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Copyright Rant
Disclaimer: This is just a rant of mine, it doesn't represent any legal position or anything. Also, being a rant, I kind of wander all over the place in no coherent pattern. You have been warned.
NOTE: I would later learn that indeed Fox was NOT responsible for the email I received, so any place where I mention it may be Fox, I was wrong. Please see the content update for more details. I am leaving this rant in place as is to show the frustration that I go through, and also many of the points are still valid for other people/companies.
Running my not for money website that I have made just to provide information about an artist and his paintings that I find interesting, I have run into several problems with copyrights. I've had several people and one anonymous entity (which I am pretty sure is the copyright people for Fox) contact me about copyright materials on my website (to which I don't have any rights to). Now don't get me wrong, I'm not one of those people who thanks that everything in existence should be free and we should be able to download anything we want, but it does annoy me when people start bothering small noncommercial websites about their almighty copyrights. I must also admit though, that this has the most to do with the "anonymous entity case" than the other ones. In fact Demarco Productions actually let me display one of the pictures after I explained my situation (Demarco Productions = cool, buy DPP stuff through them, don't have a weblink though).
Now back to the anonymous entity. About 3 days after I move my server to my school so it can have an internet connection over the summer, I get an email from the head of my school's computing department (and technically my boss, but a couple levels above me) saying that an "outside source" has said that I might be violating U.S. copyright law. Now I am assuming that the person who sent my the email is just the messenger in this ordeal, so I will blame the lawyers. Since this is my school and my boss, I had to take this really seriously (I want to graduate) so my website was offline for a couple of weeks. After looking through everything, I figure this "outside source" is referring to 2 30 second video clips of the Simpsons that I had on my website. Now that I think about it, I was wrong (although this is not an admission of guilt in the court of law) and it is within "Fox's" right to request this. Here is my problem with this though:
- Rude and stupid communication - I clearly have contact information posted on my webpage. I state in the disclaimer that if you think I am violating a copyright to please contact me. Other people who have wanted to get in contact with me (for good or bad reasons) have managed to do so without problems. Not for "Fox" They decide to send an email to the people who own the IP Range that my server is located at. How stupid can you be? I guess this is just a scare tactic of theirs. Either that or they just scan IP ranges of schools and have a generic email address to send to in that range. If they would have contact me, however, I would have removed any violating content. Also in their email, or at least the version I got, they never even said what material might be offending copyright. I just had to guess myself.
- I am giving them free advertising - Using my own money and time, I set up a page which talks about some good points of the show. I tell the episode title and its season. Any fans of the Simpsons can enjoy a short clip. And of course, you can't watch these in other places since Fox has been so freaking slow in releasing the Simpson's DVDs. If they had been released, I would have happily put a link to purchase the season's dvd which these clips were on. But instead, "Fox" gives me a big middle finger. Thanks.
- I am sure I can think of more later, but this is all for now.
So in conclusion, if you have a problem (or compliment) with my website, please contact me first and I will be more than happy to work things out. Don't do nslookup www.dogsplayingpoker.org, go to Geektools, enter the number that nslookup returned, and then email the guy listed there. It isn't worth your trouble, my trouble, or the person's whose email address is listed on GeekTools trouble. Just go to the contact page and email me. Thank you. (FYI: The person listed on geektools is the tech contact for my school and not even the person you would want if there was some kind of intellectual property discussion.
