No Copyrighted Material. (Lawyers, Pants, Suing, Off Of.)

[Strel]

Originally Posted by thecoalman

This is actually older story and they have been doing it for months. They aren't going after the poster but the sites. There's a provision in the DMCA that should protect site owners from this commonly called the "safe harbor" provision however there is loophole they are exploiting:





They are targeting sites that have not applied for this.

Well, ignorance of the law is no excuse.

[rogerbacon]

Originally Posted by Strel

Subject to what you've already contracted out of by agreeing to the TOS here.

maybe.

Darn, I've been out lawyered.

[thecoalman]

Originally Posted by Strel

Well, ignorance of the law is no excuse.

It's not that its the law but you lose the blanket coverage safe harbor provides. They send a letter from a lawyer and hope the site capitulates and pays. If the site refused they would still have to sue the website and prove it's an infringement but the site couldn't claim safe harbor. Some have successfully fought them but it may be huge burden for a lot of smaller sites.

I think it was Getty images that was using similar tactic, they had an image for checkout basket that someone picked up and it somehow made it into a open source project. These sites were all using this copyrighted image unbeknown to them. They sent out a whole bunch of letters demanding payment with the threat of a lawsuit. To the best of my knowledge no one ever got sued but you can bet they made a fortune on those that paid.