Affiliate programs paying copyright violators
 

The other day I found a site that had stolen over £2000 of content from me. It was a free site and had banners for two click through programs on it. To say I was livid was a fucking understatement..It then has "Show your appreciation for our hard work by clicking on our banners" - YOUR FUCKING HARD WORK? I decided I was not just going to get the site shut down I also wanted to get this sponsor accounts cancelled. I contacted one company and bang he was gone terminated...The other company however started to really fuck with me denying he was one of there affiliates and then finially admitting it they turned around and said "yes, it does... obviously they advertise us. that's it. " ...I do not know what the law is regarding this but it my opinion they are funding a fucking theif...The girl at the company www.teleword.de then gets another bloke to contact me, Joe Greenman.Now this bloke has got to be the most self righteous mother fucker the world has seen.

"While I know that everybody's trying to earn money these days, how in God's name can you justify selling pornography?
Gregor told you clearly once upon a time that he has "... *never* posted even one single pornographic picture on the Internet".
I can tell you that this is not a commercial decision but a moral one. "

well if you have morals then why cant you give some satififaction by terminating the wankers account. Plus if you live on such a moral high ground why are you buying traffic from porn sites? and even better than that why are you buying traffic from an illegal pornsite?

The fucker just would not listen to me..I would have let go if they had said at first "Can you prove that the cotent is yours? If so we wil terminate the fuckers account and send a few boys around his house to go to work on the cunt with a pair of pliers and a blow torch" . I then decide fuck you try this email:

"To Joe

I will get my barrister to call ASAP. The bottom line is this The affiliate had made money via the theft of £2000 worth of our
content. http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/...:H.R.2281.ENR: Please read the DMCA. Teleword denied the affiliate
was one of their then admitted yes they were. Teleword should have cancelled there account and helped us contact the
inidivdual instead there reply was "yes, it does... obviously they advertise us. that's it. " yes that is it he advertises you.
Teleword should have cancelled the account there and then and given us his details. Teleword directly finiancially
benefits from his act of theft. You say that you will win in court? I doubt it. It is a clear case - you did nothing but
continue to pay the copyright violater. All I wanted was for you to cancel their account. I really do not think you should be
running affiliate program if you do not understand the DMCA as it seems that it is going to get you into a great deal of
trouble.

David."

In my opinion I want to get them in court..It will cost me £150 - about $225...the minimum it will cost them is $500. Do you think I will win?

P.S.

The site has now been shut down by Geocites but I saved a copy of the HTML on my PC. I also have the affiliates ID code.

Depends on how you wish to pursue it. Even if the site is down, the fact that he had stolen content on his site, makes it probably safe to assume that he is still in possession of this content, and possession of stolen content is a no-no, regardless if it's on a website or his hard drive.

I say go after this cheater and make it hurt. :BangBang: :eyecrazy

Lightspeed Media deals with stolen content on a daily basis. It's a fact of life.

Normally we contact the webmaster and ask them to remove it, while reminding them of what action we can take if they refuse to remove it. This is what our attorney tells me to do:

"The infringer's liability under the Copyright Act ($30,000 for each infringing picture, or $150,000 for willful infringement). The next time you find a page like that, count up the number of pictures, multiply it by $150,000, and then email the webmaster a "bill" for the infringing use."

That quickly adds up to a lot of money. Furthermore, it doesn't really matter what country they are in. Most countries are members of treaties that honor our copyright laws.

We also have a problem with Yahoo Groups and Ebay. We have found Yahoo Groups devoted to a number of our models, and some of these groups have all of a model's pictures posted there. People on Ebay selling adult videos use our pictures to promote their videos....... It's a constant battle.

When a webmaster refuses to take pictures (rare) or fails to respond we contact their sponsers and anyone related to them. On tuesday I found a gallery using all of our pictures to promote other sites. After I got no response, I contact his host and had him shut down; I also contacted some of larger TGP's and they not only removed his links but also banned him from further posting. I think he'll learn his lesson.

Send them a scare tactic first and be polite..If that doesnt change Burry there ass...

The thing is I am sending polite yet threatening emails basically asking where the cheater lives etc..I have also informed him that they are funding someone who is stealing from me and he simply does not care. There view is that they are getting traffic from this arse. Tom Fisher at CCbill once got me to cancel and affiliates account as Apic had found him massivily violating copyright. I cancelled it there and then. These www.teleword.de fuckers do not care. ..

This bloke is a complete arse hole...he also claimed that:

"Frankly, sir, we are now wondering whether either you, yourself, or one of your "porno pals", set up the site to try to extort money from someone whom you imagined doesn't "know the ropes". This is not an accusation, but certainly something that has crossed our minds."

This was written by the said Joe Greenman...well Mr. Greenman let me assure you I do not have any friends at all due to my serious body odour problem....

I think you would win -- especially if you have the correspondence emails as proof that this guy is trying to weasel his way out of dealing with you by injecting morality and other nonsense.

FUCK THEM!!!

But in what court would this case be heard?

What country?

That is the thing I am not sure about. EIther the UK or Germany...This is the hard part..to be quiet honest I would be willing to go over to Germany to see his dumb arse in court...He is the biggest prick going.

Joe Greenman just wrote:

"Krome wrote:

I will get my barrister to call ASAP.
-----------------------------------


Please have her / him address all correspondence to Teleword.de. Thank you very much.


Furthermore, please be informed that because of your harassment, threatening tone and rude manor, and - despite repeated direct requests - unwillingness to provide material information relevant to the outstanding issues, the domain name "trafficcrew.com" has now been added to the blacklist of my email filter program. All further emails sent to me via this domain will be bounced and automatically deleted.

Joe "

Well Joe that is a real shame, luckily I have over 30 different email addresses so we will be able to keep in touch.....
P.S. You can ban each domain as they come through.....

P.P.S. I have not threatened you. If I had threatened you your house would now be gradually increasing in heat for the next fews hours eventually bursting into flames..but hey dont worry I will do it when you are sleeping...

My opinion:

You will win if you sue the person stealing your content.

You will lose if you sue their sponsor.

Even the AdultCheck / Perfect 10 case is likely to be thrown out eventually, according to some of the articles I read.

You can go after the person breaking the law, but you can't just go after everyone associated with them. Well, you can, but you will most likely lose.

That's just the way that I understand the law and from what I've read. Actual results may vary. Good luck whatever you decide to do.

Going after the guy's sponsor is reaching.
If its an adult sponsor (read: paysite) they'll most likely work with you and cancel the account, they don't want any more free shit out there anyways.
But the guys you're dealing with don't know shit about our biz or the DMCA and frankly they could give a shit.

Suing a thiefs sponsor for "supporting" copyright infringement is a bit frivolous IMO.
If I use a pirated version of photoshop to make a paysite tour and sell it to ARS, can Adobe sue ARS for paying me for the tour? Using your logic they financially supported my violation of Adobe's copyright.
If I steal your car and use it as a taxi and charge people for rides, can you sue the people who paid me to drive them somewhere?

The only people you can really go after successfully are the guy who posted your pics, and the host if they refuse to turn off the site or remove the content after being given sufficient evidence that the content is being used in violation of your copyright.