More copyright complaints

Free Republic | April 8, 2004 | Jim Robinson

[Jim Robinson]

As most of you are aware, we've recently received several copyright complaints. In the last few weeks, we've received complaints from the SJ Mercury News, Independent (UK), SF Chronicle and The Boston Globe. Just a couple days ago the Post-Gazette send a cease and desist notice and yesterday I heard from the Tribune-Review.

Tonight, I got a call from Amy and there were two more registered letters at our PO Box. The McClatchy News (Sacramento Bee) and USAToday are now added to the list of publications that have complained about copyright violations.

Well, folks, the handwriting is on the wall. The complaints are now coming in faster than I can respond to them. John is currently in the process of writing programs to search out and automatically excerpt all existing threads from these sources.

I think we're gonna have to go to excerpt and link for all news sources very soon unless we have written permission on file.

[Chad Fairbanks]

The handwriting is on the wall.

Sorry. That was me. I was doing my Manson impression. Don't worry, though - pregnant actress blood comes out with a little bleach, and an enzyme cleaner...

[Piranha]

Drudge never excerpts because he only links (except for his own articles). We also can continue to link. What we can't do is cut and paste whole articles.

[Mo1]

Same here .. maybe I should get a bigger hard drive too?

[Jim Robinson]

Our system will handle it fine. There will always be some publications that don't mind our posting full text so we have to be able to accomodate both. In fact, we have some sites and authors that love to have their stuff posted to FR. We also have sites and authors that get pissed if we DON'T allow their stuff to get posted, LOL.

[StriperSniper]

Never heard of it, but it sounds interesting. As does Chad Fairbanks' idea in Post#80, that has crossed my mind also.

Now I shutting down for the night(and this time I mean it ;-)

[Indy Pendance]

Not necessarily. Bookmark this:

http://www.archive.org/

It's an internet archive site, and you can find tons of obsolete stuff here.

[supercat]

The jukebox is owned by a vendor that supplies stuff like that and it's license does not cover live music or karaoke.

I believe the venue which hosts the coin operated phonograph is required to pay royalties to ASCAP et al. if there are any ASCAP records contained therein and may get pressured by ASCAP to pony up the dough even if there are zero ASCAP records in it (I recall hearing of at least one place that had all non-ASCAP polka music in its juke box but had to go to court to prove it).

[jpsb]

There are two big copyright owners, each wanted about 500 bucks per year for 1 band a month and no karakoe (for a bar that had 60 seats or less). That works out to paying an extra 90 bucks per band. Now a little bar loses money on bands to start with so and extra 100 a month to a bunch of blood sucking lawyer is not something we are going to too. Screw it, the juke box makes money, bands don't. I was a easy decision.

[Jim Robinson]

Oh, it'll be coming out. Those who are doing it will probably be bragging about it. Probably already are.

[Travis McGee]

The "buggy whip factory" bosses are so short-sighted. They are just cutting their own throats, long term. This is the best thing that ever happened for top-flight bloggers, and will accelerate the trend from the dinosaur "legacy media" to the future of free information flow.

Of course in the meantime, it's kind of a pain in the a$$.

[Reagan Man]

I was thinking that the other night, after the Pittsburg-Gazette(?) cut off our posting privileges.

A quick rewrite of salient points contained in an article wouldn't be infringing on copyright laws. It would also keep the size of articles down to a bare minimum.

[Indy Pendance]

Hey, wasn't little tommy dasshole proposing a muffler for all who had those lexnex's?

[DaughterOfAnIwoJimaVet]

I think club owners have to pay ASCAP and BMI, and beyond that, I never heard of anyone paying anything to anybody.

[Chad Fairbanks]

Makes sense.

[Jim Robinson]

Can't use frames. They complain that's a copyright violation. We can open the news source in a new window though.

[jnarcus]

Where's the Western Legal FOundation when we need them most...or Larry Klayman or that group that Pat Robertson got going with a name that is a counterpart to ACLU (I think maybe the ACJL)?

[Mo1]

LOL .. I believe you are correct

[Chad Fairbanks]

Yeah, they do usually. Most musicians I knew, and/or performed with, could never be organized enough to handle it all themselves ;0)

[Howlin]

Just buy more CDs............LOL.

[DoughtyOne]

Thank you for the link. I'll have to check it out and see what I can find there. I wonder how come they can archive articles when we can't. If there's no good reason, then the papers haven't a leg to stand on demanding Jim not archive.