CCBill and DMCA
 

i was reading the replies to the MC thread and saw the below posts and felt there was a lot of misinformation going on about the CCBill DMCA process.



when we get a dmca notice we are required by law to do what spike mentioned, we follow the law very carefully here, and that should not be any surprise to anybody

below is an excerpt from an email from tom f in response to a question about our policies, in an effort to clear misconceptions up


Because some individuals might try to find ways to circumvent our policies if we made them public, we do not. CCBill's policy follows the requirements of the DMCA. Our policies and procedures have been upheld by the U.S. 9th Circuit in Perfect 10 v. CCBill and the court ruled that it is the responsibility of the copyright holder to police their copyrights for infringement. The court also decided that CCBill has no right or ability to determine on its own whether or not a particular site is infringing. We have never ignored a copyright complaint and have a record of every written complaint we ever received whether it was valid or not. If we do not receive a proper DMCA notification, we provide the individual with a form that can be used to submit a proper notification. I have attached a copy of what we send to someone who has not submitted a proper notification. Unless the notice we receive meets the 6 requirements of the DMCA we cannot take any action. We will not discuss our policies or our actions regarding a specific client. Suffice it to say that no one will ever win a lawsuit based on a claim of our showing favoritism.I am sorry I cannot be more specific.

Tom Fisher
Registered DMCA Agent

I appreciate the update, it's great to know that your policies have evolved to match the current climates :)

Hey Corvette, you guys are the #1 choice of 100% stolen and illegal non 2257 sites on the net using the EXGF/ girlfriend angle for a site that are supposedly "submitted content" when in fact they are just scraped from sites.



and there are about 1 launched per day using ccbill..

By no means are you the only processor, you are just the processor of choice.



Do you guys require proving any content is the webmasters? Like ask for docs for say 3 or 4 randomly chosen pics? How do these guys get processing through you, some of their member sections have obvious questionable age content, magazine scans and more.

I can just go rip newsgroups and other paysites and get a ccbill processing account? And then I just honor the few DMCA's that come in from webmasters that notice their content on my tour, and I'm happily processing in CCBILL land?

thanks for the information and good post.

Perhaps you can briefly touch on the other subject at hand ( 2257 etc )

I agree it is not your job to "police" the content of your partners, but i think its rather obvious you must use some "personal" judgment when you approve sites.

If a site wanted to use ccbill and had what appeared to be 7 year olds fucking would you approve it simply because it wasn't PROVEN to be 7 year olds, obviously not. Ok so lets bump up that age to 8 then 9 etc

If a site wanted to use/was using ccbill and had PLAYBOY.COM stamped in huge bold letters across every picture are you saying you wouldnt have an issue with that until a copyright holder stepped forward to complain ? i think not.. thats favortism right there isn't it ?

"The court also decided that CCBill has no right or ability to determine on its own whether or not a particular site is infringing."

so if i read that correctly you are forced to allow me to use ccbill to process obviously stolen content, that if i ask you to process for my site of blatantly watermarked and well known stolen pictures you will allow it ?

haha you know man when someone ask something like this the crew of ccbill goes MIA LOL :thumbsup

The reality is that the staff in CCBill policy review do not have a way of knowing for certain whether a site is using content that they are not allowed to use and by law we have to abide by the DMCA.
As far as underage material, we have a policy review department that reviews our sites and addresses those issues. If you notice something on our clients sites that you feel violates our policies, please email [email protected] or myself, [email protected]


I have said this before, but you will not find any clients that are still processing with us that we have received multiple dmca notices on

i understand the need for them to not disclose their reasoning behind everything for legal reasons, so i dont blame them for not answering but i think everyone has some human in them.

I'm not saying the issue is easy by any means, but as i pointed out above, personal judgement has to play a role, thus they have the ability to NOT process for certain sites.

nearly every one of those gf type sites you process have pics that look to be 17 year olds nude. I'm not saying they are just saying they "look" 17 to me, i would thnk that would be an issue i.e. you wouldnt want to process for sites that have nude 17 year olds. I would think that because of the type of site it is you would ask for 2257 BEFORE you approved the sites, just as you would if you saw something equally as questionable yet unprovable ( i.e. rape , torture etc ).

All i know is i dont need a formal complaint to act like a human and do the right thing :winkwink:

smokey, the underage issue, our review guys wouldn?t allow so that?s a different issue.

We have to follow the law here and do what our attorneys say. Our policy review department cant make the determination on who controls the rights/license/copyright to a particular piece of content and we have to rely on the DMCAs notification feature to inform us.

We want to take illegally infringing sites down as much as you do, but we have to follow the mechanisms of the law and get proper notification from the copyright holder. But once we get a dmca notice, we will act immediately.

lets try to ignore the legal spects for a second and break it down.

Once a site is approved by ccbill it can never be removed without a formal complaint regardless of how blatant the copyright infringement is or how underage the content is ? i find this hard to believe. You do no reviews or checks after a site gets approved ?

i believe you do reviews after because it would be insane not to, i think alot of people are saying, HEY HOW BOUT YOU GO TAKE A LOOK AT THESE SITES AND SEE IF MAYBE YOU MIGHT WANNA CHECK EM OUT TO SEE IF THEY ARE LIKE CONSENTING ADULTS AND STUFF

you guys realize that the problem with your policy is that it's very easy to steal all your content, open a ccbill site and since only a few webmaster will ever find his content, they continue to operate 100% stolen, undocumented pics and videos with no worries about losting their billing since it's hard to get a group of webmasters together to DMCA a site on the same day, week.

think of the flip side

are you asking for ccbill to put in a process where webmasters have to "prove" they own the license to all of the content on their site? cause i can show the docs to 3-4 random pics no problem to get around it.

you really want that and think its a reasonable and wont cause it to take a month to get every account approved and site/content/tour update done?

to be honest i havent takena great look at these types of sites but heres what they appear to be to me . 80% content of actual girlfriend pics that they obviously have no 2257 or even consent and 20% of stolen or licensed pics from other porn sites. I mean cmon lets be real here, are there any content suppliers that even have thousands of never seen before porn models in one time nude shots on hundreds of different cameras. cmon now.. should be rather blatant

we absolutely review sites before we turn them on and periodically afterwards to make sure it follows our entire AUP and if any violations we find are not addressed, that site will not be processing with us.

im referring to somebody saying "hey, that sites using our content", when they officially let us know about it(dmca), we start the process, which normally ends with the content being taken off or the site taken down.

here is a legal reason why

No, the site reviewer would pick 3 to 10 pics or videos of their choice randomly and the site owner has to produce the ID's in the next hour to the site is not given processing abilities.

And every time someone DMCA's CCBILL about a particular site the random pick of pics/videos to produce ID's is repeated and if they don't then they get their processing killed.

I guarantee that would solve the problem 100%.

all the DMCAs have to happen on the same day, lol.

I love how you guys are making this up as you go. They have said before that they will take the site down for good if its anything other than a one-off/one-time situation. :)

and wont the hosting go down before the billing? i think the DMCA was really geared towards hosting

ill bet you 70% or more of the programs using ccbill or any other processor for that matter could not provide Valid documentation on 3-10 pics/vids within an hour.

I can't believe some of you people expect CCbill to the Internet police. Come on now, get serious.

Smokey,

Obviously I don't know CCBill's policies, but I believe reporting underage content and stolen or unlicensed content are two completely different issues.

To use your example,

If they get a site with many playboy.com watermarked images, they have no way to tell if they are licensed by playboy.com or not. Thus the site would be approved for processing, but upon first official complaint, they would then lose their processing.

If they review a site that looks underage, I guess it would fall into three categories:

1) Blatantly underage. Immediate rejection during site review process.

2) Questionable (say they look 16-17, but could be 19-20). My guess is they will ask the site for some kind of proof before approving them.

3) Looks of legal age. Gets approved.

I'd also guess then that if they get complaints about the age of models in point 2 or even point 3, that doesn't require a DMCA to take action as it has nothing to do with copyrights.

If they receive complaints from people questioning the age of models on the site, all they have to do is ask the site owner for verification/proof of age. Does this mean a site could be processing with them right now with 17-year old models? Sure, but I can't think of any processor this situation would not apply to. As long as they do investigate upon receiving complaints, I think they are doing their job.

Disclaimer: This doesn't represent any official CCBill views, it's solely my own 2 cents :winkwink:

wrong, they said they do not do that.

No hosting companies are the last, even harder than the biller.

CCBill and other billers would not disclose how many it would take, someone got a hint it takes 5 or more to trigger any real action within a "short period of time" rumored to be a day or a week. it's all speculation cause they won't officially say the deal.

he has told you twice already that kiddie porn and copyright is two different departments with two different policies.

Logically that makes sense, because under age content can be determined just by looking at
copyright can not.

There are many examples of site owners trading content sets for traffic, in those case the content is clearly watermarked with the original site owners logo and name.

That would represent a licienced use of watermarked content. The whole point of the DMCA was that it gave you additional powers (takedown notice) and balanced them with the safeharbor provision to protect hosts/billing companies from abuse of those new powers (like demanding they staff people to verify every image).

In another thread?

I just re-read this one and don't see them saying that anywhere in regards to underage content. All their replies above about not reviewing site until receiving official DMCA is in regards to content copyright infringement situations. They state they DO review sites via their policy review team to make sure it doesn't violate their AUP and terms and I'm 100% sure that underage content would be a violation and is not accepted :2 cents:

I have found CCBill's site review policies to be firm but fair.

As for the age issue, we had a site go for review and CCBill asked us for age doc on a couple of models because whomever reviewed the site was just a little concerned that the models in question looked a little young. We were happy to comply.

I've also seen a number of eastern european sites that raised a bunch of questions on one of the gay webmaster boards because a LOT the models looked very underage. A couple emails to CCBill and within 48 hours, the site was no longer processing with CCBill. (Segpay picked them up and showed no interest even after a bunch of webmasters emailed them.)

I also know of a site that very aggressively pushed the line, using very young-looking (but legal) models with text that, in my opinion, was way over the edge (in combination with the pics) in implying CP. The operator of said site was very upset when CCBill would not approve his site. He'd asked for opinions from a number of gay webmasters, all of whom said that he would likely have problems getting his site approved, and then was surprised when CCBill turned him down.

As for stolen content, I've known of several situations where CCbill has taken a site offline (if they hosted it) or yanked processing. My experience is that CCBill has ALWAYS been totally stand-up and reasonable about these issues, and honestly, more so than any other processor I'm aware of or have worked with.

Your problem (and it IS a valid one) is with DMCA not CCBill.

Right understanding of the problem, wrong understanding of the responsible cause.

Good thread, good clarification.

Brad

i do too, i was asking about both issues because the issue was with gf type sites that from all appearances violate both from a "review" standpoint.

correct and i was asking for clarification about both policies , glad you are following along :)

oh really ? i wasn't aware of this breakthrough in technology :winkwink:





your point being what? that asking a site owner to provide proof of such is unreasonable. ?

i would think ccbill has enough staff to ask for documents on 5 random pics they choose to combat sites that just steal a bit from everyone then claim they are just trading them with other sites

CCBill is not obligated to provide processing for everyone and anyone. It would be perfectly reasonable for them to ask for a random sampling of documentation from every potential client before they begin processing. No discrimination or favoritism there.

The above would prevent them from ever being accused of supporting piracy or illegal content. I don't claim to be a lawyer, but it seems like common sense and a practical way to avoid future legal troubles.

I have been happily relying on CCBill for years and worry about pissing them off by bitching here, but the fact that they allow multi-million dollars worth of transactions supporting pirate sites simply because the current law allows them to hide behind DMCA is very depressing. But they're making their cut so they have no incentive to do anything differently.

This problem can only be solved by the processors, and it's not fair just to single out CCBill, but if they won't self-regulate then what can content owners do to protect themselves? Currently the burden is entirely on the victims and there are no real repercussions for the thieves. When you're making big money off free stolen content, occasionally having to remove a few files is no disincentive.

CCBill is still processing for sites I've DMCA'd. So if someone from CCBill sees this, please visit this thread too:
http://www.gofuckyourself.com/showthread.php?t=873276

You simply can´t ignore the legal problems. CCBill has a contract with their client. As long as they have no evidence they would break that contract.

Even if a picture has "playboy" written all over it, how shall CCBill know if their client does have the right to publish the picture or not?

And at the end of the day it is the copyright holder who has to take care of his intellectual property. So without a proper complaint there is not much CCBill can do about it.

Maybe they can give a hint to the apparent copyright holder if they gain knowledge of an obvious copyright violation.

1. they are not legally obligated to under the law
2. doing so will cost them business when their competitors don't follow suit
3. That an extra cost - the question comes down who is going to pay for it


simple business, if something cost you money and doesn't give you a benefit it is unreasonable to expect someone to do it.

the point was to ignore the legal aspect for the sake of argument not to actually do it.



they dont know , i'm saying they would likely NOT allow the site PURELY based on common knowledge that playboy doesnt license out its pics like that. Thus if they are making decisions based on common knowledge NOT a legal aspect , why not do it for everyone :)



yes they can , they can refuse to do biz with sites who dont provide documents

i am not legally obligated to run your face across a cheese grater if i caught you stealing my shit , but i will :)

so do lawyers who turn down child molesters, but i bet they sleep better at night.

in this case there isn't much of a competition , the competition wouldnt allow it either.



if they lose that much money from sites that host stolen content or underage content then who cares.



umm there are plenty of benefits. processing for legal sites that actually paid for their content means everyone gets paid , the models, the hosts, designers, affiliates = more cash in the system = longer shelf life = more money for ccbill

I think that the most valid criticism of CCBill's policy would be what gleem and DareRing have suggested. If a copyright owner sends a DMCA or multiple DMCA's to CCBill about another site using their content and nothing happens afterward, then one *has* to blame the processor. And I would not be at all surprised to hear that there are many examples of frustrated content owners who sent DMCA's that go ignored....

you want some 20 year old kid getting paid $10 hr making those sorts of judgements on your business? and i didnt know they didnt license pics out, at least i wasnt certain of it.

Wouldnt have a problem with that at all if all he was doing was flagging the site for document review. What is the problem with them asking for documents on 5 random pics ?

so you don't need ccbills help at all then :winkwink:



but it not just the cost of sales, the the cost of labor too. They will have to hire more people to do more inspections. Remember they had hire additional people to do that work.

They either have to raise their prices or cut somewhere else.
I would much rather them spend the money getting rid of kiddie porn than protecting copyright holders who are too cheap to just hire removeyourcontent.com

So offer to pay them for the extra work that is necessary on your part. say to CCBILL i will pay you 3 times the billing rate if you don't allow sites with my content your billing plateform.

its not a problem. but if it comes to my business, id want less oversight rather than more. i wouldnt want the delays and pain in the ass stuff that goes along with the extra checks.

and imo its the wrong approach. ccbill needs to make the dmca process easier to use. i think its confusing to people and im sure people bitch about it 100x more than they would send a notice in.

but im sure ccbill covers their ass legally, they would not ignore a dmca.

however, they will send it back or refuse to take an improper one, and have many times. you can see how they cant bend on it now
http://ilt.eff.org/index.php/Perfect..._v._CCBill_LLC

I know, but I don´t think an argument makes a lot of sence if you ignore the legal aspect which has to be part of the decision.

Playboy may be a bad example. But if I take your suggestion seriously - what I do - CCBill would be obliged to control the license of every single pic. Doing this would cause a lot of effort. And there is no reasonable way for CCBill to make sure the provided licenses are legit, unless they trace those licenses to it´s source.

I can´t contradict so far. But the decision to do so would cause a lot of work and they have to bear any additional costs. And if CCBill would be responsible for the content of their clients, GFY for example would have the very same responsibility for the content and postings here on the board.

That´s why I think it´s not desirable that CCBill should do so.

That wouldn´t help much because you can start with legit content and provide documents. An effective control would force CCBill to control documents for every single piece of content.

I don´t think so. To control a random number of documents before activating the account is not really a barrier for clients with criminal tendencies. If CCBill would do so, it´s a matter of minutes for those clients to accomodate.

DMCA seems to be the real problem here. All processors are acting within the framework of existing legislation. These laws have no bite. But we can´t blame the processors so far.

If you have issues with a particular website, you should deal with that website's owner directly instead of relying on CCBill to solve your problem. Even if CCBill did yank the credit card processor from that site, the website owner just jump to another cc biller.

It isn't CCBill job to "police" every websites they work with and there are no benefits even if they did as I said it is really easy to just sign up with another biller.

If you have issue with a particular website, get a lawyer and sue them. If it an underage questions, contact the DOJ/FBI or some federal authroities. Obviously a lot of people don't want to deal with the website's owner directly because they don't want to pay for the legal fees so they are taking a shortcut and hope CCBill will do it for them.

These sites are 100% stolen content. They have no contracts or IDs for anyone. CCBill could randomly pick 3 people featured on the site and ask for their docs. Then even if the site was only 50% stolen content, odds are they'd be busted. But there's really no such thing as an owner who pays for half his content then steals the rest. People who pay for content are on one side of this argument, and people who steal it are on the other. These aren't criminal masterminds; just lazy people who happen to live outside the jurisdiction of our laws which may otherwise provide risks and repercussions. It's the processors that make this crime profitable. If the applicant cannot produce any docs, CCBill shouldn't accept them as a client. Simple, easy, effective. It's not time consuming; it's a single request form at signup, then a quick glance to see that they match. For most sites (who aren't DMCA'd later) it's a one-time check. It would maybe add an extra 5 minutes to the whole approval process.

That's incredibly naive. The "owner" knows he's a thief. He doesn't care. He's offshore. His hosting is offshore. He's untouchable. His only vulnerability is credit card processing.

A lot of times a website owner cannot be determined due to privacy or obfuscation. Or they may be located overseas in some backwards ass country that hardly cares about the rule of law. There are only a handful of processors for adult material, so I see nothing wrong with an industry leader like CCBill yanking a copyright infringer's billing if someone sends a DMCA notice. They don't have to be the internet police, but they are a huge company and they can easily afford to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem.

There's offshore cc billers too, so ending a US based cc processing for them is not going to end it. The only way for you to end it is the hard and expensive way, which is for you to go after them.

In many cases, you'll never discover who they are. And if even if you do, the only way you'll stop them is through physical violence, because they're immune from legal efforts. But we shouldn't give up just because you can't stop every scammer in the world. This discussion is about those in a position to act positively doing what they can to limit it.

CCbill, only by their position as a leader in this industry, happens to be the primary processor for most of these pirate sites. A policy change on their part would clean up a lot of this mess.

I am a little fish. I only run a couple small amateur sites. I am a drop in their bucket. But so far I have paid CCBill $230,554.68 in processing fees. IMHO that should include some small degree of preemptive effort on their part to avoid processing for people who steal my content.

Hey Corvette,
Thanks for starting this thread. The last time I had to deal with this issue, you directly told me that we needed 3 or 4 more DMCA notices sent in regarding stolen content on a site before CCbill could help. Are you saying this is or is not accurate, or have you since changed your policy? That sounds a little different that what you are saying here today.

Of course "legally" we don't expect you to help. However, being as CCbill is a leader in the industry and how you do actually profit from the sites with the stolen content, we do expect you to lend a hand if possible and greatly appreciate it if you do. The same as you would hope and maybe expect any of us to let you know if we found out someone in your company was stealing private credit card data and selling it. "Professional Courtesy" I believe it's called.