Cliffs: Website member posts information on a diet on my messageboard that originated from on another website. Member even posts a link back to that website to give them credit. The "other" website contacts my webhost with a letter complaining about it. So after receiving this letter, the webhost shuts down my site and asks me to remove said copyrighted material, yet I now have no access to the messageboard or database. I had to write them back explaining I needed access to remove it, and they put my site up an hour after the letter, and the whole process caused my site to get shut down for 3 hours. What really pisses me off, is that the other website, who happens to be in the same industry as me, never once contacted me to ask me to remove it, instead he did what I call a dick move and went to my webhost, knowing it would get me in trouble. And of course, my webhost shut down my site without contacting me either, which again, pisses me off too. The thing that kills me is I cannot control what people post on the site, and there is nothing that prevents this from happening again. I'm thinking of switching internet providers because I don't want to deal with this BS. God forbid I'm at work for 8 hours and have no access or am travelling on business. Karma will get him back. I had a sticky thread with great health resources on the web, and told people this "other site" was a great site to go to. Obviously I immediately removed their name off my site in every instance. They just cost themselves traffic and a search engine ranking boost to their site, so screw them.
Karma has nothing to do with it. They don't have to contact you. You're the one who was hosting illegal content. You got temporarily shut down. How's that for karma? Sure, you can't control everything your members post. But that's the business model you chose to get into, so boo hoo... deal with it. It's a part of doing business, and if you don't like it, you'd better have a backup in place; that's all there is to it. It is your responsibility however to make it extremely clear to your members that postings like that are forbidden on your forum... associate a ban period with it, and you'll probably see less of it. But like the others said, this discussion doesn't even belong is this area of the forum.
Sometimes I face the same problem with my forum. Many members do not understand the importance of respecting copyright. As a rule, I delete all posts that are not unique. In fact, it is one of the most important rules on my forum. .
It's easy to have rules, but it's another thing to be able to enforce them all. I don't have time to review every post. I'm just a little irked that this individual website owner didn't come to me first and ask nicely if I'd remove it, which I would have done in a heartbeat.
I think you're in real in trouble there verbs. If this character is intent on reporting you for such absurd reasons, then perhaps he's just as likely to post up such articles himself on your forums and then report you to your server host. It's one way of getting rid of competition. I would suggest that you immediately find another server - look to host it abroad too. This demonstrates how ridiculous current copyright laws are in the internet age.
So you got DMCA'd huh? I did too. However, I have rectified the problem with the owner of the content and all is good. Col
It is not the other websites responsibilty to contact you when you use their content. Also you cannot just assume that it is OK to use someone elses copyrighted material just because you provide a link back. My guess is that about 99% of webmasters would have said no if they were asked.
I never even thought about that as far as trying to "get rid of competition." Although at the same time my site is basically a messageboard, and that site does not have one, and although the basic idea is the same, I don't see us as direct competition. In fact, I could have seen us as partners with one another some day, but I guess not now, that's for sure. I couldn't imagine getting an overseas server to host my site, that sounds painful and even risky to me.
Again, this comes down to messageboard members making these posts, not me. I'm not saying it's the other company's responsibility to contact me, but out of courtesy it would have been a nice thing to do.
I have not yet contacted the owner about it, however I rectified it with my webhost by removing the content in question. I am not sure if I want to even contact this person whatsoever.