Dear Allison Kelley, John Scalzi...

Repost of Rowena Cherry's open letter to the Presidents of RWA, SFWA, and Authors' Guild concerning copyright infringement.


Dear Allison Kelley, John Scalzi, Scott Turow,

Thank you very much for everything you do to defend authors' copyrights against copyright infringement. We very much appreciate having an address to which to send our complaints, and the comfort of knowing that you compile a database of the most egregious "pirates" and pirate sites.

Despite small triumphs, ignorance persists among honest readers; lies about the legality of "sharing" go unchallenged, and the problem is getting much worse.

Please Scott Turow, Allison Kelley, John Scalzi will you talk to one another, set up one powerhouse task force, meet regularly, share resources, engage your members, give authors one central "Go To" address where we can submit complaints, report piracy sites, blogs and yahoogroups, cc our individual take-down notices.

One forceful industry voice could shut down an entire account and insist on a hosting site complying with their own TOS where their TOS has been repeatedly violated, instead of individual authors taking down one file at a time.

Thank you.


Rowena Cherry

Permission granted to forward, share, repost, or use as a template for other open letters.

Google's webpage removal request tool

There's a blog that has been outraging some of my friends. Frankly, it outrages me, too, even though my e-books have not been allegedly bought, duplicated in violation of copyright, uploaded to "file-sharing" sites, and illegally disseminated:

My copyright has not been infringed.

A self described book worm had a comments section, but when authors and their friends posted comments informing the site and its visitors that posting links for ebooks to rapidshare and other such sites (surely never intended for this purpose) might be illegal, the bookworm allegedly removed the comments, and allegedly blocked the IPs of the authors.

The book worm also requested donations so he or she could purchase and then publish more ebooks. Paypal, a division of EBay, much to its credit, removed that convenience, so now, various credit card companies' logos are posted.

Would you give someone you knew or suspected to be thief your credit card info? Incredible! Would you knowingly finance alleged criminal activity? Moreover, the authorities would have all your contact information through your credit card company!

Here's what to do if a blogspot or otherwise Google owned or controlled site appears to be infringing on your copyrights.

Quoted as fair use from the Google site http://www.google.com/support/websearch/bin/topic.py?topic=13926&hl=en

Remove information from Google: Report copyright infringement

It's Google's policy to respond to notices of alleged infringement that comply with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (the text of which can be found at the U.S. Copyright Office website) and other applicable intellectual property laws, which may include removing or disabling access to material claimed to be the subject of infringing activity.

To file a notice of infringement with us, you must provide a written communication (by fax or regular mail -- not by email, except by prior agreement) that sets forth the items specified below. Please note that you will be liable for damages (including costs and attorneys' fees) if you materially misrepresent that a product or activity is infringing your copyrights. Indeed, in a previous case, a company that sent an infringement notification seeking removal of online materials that were protected by the fair use doctrine was ordered to pay such costs and attorneys fees. The company agreed to pay over $100,000. Accordingly, if you are not sure whether material available online infringes your copyright, we suggest that you first contact an attorney.

To expedite our ability to process your request, please use the following format (including section numbers):

1. Identify in sufficient detail the copyrighted work that you believe has been infringed upon. For example, "The copyrighted work at issue is the text that appears on http://www.legal.com/legal_page.html."
2. Identify the material that you claim is infringing upon the copyrighted work listed in item #1 above. Click the type of search you used to find the material to learn what information you should provide in your request:

Google Web Search

FOR WEB SEARCH, YOU MUST IDENTIFY EACH SEARCH RESULT THAT DIRECTLY LINKS TO A WEBPAGE THAT ALLEGEDLY CONTAINS INFRINGING MATERIAL. This requires you to provide (a) the search query that you used, and (b) the URL for each allegedly infringing search result. Note that the URL for each search result appears in green on the last line of the description for that search result.

For example, suppose (hypothetically) that you conducted a search on Google.com using the query [Google], and found that the third and fourth results directly link to a webpage that you believe infringes upon the copyrighted text that you identified in item #1 above. In this case, you would provide the following information:

Search query: Google
Infringing webpages: http://directory.google.com/

Google Images

FOR IMAGES, YOU MUST PROVIDE THE EXACT URL FOR EACH IMAGE YOU WISH TO HAVE REMOVED FROM OUR IMAGES SERVICE.

For example:

http://www.mydomain.com/myimages/example_image.gif
http://www.illegal.com/illegal_stuff/illegal.gif

To find the exact URL of the image, please follow these steps:
1. Click the image that you locate in the image search results.
2. Click the thumbnail of the image shown in the top frame of the page that appears.
3. Click the URL that displays in your browser's address bar.
4. Right-click and select Copy.
5. In your notice to us, right-click and select Paste to add the URL to your document.

3. Provide information reasonably sufficient to permit Google to contact you (email address is preferred).
4. Provide information, if possible, sufficient to permit Google to notify the owner/administrator of the webpage that allegedly contains infringing material (email address is preferred).
5. Include the following statement: "I have a good faith belief that use of the copyrighted materials described above on the allegedly infringing webpages is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law."
6. Include the following statement: "I swear, under penalty of perjury consistent with United States Code Title 17, Section 512, that the information in the notification is accurate and that I am the copyright owner or am authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed."
7. Sign the paper.
8. Send the written communication to the following address:

Google Inc.
Attn: Google Legal Support, DMCA Complaints
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View, CA 94043

Or fax to:

(650) 963-3255, Attn: Google Legal Support, DMCA Complaints

Please note that a copy of each legal notice we receive is sent to a third-party partner for publication and annotation. As such, your letter will be forwarded to Chilling Effects (http://www.chillingeffects.org) for publication. You can see an example of such a publication at http://www.chillingeffects.org/dmca512/notice.cgi?NoticeID=861. A link to your published letter will be displayed in Google's search results in place of the removed content.

For more information, please see http://www.google.com/dmca.html

All the best,
Rowena Cherry

it's only stealing if you take something away from someone - so if i wasn't going to pay to see the movie if even if i couldn't watch it for free, then it would be ok if watched it for nothing - cos i wouldn't have paid to see it even if i couldn't get it for free - right?
if you are working in movies and you can't support yourself perhaps you should give up on a dream you're never going to achieve and step back into the real world.


To read the rest of this proud freeloader's remarks (I only lifted what I thought might be a Fair Use amount) you may find the discussion of Wolverine and some lovely shots of Hugh Jackman in action here:
http://timesonline.typepad.com/blockbuster_buzz/2009/04/wolverine-is-loose-on-the-internet-ignore-him.html

It's been an interesting week.

J K Rowling and other bestselling authors took on SCRIBD, and the Times of London reported sympathetically.
http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/the_web/article5998918.ece?Submitted=true


On a Copyright Alliance blog, a commentator suggested that President Obama's gift to The Queen of England may have set an unfortunate example of piratical behaviour
How about the Queen? Should she have to give her Ipod back? Technically what she did is infringement!

http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/04/first-sale-president-obama-and-queen-england


Another interesting discussion of infringement
http://blog.copyrightalliance.org/2009/04/whacking-infringement/

Apparently, there is a report that someone at the prestigious TED conference has analyzed morality and petty theft, and the conclusions may tend to be rather depressing.
http://blog.copyrightalliance.org/2009/04/a-file-sharing-honor-code/

If I read the argument correctly, humans are hardwired cheat and steal if they think they can get away with it, and if they know someone else who does so.

For those artists and writers and musicians who want their copyrighted work taken down from "file-sharing" sites, look at the Footer of the site in question for words such as "Copyright". That's the place to find out what their requirements are for a "Take Down Notice". Usually, you will need a screen capture, and dual processor so you can have two windows open at the same time. You also need an email account that suggests that you are the copyright holder. You also need an ISBN. Not all works have ISBNs.

This, too, is a problem these days.

Here's the form of words that one site requires:

Pursuant to 17 USC 512(c)(3)(A), this communication serves as a statement that:

1. I am the exclusive rights holder for [TITLE OF WORK] ISBN [OF WORK], the titles of copyrighted material being infringed upon, which were published [DATE OF COPYRIGHT/DATE OF PUBLISHING];

2. These exclusive rights are being violated by material available upon your site at the following URL(s): [GIVE THE URLS TO THE DOWNLOADS AND TO THE PAGES OFFERING YOUR WORKS]

3. I have a good faith belief that the use of this material in such a fashion is not authorized by [YOUR NAME] the copyright holder, the copyright holder's agent, or the law;

4. Under penalty of perjury in a United States court of law, I state that the information contained in this notification is accurate, and that I am authorized to act on the behalf of the exclusive rights holder for the material in question;

5. I may be contacted by the following methods
[GIVE YOUR NAME, ADDRESS, PHONE NUMBER, EMAIL ADDRESS]

I hereby request that you remove or disable access to this material as it appears on your service in as expedient a fashion as possible. Thank you.



Please be aware that if you send a take down notice, the site is likely to post a note telling the world that you were the person who requested that the download be removed.