Yes, but your seem to be the type of person who I tend to think, looks at things a little more logically. My whole issue here is that once again, people have pointed to something they really have no understanding about and tagged it bad. I applaud your perpective on it and find it refreashing to read anothers point of view on the matter. It's not YOUR cup of tea but your open enough no not condem it outright. It may be a "grey" area in the US legal system but untill there this an actual case and law set forth stating its unallowable, it's allowable. This whole "Let's get guba" crap is snowballing into areas that are going to start effecting others even more so that gubas thieft of our content. Hell, Guba has a shitload of my stuff on thier site, I searched it last night, even asked for a "free username and password" to search further, (No reply). But what would hurt me worse, Guba using a few of my pictures and video, or doing something that actually creates a firm law against certain types of products that many of us produce and shutting us down for good?

Brad, as a customer of yours I have a problem with you advocating stirring up prosecutions against *anybody* in the adult industry. I'm perfectly cool with the fact that we disagree about somebody else's business practices, but I don't think it makes sense for someone in the adult hosting business to be calling for obscenity prosecutions of adult websites, no matter what their other sins may be.

Just my :2 cents: .

I completely agree with you, Forkbeard. Travelling down the road of nailing someone like GUBA for 'obscenity' is a slippery slope, to say the very least. Best to shitcan that type of thinking.......it gives the Bushite-hypocrites even more of a forum and more power at our expense.

Guba and the OLD Napster are VERY much alike... Only, the OLD Napster didn't charge a fee for the service.

The content is on GUBA's servers... OLD Napster stored the user file lists on their servers...

The content being 'traded' is STOLEN in both cases...

In both cases if the users quit going to paid outlets authorized to dispurse the content in question then the content producer will go out of business...

There are NO differences. The ONLY way newsgroups can be a viable content distribution medium is if the sponsors can decide on the terms. The only profitable terms are to include watermarks in pics and to only allow content already released as affiliate promotional material to be used. ie, FHG content or released set zips.

In this case the users type in or in some cases click a link in the post (though you cannot do this at GUBA (put a link in a post)) and then buy the website in question.

as much as i think what they're doing is wrong, i would never snitch on someone to get them arrested for obscenity. besides it would be bad for the adult industry as a whole.

OK... couple of things. First, last night was a late night and I probably should have gone to bed rather than post... but maybe not, because this thread is more interesting now.

I do, however, feel the need to clarify my position-

First, I don't personally find anything obscene that involves consenting adults and is properly documented. If the fist fits.... LOL

Second, as a web host I would have serious issue with any customer that was posting newsgroup and unlicensed content. I am good friends with countless program owners that pay top dollar to produce their own content and my own standards for practicing business simply would not allow a client to publish photos and videos unless they were licensed to them or they were an affiliate of a program. If not my own standards, the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. It's really simple - if you're going to post images of a Lightspeed girl you had best be an affiliate and using approved content from Steve. Unlicensed content is unlicensed content and a legitimate DMCA complaint will result in any such content removal request being handled expeditiously or the site owner and potentially it's host are at risk.

Third, I don't *personally* want to see any prosecution based on obscenity unless it's something that would finally clarify what is acceptable and what isn't in this country. We all agree that 'community standards' is crap, especially if you live in some god-forsaken community. Although we would all prefer that the government stay out completely, it would certainly help the *bulk* of us if they would just come up with some standard on a national level so that we could all sleep at night knowing that we are compliant and completely within our rights, not to be whisked away and held without bail at a moments notice... but, I think we will be waiting for pigs to fly before that ever happens.

Fourth... I'd love to see a .KIDS top level domain so that filtering could be done so easily and be inclusive, not exclusive. Like it or not, the reality of our current environment is that hardcore and extreme content not protected by some type of age verification or proper process is at risk. Not dissimilar to if one was to own a magazine stand and allow everyone to view and or purchase adult material without checking ID. This is an area where companies clearly exercise their own judgement and the amount of risk they are willing to take and that is why we see the gamut of tours and promotions ranging from censored to uncensored.

I am not a lawyer, these are just my thoughts. It does appear to me that they are completely republishing and hosting content that is not licensed to them and not using much judgement as to the variety that they are indexing and making available. For those that are very unhappy with their business model, it would seem to me that an appeal to Visa/Mastercard would actually be the most effective. We have all learned through the IPSPs what Visa/MC are approving and not approving and it is also my understanding that licensure of said content is also a likely issue for them.

That's my :2 cents: for now.

Brad

P.S. - So TexasDreams, ya just didn't like me before you opened the thread or you were just doing your job? :)

hmmm, when did laws become according to Gerco?

I don't agree with Brad's suggestion either - but hearing you say say so is laughable coming from someone predisposed to reselling stolen content in the first place.

In your mind, one hampster is saying "theft is ok, no problem"...while the other is saying "yeah, as long as no one turns us in."

So obviously you've changed your mind in which, at the beginning of this thread, you outright advocated going after GUBA for 'obscenity.'

However, what I don't like about your clarification is when you say that you'd support an attempt to censor someone thru obscenity charges if it would "finally clarify what is acceptable and what isn't in this country."

Brad, the people in power now are reactionary neo-conservatives. I don't want THEM stacking the courts and going after webmasters to harrass us based on what they feel is 'obscene.' I can't support your position.

And... just so that it's said with regard to "snitching" or "stirring" up problems for them... I didn't even know what GUBA was until this morning when I was surfing GFY. Evidently, they're doing a very good job attracting attention to their business model all on their own. If you are going to be a "high profile" company you do a disservice to our entire industry unless your business practices are, on many levels, responsible.

Brad

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.