Your trip starts at 850 Bryant St (0) and ends at 617 Front St (1)
From 850 Bryant St (0), proceed NE on Bryant St
1.21 mi After 1.21 mi, turn left (N) on The Embarcadero
2.24 mi After 1.02 mi, turn left (SW) on Broadway St
2.37 mi After 0.13 mi, turn left (S) on Front St
2.49 mi Continue S on Front St for 0.12 mi until you reach 617 Front St (1) (on right)


2.5 Miles!
MAP: CLICKIE

AHha looks like they turned off the feature all of a sudden.

No more hot link from GFY to GUBA:(

And you would be wrong. GUBA can't afford me. I've never even been to their offices, though I hope to visit with them next time I'm in San Francisco.

Of course I haven't said those things, or anything like them. I'm on record as opposing theft.

Like our Guba friend, Forkbeard ? :winkwink:

If he is using unlicensed content, that would be an issue. I am not at liberty to discuss his account except to say that if I had ever received a DMCA complaint it would have been handled appropriately. Unless I am shown otherwise, I am under the assumption he has licensed content on his server.

I am personally unfamiliar with his business model and also with how affiliates of GUBA do their marketing and what materials they use. One would hope that they purchased licensed content for use in FPAs, galleries and banner ads... right?

Brad

You cannot reencode content into another format.

I'll be glad to, since you asked in a civil and friendly fashion. It's the folks who shout insults at me (as they surely will in response to my answer) that I'm not interested in debating in detail.

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.

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, 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 (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.

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. 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? 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.

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.

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.

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.

Because what they are doing is legal, and, in many cases not involving commercially available content, quite beneficial.

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.

Interesting duality. You "oppose theft" - while promoting thieves.

Let us hope both sides of your personality never collide and cause a ripple in the space/time continuum.

Brad, that's right. I'm not much willing to discuss my business model here on GFY where folks tend to be abusive and rude, but like most professional affiliates I rely primarily on licensed content from sponsors. Since I do work in the blog world where custom differs a bit from copyright law, there are some images (and an assload of quoted text) that I'm using by informal permission of other bloggers. I'm as careful as I can be about the sources of my content, and I've never had a complaint from anyone about infringement. Brad, I hereby authorize you to state -- if you're so inclined -- whether you've ever received a DCMA notice about any of my sites, because I know you haven't.

Nobody's perfect, and in four years of building websites it's possible I've screwed up. But I'm as against theft as the next guy, and I've never knowingly used without permission an image that anybody else was selling.

Which would be interesting if it were true. You're just repeating your lies now.

Taking snaps of images and thumbing them then hosting them is not content theft?

And it is compliant with 2257 laws?
Let alone GUBA is NOT in compliance with Visa Mastercard regulations regarding Adult Material.

LOL!

GUBA is in one hell of a fucked position from several stand points.

The DA could go to those offices at anytime and request 2257 info on the contents that are hosted thier and Sam would be thrown in jail today.

Extrapolating out 1:12.

So for easy math, let's say Guba has 5 million images available (likely more, but for argument's sake...).

By your own admission, that translates to 416,000 cases of copyright infringement (in round terms).

Would this be correct?

If, as you claim...what's currently on the market is only a "tiny, tiny part" of the overall images on Guba - then why do they even bother stealing it?

I can tell you why.

Because current content is fresh content...that sells. Stale images from the 1950s don't sell worth shit compared to the new content.

And I'd be highly surprised if you were able to consistently come up with 12 royalty-free/public domain or otherwise copyright-expired images for every one that infringes someone's copyright. I've been in the game over a decade, and have not seen that magntitude of royalty-free imagery anywhere in my travels. In fact, there is a very miniscule amount of it out there...as nearly anyone will tell you.

Fact remains - by your own admission...the company you serve to promote - flagrantly violates copyright laws, causes loss of livelihood and income to content producers everywhere...and is undefendable at any level. You can dance around and say what you like, that's your choice. In the end, the judgement of the industry will tell the tale.

I'm going off memory.. but no, I don't believe I have ever received one about your stuff. I have always considered myself to have a great client base, I rarely ever see DMCA complaints (maybe every other month) and some of the time when I do they're a misunderstanding. Just be careful, even with text. I had a DMCA complaint once on a phone sex phrase that a client was using on his sites that was trademarked. "Phone Sex Personals" LOL

Brad

As I understand things, they are very clear. It's not "just" a thumb. It could be two pixels, but if it's copyrighted material, they can't host it. I'm curious enough where I'll probably re-read the language in the DMCA. I can't help but wonder what else might be in there, if there is anything in law that speaks to serial offenders and if at some point a service provider by knowingly and willfully doing business with someone puts themselves at risk.

Brad

Lies, eh?

You're truly as thick as a fucking stump. In one breath you openly admit Guba is guilty of copyright infringement. Then in the next post you admonish this as lies.

You sir are a moronic paradox.

Thinking out loud... I wonder if someone that doesn't hold the copyright but has reason to believe that the publisher definitely isn't the copyright holder could send a DMCA complaint, placing the burden on the offender and hosting company. If that were the case, someone could harvest GUBA and send off a DMCA email complaint about 90% of the images that are present in a nearly automated fashion.

Brad

What are you talking about here? I CLEARLY said it's what I "As in me personally" would find wrong. Where do you get that I'm saying it's what others should believe. Christ your just trying to draw drama to something that doesn't exsist, now grow up.

You've got me rather curious on this one.

Sometime this week I'll contact our attorney in Toronto and ask him about the thumbs. In my mind, taking snaps and creating thumbs would still fall under "redistribution in whole or in part". Its still the same image, just downsized. I should think it could also be considered tampering with copyrighted intellectual property.

Let ya' know if I learn anything further.

Nope, your reasoning is as flawed as your courtesy.

I haven't seen 416,000 posts to GFY of content that infringes the rights of GFY members. Remember I said "For every post to content that infringes a copyright owner here on GFY, I could post a dozen images that infringe nothing...." I doubt I've seen fifty such posts, and there are easily more than fifty-times-a-dozen non-infringing images in alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.vintage alone. Don't try to overstate my argument, I use words with extreme precision. Try to follow along.

Still you argue as if your disputed premise had been proven. Have you ever had a course in logic? You have to establish they've stolen something before you can demand an explanation for the alleged theft. And I'm disputing the notion that GUBA steals anything.

You would be suprised.

And yet -- wondrous miracle -- here I stand defending it and disputing your unproven accusations. Perhaps it's not quite so undefendable as all that, eh?

DMCA would still require that you provide proof of personal claim to the copyright ownership, though. I doubt a third-party would/could have much sway in that regard.

Certainly wouldn't hurt to try, other than possibly waste a little time and a few stamps.

See great reponse, very professional, something I would expect from from you after reading other posts from you. :thumbsup I't just got me when I opened this thread and the first image link posted wos something that I create, not that picture in question mind you, and it was referred to as obscene.

Do you have a reading comprehension problem? I've made no such admission; indeed, I've been arguing the opposite proposition. Here's the quote to which you are referring:
[QUOTE=Forkbeard]
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.
[\quote]
Yes, I admit there are images "that flood usenet" that are infringing. That's hardly a controversial position; copyright infringement on Usenet is the phenomenon that animates this debate. It's GUBA's infringement that I dispute, and which you are now falsely claiming I admitted.

I've got to jet out of here and get some paying work done, so I'll allow you the final abusive and inaccurate word. Everybody else, please just assume that I disagree with whatever abuse SilentKnight chooses to heap on me in my temporary absence.

I TOTALLY agree here. If we had hard written rules I would follow them. I would sleep better at night and would generally feel a lot better. There are things in this industry that I don't agree with, other things I basically find foul. Do I like the fact that everytime someone goes to court over Obscenity it could very well be the end to my business? NO. I do what I do to make a living, and try to do so in a way that does not hurt others. Maybe even helps others. (Believe it or not I get quite a few emails from members asking me questions about toys and fisting and have a bunch from members thanking me for giving them something fun to do in thier marriage) Sure, I sell on shock value. I have found something that works for me. But, it still does not make me feel "better" thinking that someone is out to get me cause I'm the bad guy. We should instead be focusing on the real CRIMES in our industry.

I think I am figuring this all out. I'm taking the DMCA home and reading it, completely. I suspect GUBA believes itself to be a service provider. If that's the case, they have received a very bad bad legal opinion... in my opinion... which doesn't really mean anything.. except that I don't agree. lol

Brad

I'll let everyone reach their own conclusions from your lies, half-truths and half-baked nonsense above.

"There are hundreds of thousands of images on GUBA that don't infringe anyone's copyright (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."

Interesting... guess what.. Not only is my content there... it's NUMBER 1

http://www.guba.com/video/Erotica/Fe...0676483/sample
Now at least in this case the videos watermarked so people may find my site... But how much more of my stuff is on the site? So, now I'm spose to get this "free username and password" Which I have now asked for (And not heard anything back on) and start hunting and hope to find all the infingments related to me. Nice.

You must be among the small minority (what was that..."1 in 12"?) that have ever been copyright infringed upon, lol.

Quick, go buy a lottery ticket. Perhaps your luck will hold out. :winkwink:

No shit! LOL.

More of my stuff is taken and used without my permission that I can even deal with. Hell, in searching for a new Gallery designer, I was actually spammed by one designer that had used my images to create gallerys for for fistbang.. When I called him on it, he was like "Well I got the images off of the newgroups so they are open domain" Needless to say those gallerys are not being used now.

http://www.objectfreaks.com/

Another example of thieft. they are using my images to promote the site AS PART OF THE TOUR!... Going to take care of this one right now... God this pisses me off.

(All 4 pictures along the top of the tour are mine. labled "The most gigantic dildos deep in ass" "Extreme pussy and ass stretching" "Big bottles in tight and tiny holes" and Whole can deep in hahahaha" all mine.)

Alright... all I want to say is this. As I delve farther into usenet and understanding it, this requires a lot more research on my part to come to any conclusion... I'm not really looking for a personal conclusion, mine already is that this is bad and that will not change. What I'm looking for is some legal precedent that tells us exactly why what they are doing is bad. I have a feeling that with enough research I will come up with something that might not even be DMCA and might be more business practice related. Whether I come up zeros or not, I'll share whatever I learn.

Cheers

Brad

like what? These images are rare exception. Obviously you are not aware of copyright laws. Vast majority of usenet images are posted by people that do not hold their copyrights, therefore the infringement case.