I work with a virtual series that picked up The Pretender TV series when the series ended. We are six episodes into our sixth season (after having done a complete 5th season). A couple weeks ago, we discovered that someone has taken our episodes, turned them into pdf files, and posted them on his site. Granted, he is giving us credit but he never asked permission to do this and due to the way our season is run, he is ruining our season.

We have asked him to take down the files and he has refused. His exact words were:

"Who needs authorisation to store screenshots of a public page? I certainly don't. I am also freely available to store these files online as it is a legitimate storage device and access point for retrieval for both me and other people wanting them. Actually if you look at the PDB's they still are stamped with your webpage address so it is hardly stealing."

The point of the matter is that our staff is so upset by this that we have no time (or inclination) to work on upcoming episodes. Since the work is basically fan fiction, we don't have much recourse law-wise. However, it has occured to me that in turning the pages into pdf files, he has copied our web pages design, complete with original ideas and graphics.

Has anyone any ideas in what we might be able to do to get this guy to remove the offending files?

Did you know that it is breach of copyright even for someone to host a link to your website without your permission? Not a lot of people know that.

In your case, he has clearly stolen your work, regardless whether he has credited you or not. You have asked him to remove the links but he has denied. Do you have a copyright notice on your site?

I recommend you send him another email, threatning him with legal action. 9 out of 10 cases, this will work without further action.

If he persists, then the only way you can get him to remove the links is to take it out with a lawyer. Just remember to keep all your emails.

Hope this helps :)

I believe that what that person has done is stealing. HOWEVER, if the pics are stamped with your URL and he did give you credit...isn't that just free advertisement for you and should you not be happy?

--Tina

Originally posted by Locutus
Did you know that it is breach of copyright even for someone to host a link to your website without your permission? Not a lot of people know that.

In your case, he has clearly stolen your work, regardless whether he has credited you or not. You have asked him to remove the links but he has denied. Do you have a copyright notice on your site?

IANAL, but I would be very, very careful in making blanket statements like that. Even in the age of the DMCA, copyrights only go so far.

Copyright law definitely does NOT work like you stated above. I can link directly to your web site on my web site, and there isn't a damn thing you can do about it. I could say on my page:

Look at this piece of crap web site -> http://www.yoursite.com

And guess what, you can't do a thing. Why? Because I own my web site, being a US citizen, and being that a web site is a mechanism of speech, I can say what I want. (So long as it isn't liable.)

Even if you have a TOS or other policy on your site that says "You need our written permission to link to this site.", it is not legally binding for at least two reasons:

1) I can link to your site without ever having visited there, and therefore I would never have seen the notice.

2) Even if I visited your site and read the notice, I didn't sign any legally binding contract to agree to your terms. You cannot just make terms of an agreement binding without getting agreement from the other party. (No, using a clause like "By visiting this site you agree..." is not legally binding. See reason 1.)

Take care,

Brian

It is actually a breach of copyright, i'm not making a blank statement as you suggested. I recently just took a website to court over this, so I should know ;)

On top of that, I'm not from the US, so I don't know how it works over there, but here in the UK, it definetly works this way.

Trinity preserve...

No, this is not the free advertisment we want.

We run the virtual series like a tv series...a new episode for a week then it comes down and a new episode goes up. Eventually, the first-run episodes are rerun and then archived.

He's claiming that he has posted our material because it's "endangered". Some people miss an episode so he's posting them so they can get them at any time. This is a incorrect claim, since he has our 5th season up, which is available in it's entirety at our site, as well as the first two episodes of 6th season. (Now he says he has those up because, well, you never know. Our site may disappear and then...hey!!! he'll have the episodes up for folks to enjoy! Ignoring the fact that we have been up for two years and have no intention of taking the site down anytime in the future. Of course, new episodes are in doubt and another season is pretty much out of the question.)

His actions are ruining our season...he has episodes posted that are first-run and have been taken down to wait for rerun. This site isn't needed since viewers have always been able to ask fellow viewers for episode copies (just like asking around for video copies of tv episodes when you've missed them).

Originally posted by AffordableHost
I believe that what that person has done is stealing. HOWEVER, if the pics are stamped with your URL and he did give you credit...isn't that just free advertisement for you and should you not be happy?

--Tina

As I mentioned in my above post, send him another email, saying that you will contact your lawyer over this.

The majority of users would back down at this point if you make the email convincing enough.

If this fails, sue his ass ;)

I think since this involves copyrighted material, he has no right to post your episodes on his site without your permission. (even if they have your website address).

I think this causes for a harsh second email which should state that "either you take the episodes off your site, or we'll pursue legal action." I think you should make clear who owns the rights to the episodes and without any permission, he has no right to display your material.

He may be destroying the quality and reputation of your website if anyone can access the episodes from his website. You can say that traffic from your site is being diverted to his site and that you cannot have this happen.

Thanks, that's just my 2 cents. Hope it helps.

(not a lawyer, not a legal opinion!)

In the case of the link, I'd tend to agree with Bteeter. Just having a like to your site on another site isn't a copyright infringement.

If I make a Links page, said "Look at these cool sites!" and included a link to you that's not an infringement on your name.

OTOH, if the other site was using your site's name/link in some way that implied you support/recommend/approve/etc of them that's another matter. I believe U.S. Federal law prohibits using someone's name without their permission.

My $.02

Well here is what I would do. First off, find out where this guy is being hosted and contact the host. Explain what is going on and forward any emails you have gotten to them. A lot of hosts have polices in there AUP and TOS that forbid things like this. My old employeer (you guys just love them here) thrive on that one part of the contract because they make people move to a dedicated server because of it. If no luck there, I would get a lawyer or at least make this guy think you got a lawyer.

You can link to who ever you want...

On March 27, 2000, U.S. Judge District Judge Harry Hupp issued a ruling dismissing four counts of Ticketmaster's complaint, including some counts involving deep linking. In dismissing the first claim, which alleged copyright infringement, Judge Hupp stated: "[H]yperlinking does not itself involve a violation of the Copyright Act (whatever it may do for other claims) since no copying is involved. The customer is automatically transferred to the particular genuine web page of the original author. There is no deception in what is happening. This is analogous to using a library's card index to get reference to particular items, albeit faster and more efficiently." from http://www.gigalaw.com/articles/kubiszyn-2000-05b-p4.html

www.gunsforkids.com links to www.toysrus.co.uk and they got some legal threats, but turns out... there isn't **** they can do about it.

We don't mind people linking....we just don't want them taking our episodes, converting them to another format and posting them on their site!!!!! All the while claiming their during a big service for the fans...

Originally posted by bigperm
You can link to who ever you want...

from http://www.gigalaw.com/articles/kubiszyn-2000-05b-p4.html

www.gunsforkids.com links to www.toysrus.co.uk and they got some legal threats, but turns out... there isn't **** they can do about it.

If you hold copyright on the material it is your legal right in the Uk (and i assume the USA) to decide who may broadcast your material in any way. If you do hold copyright, these people are infringing it and would not win in court.

PS. Could you post you website'a address, I would like to have a look :D

Originally posted by AffordableHost
I believe that what that person has done is stealing. HOWEVER, if the pics are stamped with your URL and he did give you credit...isn't that just free advertisement for you and should you not be happy?

Just a quick thought on that, it may be free advertising, however you never know if there's some type of advertising, etc... on the page that they're getting paid for. In that case they'd be losing money for each person getting that file instead of going to the site.

We hold copyright on the original material...not The Pretender stuff, of course.

The address is: http://www.fanficweb.net/tvs/pretender/

And we don't make any money in any way from this site. We don't even bother to keep track of visitors.

Originally posted by acidHL
If you hold copyright on the material it is your legal right in the Uk (and i assume the USA) to decide who may broadcast your material in any way. If you do hold copyright, these people are infringing it and would not win in court.

PS. Could you post you website'a address, I would like to have a look :D

Don't get me wrong, I don't mind people linking to one of my websites, but then I was already in a legal battle with the site involved.

He tried to sue me, but he lost the case. I wanted to sue him back so I had to find a valid case. I found a link on his forum to my website and this turned out to be a valid case :D

As I said, i don't know how it is in the US, but here in the UK, this law still stands. I'll try and dig out the copyright stuff my lawyer gave me and post it.

Not sure if I'm on the right 'track' here, but who actualy wrote the episodes?
Surely, thier permission is needed regardless of 'who's' site it's on?

Eladesor.

Since you obviously have a lawyer versed in copyright law, why not call him/her up and ask? If the site is in another country most law firms maintian contact with firms in other countries to exchange information. It would give you the definitive answers you seem to want. Where you go from there would be up to you.

Originally posted by Eladesor
Not sure if I'm on the right 'track' here, but who actualy wrote the episodes?
Surely, thier permission is needed regardless of 'who's' site it's on?

Eladesor.

Well, yes...one would think....

I can say that none of the authors gave their permission and, in fact, have asked him to remove the offending files.

Originally posted by NyteOwl
Since you obviously have a lawyer versed in copyright law, why not call him/her up and ask?
I think you are combining 2 people into one.

Rayhne has the problem and Locutus has the court case and lawyer

Well that certainly clarifies it for me.

If none of the authors have given permission, then the fact that they acknowledge your site is irrelevant. It doesn’t matter who’s right or wrong about links to a site being legal or not – No means NO!

Keep us posted, I’m curious to how it gets resolved – good luck ;)

Eladesor.

To Locutus:
there is no ruling in any court in the world against linking to other websites. Not even for deep linking. Althought there is a case in progress for that. If you have a case proving that please post it.
This linking law you are reffering reminds me of the British Telecoms's claim that they hold the patent for hyperlinks and that all people using them sould pay them!
It is just a joke! :D

To Locutus:
there is no ruling in any court in the world against linking to other websites. Not even for deep linking. Althought there is a case in progress for that. If you have a case proving that please post it.
This linking law you are reffering reminds me of the British Telecoms's claim that they hold the patent for hyperlinks and that all people using them sould pay them!
It is just a joke!

There must be because I won the case mate ;)

This rule is valid if the concerned website is in breach of copyright (which is Rayhne's case) or is in breach of defammation (which was my case).

Besides, this isn't the topic of this thread. Sorry for side tracking everyone :D

This rule is valid if the concerned website is in breach of copyright (which is Rayhne's case) or is in breach of defammation (which was my case).

Rayhne's case has nothing to do with linking. The other party copied the whole website! He is simply in breach of copyright.

Defammation has nothing to do with linking.
I can say "Locutus is $%^$%^$&" and get sued and I can say "Locutus is $%^$%^$&, this is his www.website.com" and also get sued. There is no difference. It is defammation with or without the link.

Here is an idea to kind of get back at him. If what he has done really looks good link to the movies or files and let every one from your site eat up his bandwidth and watch yoru shows on line. Yea you get no money from it but your users get to see the shows and you can put his bandwidth and server to its death if to many users go an watch the movies.. :)

it does seem pretty clear cut. You site has the rights to something that someone else is using without the permission of the creators of that material. They haven't asked, and regardless of their intent, they're in violation of copyright.

Free advertising? All fine and good if you want that, but this isn't the point. Better to link to your site with your permission and get some bannerclicks? :)

Their premise of 'saving' the resource is a moot point. It's up to the creators and copyright holder to make that judgement. Sometimes things get removed from public view for a reason...

Greg Moore

i may be wrong here isnt the pretender a pretty big network sitcom ?

isnt it with abc nbc or whaterver ?

if its the same one im thinking of dont you have a legal team dont networks have some rights or contracts ?

id just think that you would have a lawyer or some kind of law team that would handle this ?

doesnt make sense to me

after looking at the site i was right

The Pretender - © NBC, All rights reserved.
Web Maintenance by Rayhne
Based on a web design by Alminox

why doesnt nbc handle this ?
why would you come to a webmaster board with legal advice questions ?

u should have a legal department