"you can't get licensed content. But who gives a fuck? ..."
 

quoted from sweetjimmy; he was saying that u can't get sued if you are not hosting it.

i wanted to start a new thread on this issue...

i was threatened by APIC a long time ago even though my sites only linked to another server with illegal content on it (let's just say it was something like geocities and it was something like playboy pictures). they said i was breaking copyright laws despite not hosting it myself. were they bullshiting me?

btw, i now only use legit content, but all this celeb content out there makes me wonder what the law can really do.

any one know which way is what?

thx


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HQ

If it's actual Playboy pictures, they have $$ and I would doubt that they'd sue you. Celebs probably don't care as much because you have all the tabloids. If you're a celeb, what's worse... people getting off looking at you and thinking your hot, or some magazine in the grociery store for every person (young and old) to view spreading lies about some story of you and your uncle or some shit like that.

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Keyser
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HQ let me shed some info. First APIC are very good friends of mine. They do check and double check before writing to any copyright infringer. Yes, the host has some limited liability, but not much. And believe me a host Free or paid will not mess around with legal owners of content. If they write to us, (I get 5 a week on Lightning Free) We will delete the persons account ASAP.
The person who Knowingly, Willingly, and Wontonly, put the pics up, is the one they are after, and will prosecute, not the host. I also work with Playboys lawyers, and a bunch of others.. Dont post any pics that you dont have permission to use, thats pretty simple.

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Smile and Be Happy

http://www.lightningfree.com

I'm pretty sure playboy prosecutes everyone they can simply because they do have the money to do it.

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If you steal a watch from a jewelry store, then try to sell it from the back of your van, you are a theif and you traffic in stolen goods.

If you steal and image from it's rightful owner, you are theif and you traffic in stolen goods.

To assume that celebrities like people making money off of their image without them getting their cut is ludricous.



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tit,
Mowsebytes Porn Newsletter: Webmasters submit your sites here.

Did you follow the 2600 hacker publication case about DeCSS? Judge Kaplan said linking to material that is illegal is against the law. So if you write the links instead of activating then, your fine.

You can actualy read about the case here http://www.2600.com/ It's alot of reading ;-)



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wiZd0m

yeah, PBoy will usually send a warning as I heard, and then they prosecute if you don't act... but usually they give you a big slap on the wrist... they gotta keep their shit to themselves...

As far as I know, celebs have no rights when it comes to the distribution of their images so if people are making money off of them, it's basically tough shit for the celebs. So long as the celeb is photographed in public, the photographer basically controls all rights. So in most instances, celeb sites are stealing from the photographers and the tabloids, not the celebs.

One more thing, organizations like Cyber-Tracker don'tgive a shit about copyright infringement. Their problem is with how celebrities are represented. For example, Lin Milano gets all pissy about people representing her daughter as a free spirit even though her daughter runs around on the beach nude jumping guys and shows all her goods in numerous films.

actually, APIC emailed everyone except me. A simple email to myself asking to remove the pics would have done it. So they rubbed me the wrong way off the bat. One of my buddies had APIC email his university. ouch! (it almost sounds too crazy for me to believe.) i didn't need an email to my hoster and a CC to playboy, i would have removed the pictures on my own. i was knew at this and i didn't realize it was a big deal at the time. but they must hate guys like me (like i use to be).

...and the playboy thing, playboy never responded to the CC... as if they didn't care. My host sure did, gave me a day to remove all pics even though I wasn't sure which ones APIC were bitching about. they were all non legit, but APIC doesn't cover everyone. i was wondering whether they could force me to remove playboy pics or not, wouldn't playboy themselves have to come after me?

This issue is rather dumb I guess, I know it's wrong to use content u do not own the rights to, but I am interested in the legal aspects about this whole thing.

oh yeah, ever hear that if the picture is small or of less quality, the copyright doesn't hold up? for instance, thumb nails are always legal... or if the quality (information) is only 12% of the original u can use it as if it were a sound bite. any truth to this?



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HQ

oh yeah,

APIC didn't even have to double check my site!! almost anyone can spot a playboy pic from a mile away!! my scans were ultra-high quality too.

lighting: i appreciate that u stand up for them, because all i use to hear was the negativity about them which doesn't mean that they are bad people. (back in the day, everyone i spoke to about them were guys getting their sites shut down, so they weren't happy campers to say the least.)

later


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HQ

Ouch, You are completely wrong HQ. The copyright is always there, regardless what you did with those pics. If you buy licensed content you always get also licensee agreement in which is also stated what can you do with the pics, however the copyright ownership still remains.
Basically the most important moment is if you can prove you have license to use the pictures, regardless of their size, quality etc.
Also if you use some pic for graphical work (banners etc.) you are also violating laws if you have not permission of pics owner.
And this is not connected only with pictures but almost everything, any graphical work (icons, small graphics, banners etc.)

XM

I read in another board that a guy who is perhaps one of the biggest dude in the biz, have got mail from APIC to remove some of his thumbnails. These thumbnails were auto-thumbnails from other peoples sites. So I don't think it helps to reduce the pictures.

As of my own experiences with APIC...
My site about Jenna Jameson was shut down by my free host because of some pictures. This host was kind enough to forward the mail they got from APIC to me so I could see which photos were illegal. Well, actually it didn't help me that much because they only wrote the urls to the galleries where these pictures were in. Any way, one of those mentioned galleries had photos from only one photoshoot so it was easy to know that the whole serie was illegal.
If any of you guys have photos about Jenna Jameson from the shoot where she's wearing white and twisting and turning on a bed in white sheets and the background is blue, take them down. You have prob all seen some photos from this shoot.

My opinion (which I have been taught by a friend) is that celebsites that are non-nude aren't in so big danger. But as soon as you put some nudity in there the danger increases. Take a look at some of the big celebsites, they have 10 000 photos from where perhaps a 100 are nudes. It's the illusion that does the trick.

that's anyway my 2 marks about that

[This message has been edited by Johan (edited 02-06-2001).]

And Playboy and Maxim Magazine photos are a big NO NO! Really big NO NO!

And SLITZ too. A friend had to pay about $3500 for that misstake.

Let's be carefull out there and obey the international laws.

Ok, say I 'm using stolen content far away from US - like some communist country of Laos.
You think they gonna come over here and sue me ? What could they do ?


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Copyright laws are international.
If you get a mail from the owners of copyrighted pictures, asking for you to take them down, you should do that. Just to be on the safe side. No matter where you are.

False. In Montreal, a women sued the Journal de Montreal because they put her picture in the news paper without her consent. She won 5k. The laws are different here but if a NewsPaper makes profit off of your pictures then they should pay you for that.



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wiZd0m

First all this talk about size of pics, or pics in public... thats all bull shit. Its simple. If you dont have the license to, or have the permission, then the pics are illegal, its that simple. Dont waste your time trying to be sneaky, its not worth the 1 time you get cought by an owner with a bad attitude and get sued for Huge money...
just my advice.
And to fill you in, APIC works for Many content owners, mostly the big guys, like Playboy, Suze randalls... etc... The Owner of APIC (Steve, a close friend of mine) is a really fair guy, but don't fuck with him to bad, he can really ruin your day if he wants..

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Smile and Be Happy

http://www.lightningfree.com

You guys should move to canada. If Napster was based in Canada they wouldn't be going private. In Canada the only law is against you distributing copyrighted materials from your own server. It's all very grey. Just about every website out there violates copyright laws in one way or another. Fuck copyright law its just another way to preserve the staus quo. You want credit for your work? Put your domain address on the picture...You down with that Skitz?

WiZdOm,

What was the context surrounding that Montreal case? I'm sure there's more to it. Because if what you and Lightning are saying is true, then I could just sue every damn newspaper and magazine that has ever displayed my face and I'd be a millionaire in no time.

copyright law on the net is unviable and obsolete. The only people making money from it are lawyers. No one can stop the exchange of information on the net there's always some subterranean corner of the net you can download whatever you want.

Apic should just move on and evolve. They can watermark all they want I'll still be able to get their pics for free. The only thing i'd pay money for is the speed I get them at.

Besides the fact that unlicensed pictures are illegal, I hear that there is some sort of incryption within jpgs that some ppl use. If one of these "bugged" images is used, some sort of message including the URL where the image is being used will go off to the licensed user, or two whomever is programmed to in the image. I dont know if this is true or not, but it's rumored...

APIC is totally fucked up - they're just a bunch of fascists that don't have a clue what they're fighting for. One example. On APIC's site, under celebrity issues, they have one thing and that's a link to Cyber-Tracker. So I go to Cyber-Tracker's site and what do I find?

"There are literally millions of pictures on the net that incorporate the use of a celebrity's face pasted on the picture of a naked body. There are many other millions of illegally obtained images used on sites. There are then tens of millions of viewers who believe these photos to be legitimate. Consider how this affects the image of the celebrity!"

O.K. so what are "these photos"? Are they the fakes or the illegally obtained real ones? And what's this about appealing to the image of the celebrity? What does that have to do with copyright law?

And the elsewhere on the site, there's this:

"Milano added that she did not "want to be Big Brother" or chill First Amendment freedoms. Cyber-Trackers does not, for instance, go after fans who merely post pictures and information on Alyssa. Cyber-Trackers primary mission, she said, is "to make people realize they can't capitalize on a celebrity's image without authorization."

So one can merely post pictures - in other words it's o.k. to violate the copyright so long as you don't cast the celeb in a bad light. The only reason why APIC is associated with such a backwards organization like Cyber-Tracker is because of their blatant political motivations. If I was the slightest bit interested in the truth, then APIC would be the last place I would turn and it's word would be the last thing I would listen to.

It seems a few people are insistant on arguing the side of theft. Like I have stated a few times, Its really very simple. As you put your next pic on your site, sit back and say to your self, "Self.. Do I have REAL permission to use this pic??"
If your answer is YES then its cool, But if your answer is "what the fuck why not, or everyone else does, or, I'll do what i want, they cant stop me, i'll never get cought etc..."
Then plain and simple YOUR A THEIF.

I'm not here to argue, nor do I really give a rats ass whet anyone does with their own sites, I'm just stating some facts..and my own opinion.

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Smile and Be Happy

http://www.lightningfree.com

What if you maintain a links site and link to other sites that are obviously using copyrighted material? For example, let's say some guy has a personal account web site provided by his ISP that he decided to post the Chyna Playboy pics in...If I link to that gallery (the page itself, not directly to the images) off of my site, am I asking for trouble? Or will they only target the guy that has posted the pics? I just want to be sure.

sweetjimmy said "copyright law on the net is unviable and obsolete." and i think you were getting at the fact that you cannot stop internet piracy.

but another side to that is that the laws are not obsolete in the sense that webmasters like us HAVE gotten their asses sued for using content that they did not own the rights to.

let's hear about some lawsuits. any stories on any webmasters getting sued?

i've heard of only 2 and the details are almost non existant... one dude lost about $5k for using some model's pics (that he took off her own internet site) and he refused to take them down. and another guy who used 'random' internet pictures was getting sued for $5k and settled our of court for $1k.



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HQ

please read evildick's post!
i want to know the answer to this too!

I don't like corporate America enforcing it's facist laws on the internet. The internet was made to share data. Now everyone has been brainwashed into thinking that our free flow of information should be policed in the interests of the rich.

I don't want to have my right to share taken away because some whining photographer says I can't right click on her photo. Everytime I even view a copyrighted pic its stored on my temporary cache. So what the fuck? Tell me what the fuck should I do Lightning? Should I confess my crimes to Judge Lance Ito?

APIC are a bunch of capitalist fucks. On the internet anarchy is king. And if that puts you out of business, innovate or die off quickly. The law isn't gonna help APIC. Bill Gates couldn't hire enough lawyers to stop the "illegal" posting of copyrighted pics. All APIC can muster is a few legal sounding emails to scare you into taking your pics down. And if you do go to court it'll wind up costing APIC more money in legal fees than they'd ever win. And if your in Canada they're even worse off because of our civil court system.

Do you know that some fuck in england is trying to win his patent on hyperlinking. He claims he invented it and now people are infringing on his patent. The fucker wants to sue every man, women and child on the planet.

Well, i tried to search the Journal De Montreal archivres, but the morons closed their online site ;-) http://www.journaldemontreal.com I suggest you write to them for further information.

Now this is interesting reading to all of you who want to argue about the law.
http://www.nolo.com/encyclopedia/art...w/linking.html



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wiZd0m

To respond to Kush. Yes there is a way to track copyrighted pics. Digimarc does it and will find copyrighted pics with their spidering SE and report it back to the owners of the pics. lol You sign up and embed a code into the pics with Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro etc.

Check out one of the world's biggest hypocrites. On the APIC website you can find dozens of links to porn. He'll the only sites they go after are porn sites, guess its because porn is the only industry on the net that makes money. And you know Steve loves that money:


Steve Easton is a World renowned erotic and glamour photographer whose work has appeared in most major magazines around the World. Steve's work with copyright infringement in this arena is internationally recognized and proves that copyright can be controlled in the most hostile of environments.

APIC WORLDWIDE is not an organization dedicated to censorship, nor do we believe that censorship is a good foundation for the future of any part of this world. However we as adults must begin to take responsibility for the privileges that are being taken away from us by the leaders we elect.

We are given these freedoms because we fought for them, and yet we allow our freedoms to be destroyed by not regulating them as responsible adults.

The Internet has been in operation long before it was given as a gift to us for bettering our lives in many ways. And like our cities, highways, lakes and oceans, we are destroying it with garbage, rather than building futures for our kids.

I believe in freedom, I fought for it, and would fight for it again. I also believe in the future, which is determined by the actions of the present no doubt. Our future as adults, is in jeopardy because some of us have decided to abuse the freedom we have been blessed with, and give cause to censorship.

APIC is not about censorship. It is about being responsible and caring enough about life and freedom and honesty, that censorship will never become reality.

As long as we allow people to destroy industries such as the Internet, we will pay the price of lost freedom. Regulation has its purpose. Freedom is given to us so that we can govern our own limits. Forcing our beliefs on others is not responsible. Allowing children to view pornography is not responsible. Theft of property is not responsible.

The future of the Internet is definitely at stake, but for no other reason than the fact that those operating these businesses have abused the freedom they take for granted. You are urged to become an upstanding Internet contributor. Fight to keep this freedom as some of you have fought in the past. Fight by being responsible and doing what is best for the backbone of the future - OUR KIDS.

Steve Easton
APIC WORLDWIDE

?????????? What the fuck is he talking about??? Someone explain to me what he is protecting besides his wallet.

http://www.righttocensor.com/images/020501.jpg

http://www.righttocensor.com


Hahaha

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wiZd0m