Quotes website receives "Cease & Desist"

by Quotes 286 Replies latest members private

• 

  seattleniceguy

  I&P:

  The problem is access to the source material. For example, if we know Quotes quotes, say, 500 words from the book Your Kingdom Come, we would need to know the total word count of the book in order to get the percentage quoted. If you have access to these old materials, I can give you a list if you want.

  Actually, though, now that I think about it, any quotations from books are going to be very small percentage-wise. Assuming a book has at least 200 words per page, then a 200-page book has 40,000 words, and since almost all the quotes on the site are less than 500 words, we are talking about perhaps 1%. The magazines are the only real concern, and the question is, as Leolaia points out, what constitutes a "work"? Is it an article, or an issue of the magazine?

  I think that, for now, we can stop worrying about this issue. I just thought it would be good to have some figures in our back pocket if we needed them, and I think we know now what we need to know.

  Quotes:

  Glad to help! You can have a copy of the database if you want. I put the content in a SQL Server 2000 database. It was kind of quick-and-dirty, but it might give you some place to start if you want to transition to a db-backend at some point.

  SNG
• 

  seattleniceguy

  Leolaia,

  Regarding the possibility that an article is considered the "work," rather than the magazine, I think Fair Use covers copying an article. Otherwise, what if you want to quote from a very short article? 10% might only buy you one sentence, which isn't very useful.

  SNG
• 

  xenawarrior

  SNG:

  This might help:

  http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.html#wccc
• 

  Quotes

  Just found this helpful summary:
  
  

  Question: What are the notice and takedown procedures for web sites?

  
  
  Answer: In order to have an allegedly infringing web site removed from a service provider's network, or to have access to an allegedly infringing website disabled, the copyright owner must provide notice to the service provider with the following information:
  
  * The name, address, and electronic signature of the complaining party [512(c)(3)(A)(i)]
  * The infringing materials and their Internet location [512(c)(3)(A)(ii-iii)], or if the service provider is an "information location tool" such as a search engine, the reference or link to the infringing materials [512(d)(3)].
  * Sufficient information to identify the copyrighted works [512(c)(3)(A)(iv)].
  * A statement by the owner that it has a good faith belief that there is no legal basis for the use of the materials complained of [512(c)(3)(A)(v)].
  * A statement of the accuracy of the notice and, under penalty of perjury, that the complaining party is authorized to act on the behalf of the owner [512(c)(3)(A)(vi)].
  
  Once notice is given to the service provider, or in circumstances where the service provider discovers the infringing material itself, it is required to expeditiously remove, or disable access to, the material. The safe harbor provisions do not require the service provider to notify the individual responsible for the allegedly infringing material before it has been removed, but they do require notification after the material is removed.
  
  [back to notice text]
  
  

  Question: What are the counter-notice and put-back procedures?

  
  
  Answer: In order to ensure that copyright owners do not wrongly insist on the removal of materials that actually do not infringe their copyrights, the safe harbor provisions require service providers to notify the subscribers if their materials have been removed and to provide them with an opportunity to send a written notice to the service provider stating that the material has been wrongly removed. [512(g)] If a subscriber provides a proper "counter-notice" claiming that the material does not infringe copyrights, the service provider must then promptly notify the claiming party of the individual's objection. [512(g)(2)] If the copyright owner does not bring a lawsuit in district court within 14 days, the service provider is then required to restore the material to its location on its network. [512(g)(2)(C)]
  
  A proper counter-notice must contain the following information:
  
  * The subscriber's name, address, phone number and physical or electronic signature [512(g)(3)(A)]
  * Identification of the material and its location before removal [512(g)(3)(B)]
  * A statement under penalty of perjury that the material was removed by mistake or misidentification [512(g)(3)(C)]
  * Subscriber consent to local federal court jurisdiction, or if overseas, to an appropriate judicial body. [512(g)(3)(D)]
  
  If it is determined that the copyright holder misrepresented its claim regarding the infringing material, the copyright holder then becomes liable to the OSP for any damages that resulted from the improper removal of the material. [512(f)]
• 

  Amazing1914

  Hi Quotes,

  Get a lawyer and call the news media. The Watchtower Society hates this kind of publicity. - Jim W.
• 

  catchthis

  It still wouldn't surprise me if the WTS continually threatened your ISP even if you condensed the material or added commentary. You need to remember, your hosting provider AND the WTS are not interested in seeing you conform to copyright laws as defined by fair use. Your ISP sees it as, "Damn it. We got another letter from Watchtower's legal department saying they are going to sue us if we don't shutdown that Quotes site." To them, someone paying $10-20 a month for hosting a website which quotes obscure literature that is read by only a minor fraction of the world's population is not worth going to court over and possibly losing much more than a few years worth of hosting fees from you. They would rather toss you out and hope that you set up shop somewhere else inflicting potential lawsuits on a different ISP instead of them.

  On the other hand, the WTS would see it as a major victory just to get Quotes suspended in the meantime. Their only concern is keeping the site off of the net. I highly doubt that they would want to go to court over something like this. It would show them as being very hypocritical simply due to the fact that they espouse the same freeness of speech the world over. Not only that, they know that if it went to court and you won, that it would open the floodgates to a ton of other similar sites, along with additions to the existing ones.

  My guess is this: The WTS will be generally vague in their letter on what exactly is infringing. They may make mention of scans of WT or Awake articles, audio, lengthy quotes or whatever, but the true intent is not to let you know what is infringing so that you can make adjustments, but rather, to keep pressure on your ISP by saying that you haven't "cleaned" up your site as to their specifications. Well how do you know what their specifications are? You don't. And you won't unless you decide to take it to court. Only then when they see you are serious and have ACLU or EFF attorneys backing you up, they will back down and brush it aside as if nothing happened. I highy doubt they would even dare to bring this to a court of law.

  Remember, it is your hosting provider they are after to shut your site down, not you personally. And as long as you keep moving your site around to avoid the inevitable, WT legal will keep firing off the letters to your hosting providers until you get tired of uploading to a new server each month. Offshore ISP's which do not have copyright sharing laws with the USA are sparse. They are also not cheap just for that very reason. The other alternative is fighting back, especially if you are willing to make your name very public.
• 

  Valis

  Well, as I have been watching this all day I have decided to post just the HTML stuff that Quotes has and you can downlod it here. That way his provider doesn't get ticked at excessive bandwidth, and it leaves him to fight the good fight without having to respond to 144,000 requsts.. So here it is..

  http://www.sassquatch.com/QUOTES/quotes.zip

  Sincerely,

  District Overbeer
• 

  Scully

  Hmmm Interesting:

  A proper counter-notice must contain the following information:
  
  * The subscriber's name, address, phone number and physical or electronic signature [512(g)(3)(A)]

  I believe THIS information is what the WTS is interested in acquiring.

  Love, Scully
• 

  Quotes

  catch, you'r right, on all counts. Also, I've just learned that the ULTIMATE web host starts at US$750/mo (http://www.havenco.com/ -- on the tiny principality of SeaLand), so that's out.
  
  Valis, thanks for bandwidth sharing. Cheers.
  
  Scully, you may be right, but all they would have to do to get this info is to buy a CD from the site. I include my return address. Heh heh he... wouldn't it be funny if you're right, and they've gone to all this trouble and paid for lawyers, when all they had to do was spend $25 and order a disc. Funny.
  
  ~Quotes, of the "should have went with chinese or cuban web hosts" class
• 

  Valis

  eh Just make Brother Beans ship me down one of those mini kegs of Canadian and I'll be a happy man..

  Sincerely,

  District Overbeer