Few days back, i posted a photo on my wordpress blog which i have taken from people.com.. Just after posting within few hours .. a DMCA copyright violation complaint came to me for deleting the image.. I didn't read that.. After one day again a notice appear from Dreamhost about this... I checked and found that Dreamhost already deleted the image ...When i read this I instantly deleted the image codes and everything related to it from my blog ..and wrote to dreamhost about my guilt.. no reply has come till now.. The problem is that ..my site has developed good page rank and alexa rank with decent traffic swhich i don't want to lose and also ..The company Time INc whose copyright was infringed asked me 3k$ fine for this.. This is the exact format of the complaint that i received..What should i do now...Will my account be suspended...or how they can fine me....Till now everything is ok Following is the complaint only in place of my site its digg.com there...and fine amount double in my case.. Recipient Information: DMCA Infringement Notification Dept Digg, Inc. San Francisco, CA, USA Sent via: email Re: Copyright Infringement – DMCA Takedown Notice Dear Sir or Madam: We have been instructed by the Law Department of Time Inc., the corporate publisher of People Magazine and People.com to put you on notice of a copyright infringement.It has come to our attention that you have posted without permission or compensation, People Magazine’s November 2, 2009 cover of Nicole Richie and her newborn baby , from People.com, (the “Unauthorized Workâ€) on your website, /“//http://digg.com//†/at http://digg.com/celebrity/Nicole_Richie_a_Joel_Madden_Introduce_Baby_Sparrow_Pho/who (the “Websiteâ€). Your publication of the Unauthorized Work is an infringement of the copyright of Time Inc. Attached with this letter is a copy of the Time Inc. Work. This letter is an official notification under the provisions of Section 512(c) of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. We hereby demand that /“//http://digg.com//â€// /immediately cease and desist from infringing the copyrighted material of Time Inc. and confirm in writing that it will do so and that it will not republish the Unauthorized Work. In addition, we hereby demand that /“//http://digg.com//â€/ reimburse Time Inc. in the amount of U.S. $1,500 (U.S. $1,500.00 per image for its unlawful act). We reserve all rights to take legal action. I have a good faith belief that use of such copyrighted material would not be authorized by Time Inc., its licensing representatives, or the law. The information provided herein is accurate to the best of my knowledge. I hereby swear under penalty of perjury that I am authorized to act on behalf of Time Inc. for matters pertaining to notification of infringement of its exclusive rights in its copyrighted material. Sincerely, [private] Mindcrest Inc. [private] Chicago, IL 60601 [private]@mindcrest.com Help
You can't take images that don't belong to you and use them unless you have express permission. Yes, they can sue you for use of their photo. You'll just have to wait to see if they take action. Dreamhost can either suspend your account, terminate it, or do nothing since they removed the image. If they do nothing, they will probably terminate you if it happens again. Your blog is full of images you took from other sites. This is a violation of Google Adsense and they can terminate your account and not pay you. I would remove all images you do not have permission to display.
mjewel is 100% correct. Not reading the DMCA notice was a dumb thing to do. Putting your head in the sand and ignoring such a thing isn't going to make it go away. If you'd read the initial notice you might not be in this situation now. Spilt milk, I know, but don't do it again. While they have asked for $3k I personally wouldn't pay them and let them proceed with Court Action if they see fit. The amount is probably below the Small Claims limit, and as long as it stays on the small claims track you won't be burdened with having to pay for their attorney's fees even if you lose. If they pursue you they would have to prove damages of $3k or a loss of $3k income for the few days that you posted the image. I don't know if they would be able to do that without knowing what sort of money they charge for displaying their images. If they did pursue you, and you did lose, at least with the small claims track you wouldn't be any worse off than you would be by paying them in the first place. I'd strongly advise that you seek professional counsel about this. Many attorneys offer a free initial consultation and you might want to take advantage of that to get an initial opinion. It's a tough call, and a bad way to learn a valuable lesson. Best scenario is that now the image has been removed you can hope that they may not think it is worth pursuing you, particularly if you have no assets. Worse scenario - they do pursue you, they prove the amount of loss, you lose, and you will be down $3000 dollars plus your attorney's fees.
Remove all copyrighted material. If you don't - copyright holders could file a DMCA with your host (lose your hosting), file a DMCA with your advertisers (lose your Adsense account), and file a DMCA with Google (lose your search engine rankings & listings).
Chill out, a lot of these messages are a hoax sometimes. Even if it is not just learn from your mistake. I really doubt they are going to do anything over this. Do not pay a penny. If you removed all the images, just delete the message and move on with life.
Don't worry, just remove the content, you don't have to pay anything, a DMCA notice is not a court order.
No, its a little more than that. For instance, under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which they are attempting to have these images removed, under OCILLA it provides protection for isp's/webhosts from lawsuits arising out of copyright infringement. Thus, in this example Digg's lawyers would have to be morons if they agreed to pay any damages for the images being displayed on their website, assuming they took down the images when they were notified. However, that does not relief any of the liability for the individual who posted the material, which I presume you were hinting at. That said, the copyright holder (Time) could take legal action again the individual who posted the material. I would HIGHLY suggest the person(s) who are responsible for posting the copyright infringed material, from either emailing or publically posting any admitance of fault. The last thing you want to do is provide further electronic evidence of fault in this case. There are many reasons why the material(s) may have been posted to digg, perhaps you were syndicating or rebroadcasting their story through the links on their site that allow you to post to "facebook" or "yahoo buzz". Maybe it was a RSS feed that also was used for syndication purposes. The bottom line is their may be plenty of reasons People.com knowingly encouraged their materials to be reposted or syndicated. And you were in complete SHOCK and surprised when they contacted you to remove the materials.
i got problems for 2 times for using others images,,, the owner of the image mailed me that delete all images else they will start a lawsuit against me,, i removed all images,, and the problem over,, but your problem seems high,, mail them that you are poor and can't pay much money,, sometimes mercy works,,,
Are you serious? This law is there to protect copyright holders. You can't just post things on your site that belong to other people.
This statement is NOT TRUE in the U.S. The Copyright Act provides for statutory damages. The injured party is not limited to actual damages and in fact does not have to show any economic loss to get statutory damages. Statutory damages are a MINIMUM of $750 per infringement and can range up to $30,000 per work infringed (and upon proof of willfulness, up to $150,000). In other words, if the judge finds infringement, he must award at least the minimum, although under certain circumstances the judge can reduce the minimum award to $200 per work infringed for innocent infringement. The statutory damages provision is the reason that the Recording Industry Association of America gets judgments of thousands of dollars against people who illegally download music. If someone downloads 30 songs that he could have purchased for 99 cents each, the minimum award for that $30 worth of songs is $22,500. If the plaintiff can show infringement (which is pretty easy by just printing a screen shot of your web page before they mail the notice to you), the plaintiff is entitled to statutory damages. Period. End of story.
lol, how would that stand up in court? "Im sorry, by i really doubted that anything like this would happen".