IIRC muldrake posted that some time back as the easiest/safest way to avoid copyright infringement problems.

Yes, I do recall that.... just did not recall who posted it. Thanks for the memories!

If you don't have to use a real name, I can do that. I can give an email address and a fake name. I'm out the door to get my kids ... can somebody look up a link to the form, so I can take a gander at it?

Something completely different.

The link at the top to Politijab takes you to the "View Active Topics" page at Politijab The link at the top at Politijab takes you the TFB's Board Index. I wonder if the link at PJ could point to TFB's "View Active Topics" instead?

Here's info:
http://www.copyright.gov/onlinesp/

An example of an acceptable "form"
http://www.copyright.gov/onlinesp/agent.pdf

The real scoop:



I suppose ya COULD use a fake name and all, but I'm not sure it would provide the 'safe harbor' that one pays $105 for. ??

Foggy,

Easy. Just fill out the form with Realist's real name. Problem solved.

See how you are? And I had a volunteer send me a PM offering to use HER real name, too.

Except I'm not putting this on anybody else. We know full well from past experience that if someone gives his/her real name, bad things will happen. At the very least, you'll be harassed. Maybe sued, too. Even if, like greenie, you have no ownership interest or legal responsibility for anything posted here.

Part of the rule ellie quoted says you have to give a phone number. I'm not giving out any phone numbers.

Don't have time to study this, but my instinct is, keep the 4-paragraph rule and anonymity.

Which has it's downside like when birferz delete their stuff.

You're just figgering that out now?

Third party agent services to provide privacy.

I have no idea where to put this, and didn't want to start a new thread, but if anyone wants to bookmark a cool tool for education, health and other demographic information across the US you can find it here. h/t Andrew Sullivan

In all the time since PJ came online, nearly two years ago, we've had only one person who complained that we used copyrighted material. IMHO, that person apparently makes her living by panhandling, or the equivalent. She can't afford a real lawyer, so far as I know. Real lawyers would avoid her like the plague, if they learned who she is and what she does.

Even if she could afford it, it would cost her a lot of money to sue the company my domain name is registered with, to find my real name and address. Then, since I have no connection whatever with the state of Illinois, she'd have to sue me in my state in order to get jurisdiction over me. I'm not too worried about her myself.

It's true she has realist's name and address, and has sued him once, without success. But in the process, she learned:

• that he has no ownership interest in PJ or Fogbow,
• that she'd have to sue him in the state where he is, and
• that he never violated her copyright in any event. Public court filings and transcripts of public proceedings and information voluntarily supplied by opposing counsel aren't subject to her copyright, period.

She may try suing him again; I can't prevent that. But then he'd be able to counter claim against her, since she knows full well that any legal claim against him is frivolous and total BS. And the resources available to him, including the talents of various members here, are vastly larger than the resources available to her.

In other words, he'd kick her ass in court. She has to know that, by now.

So much for her. The only thing I'm doing with respect to her is, I'm not allowing the herd to taunt her about suing realist, here or at PJ, because it does cost him money, even if he kicks her ass in court, which he would.

As far as other organizations, the four paragraph rule has served us well for all this time. It keeps the clutter down on the board, too. There really is no reason why anyone really, honestly needs to copy more than four paragraphs from a source that's available on another site with the click of a mousie. Four paragraphs give you the flavor of the material. If you want to read more, click on the link. If you aren't interested, then you don't want to read more than four paragraphs of it in any event.

Next time I do an accounting of the contributions y'all are making to Fogbow, I'm probably going to give you a detailed look at just how much money one of our members has shelled out of his own personal pocket so we can laugh and mock and snark about legal pleadings and transcripts that he has provided us over the months.

For the foreseeable future, until I've managed to reimburse him for at least half or more of the money he's spent for your and my entertainment and enlightenment, every nickel that comes in through the Paypal button is going to go to him.

I'm gonna keep the four paragraph rule, and not pay $105 to the gubbermint and $99 next year for an agent, and take my chances on copyright violation.

So sayeth the rooster.

I aint got a particular opinion on this matter, it's for sharper beaks than mine to determinate. Just stickin' out some info.

Seems to my non-legal mind that if somebody feels there is copyright infringement, there are ways to go. In fact I acted as an agent for someone some years ago to have an infringing photo removed from a particularly hideous and revolting websitesite run by some freepers. Proper notification was made, the infringing photo was removed and that was that.

'Nother time, a design of mine was stole (I am a professional designer)... design patterns were what I sold. I contacted the lady, and asked where she got it. She fukkin lied and claimed she bought it 2 years before I created the design. There was absolutely no mistaking my exact work, I was somewhat well known . I coulda sued her. I coulda insisted that she destroy the item that she had clearly spent very long hours working on. Instead, I told her to remove the item from the internet. She did.

Suing for copyright infringement is very expensive. It is much more important to establish loss of value to the original work than whether the infringer makes money. The bullshit that teh birfers post has no commercial value. If a crackpot birfer posts an 87 paragraph bit of bullshit and we repost the entire thing with full credit with a link so folks can go over and click the PayPal, we have not harmed the copyrighter, but helped spread the word of the site and PP button. Copyright holder could sue, but would go broke and get nothing anyway. I could see a problem with outfits like newspapers, etc., but not blogs.

I am a researcher. If a whole book or chapter is posted online and I can do my research there, rather than purchasing the book/chapter/excerpt, it can have an impact on the value of the author/publisher's work. Crap posted on the internet by birfers has no monetary value. Reposting their rants causes them no loss-- monetarily or reputation.

The person who stole my design harmed my brand name and exclusivity (all my designs were signed by the noted artist) by working up and selling a pattern that was not signed by the artist and 'back-dating' it, casting doubt on my reputation as the original designer, as I had publicly stated the date of its creation. That was harm to my reputation and value of my products. Prolly woulda cost me $10,000 to sue (and years in court), and my damages were prolly $800, as a sheer guess made up guess.

WTF are the damges by reposting internet "articles"/posts? Pfffft.

So here's a story. I spend my time on the study and writing about Western American history. I ran across an article on the internet several years ago. I believed it for a couple years. I talked about it with some historians, professional and not, some professors, some experts in certain aspects of the story, and none of them knew a thing about it. I became more interested and contacted Library of Congress, every museum archives and curator and library in my state. I researched and researched and disproved every fukkin lie. A hunert of 'em. All of 'em.

I wanted to write an article in my history publication about HOW to research, using this bogus story as an example of how I learned to check historical facts. I never wrote the article (though it woulda been a humdinger with hookers, gamblers and well-known characters). He went so far as to quote non-existing books, non-extistent publishers, etc. The reason I never wrote it is that I would have had to use his entire article, AND HE SELLS THE PIECE OF SHIT DELIBERATE 100X LIE IN A BOOK. It would harm his commercial reputation and the value of his utter lies about history. Had he not been selling a book, I'd have published the article.

I guess I got my revenge in my own way for him publishing total lies about history. I eventually found out that he is a pornographer (which I don't neccessarily oppose, depending). So I was sitting with the Director of the important History museum and historical society and tourism of the teensy (300) utterly historical tourist town and said, "He is talking on the internet about how he has a studio in your town and posts hardcore pornography on the site". He said, "He connects our town name?" "Yes, he certainly does". He was a previous Fire Dept. Chief. I don't think he is respected in that town anymore.

Note to self: NEVAR piss ellie off.

I thought you learned that a long time ago.

Well, ya know me, ellie. Sometimes I need a little reminder.

If you two is done honkin' at each other momentarily ...

I agree with ellie on the REAL point she's making, which is that we could copy every stinkin' word of a lot of birfer hate rants, and not worry about copyright infringement at all. Especially since I'm the sole owner of the site, the only one anybody could really sue with any hope of recovery, and I have the skillz to defend myself in court without an attorney, meaning mostly for free (unless things got hairy, which they prob'ly never would do). The chances of anybody winning any money from me are slim and none, and Slim left town yesterday on the evening stage.

Especially if we're talking about comments by one birfer on another birfer's blog. Who holds the copyright to a comment? The birfer owner of the blog, who didn't write the comment? The birfer who posted a public comment, who doesn't own the blog?

It's a pickle. For anyone who wants to sue me. Not for me.

But it brings me back to the other original reason for the Four-Paragraph Rule, to wit:

We really don't have any need to turn Fogbow into a mirror site for the hatriots.

There was a time when lots of us spent our time copying and pasting horrible, racist, hateful, ignorant, idiotic crap into PJ, and then pointing out how horrible, racist, hateful, ignorant, and idiotic it was. I think that's part of what turned Justin off toward following the birfers. We all know a lot of sites where you can read that kind of hateful crap and get outraged and stuff. And it's bad enough to read it on those sites. But to turn Fogbow into a cesspool of posts like that doesn't appeal to me any more than it appealed to Justin at PJ.

And, like I said, we all put links to the source in our posts. If you find something particularly spectacular in the way of stoopidity or dishonesty or racism, it's really not a challenge to your abilities to choose just four paragraphs that are good examples of what you mean to convey, and then making a comment if necessary.

Bogus info is particularly good at that kind of thing. If she feels the four paragraphs she chose are insufficient to give you the necessary information, she'll add something like "This is a must read." And since she doesn't do overkill ... since she rarely adds that kind of comment ... when she does say "This is a must read," the chances go up to about 95.7% that I'm gonna click her link and read the rest of it. 'Cuz I trust her judgment.

So it isn't like the Four-Paragraph Rule stifles anyone from conveying information, or from usin' their own creativity. I just don't see a downside to keeping it in place.

As a comment on this issue:

I believe any of the copyright holders will only go after those blogs and forums that have a huge readership and where they may be losing real money. Those targets are likely the ones with a big interest in keeping themselves heard on the web and are vulnerable to the kind of copyright lawsuits as has been tried by this shark on the web. Small sites just would shrink into oblivion when challenged and no costs recovered.

Add to this a technical detail of the phpBB forum system: it doesn't allow for the direct pasting of foreign HTML content including embedded scripting. As such any image that would be hotlinked or any hidden link back to the originating webpage and site will be broken. The originating site and its webmaster will have no referers that point back to this forum in their logfiles. They will have no obvious means to find where their copyrighted material may be replicated.

Having said this, a solution that may prove good intent in a lawsuit would be to have a separate webpage linked on Fogbow home page as the DMCA Information page. Just stating that the ownership accepts copyright complaints by email, expecting the complaint by only the copyright holder to be in the form of a letter in a PDF file (perhaps ask for a scanned and signed letter) and use a special email address like dmca@thefogbow.com. Redirect this address via the hosting panel to your standard mail box if you don't wish to check another mailbox daily. Of course hide this email address from the nasty email addy harvesters by one of the usual methods like an image of some javascript.

my €.02 -- So sayeth the furinner.

The issue about the value of a copyrighted article is mainly an issue with news agencies. As you have/had with your design patterns, news clips are money for them. The agencies sell them to the newspapers, the real paper ones and their virtual cousins.

E.g. AP has made it know that they will agressively protect their content, independant if it is redistributed from their own website or from their licensees.

This could be a problem for a forum or a blog. As for Fogbow, I see rarely any news reported here. It's a little bit different at PJ. That's where the four paragraph restriction is valuable to be enforced.

But then again, I don't believe that agencies will go after low volume readership sites. It's not here where they lose their income.

Back to more important stuff...

Some of the smileys in chat are not the same as the forum. Specifically and

Agreed. The chat smileys could be extended.

I'm BIZZY! Not only do I help with PJ and run Fogbow, I'm also webmastering and blogging on my shop website.

But I'll look at it. What if they don't all fit?

";)" = and not would be a start...

Appears smithy has been hugging folks by mistake.

Its always a risk when you wink at random people...