Why are the Myspace template sites not being banned?

Because there are millions of Adsense publisher and for Adsense to comb through every single one for Myspace Resource sites would take them centuries to complete. Thus, you get the occassional "we were checking out your site and noticed you did this and that" emails you read about on this forum. And oh yeah, they're making a mint off Adwords ads for myspace sites.

 

Google has a strict copyright issue when it comes to videos, images on the other hand, is a different story. As long as the site doesn't pretend that the images belong to them, they aren't doing anything wrong. On some sites you would also find a disclaimer, which they should all have just in case.

I and many other of my friends have sites of artists and such, and we all have disclaimers. But even if you don't, when it comes to adsense, that would not be a problem.

 

Someone's just out to troll

Worry about your own sites

 

I don't believe this is true, at least under US Copyright law. If you are using copyrighted images without permission, you are doing something wrong, disclaimer or not. Now there are "fair use" circumstances, but they are limited, particularly if you are earning any money from the site where the images are displayed (e.g., via adsense).

Now, like jackburton2006 pointed out, Google doesn't have the resources to comb through every site that has adsense on it, determining whether the images are licensed, in the public domain, fair use, or other. What they do is act when the copyright holder complains, using the directions on this site:
http://www.google.com/adsense_dmca.html
It's the same with videos, I believe. It's just that it's easier for tv networks and movie studies to find the infringing material on two video sites (Google video and YouTube), than on thousands of individual web sites.

If you have a site, it's up to you to decide whether it's worth the risk to use infringing images - some copyright holders, like Getty Images, routinely go after infringers. Other copyright holders aren't so proactive.

 

well ya that's true. But on the other hand, most people who see their images on a site without permission can ask the site owners to do, is to either take it off or to add their copyright info on the pages.

For sure it is not Google's job to look at every site and make sure they are obeying that rule. This is what I mean when I say it is not a problem with Google, but surely G doesn't condone putting copyright images on sites..basically you are not going to get banned for that.

 

Good point. If the copyright holder wants it remove, odds are they would ask the site owner first, then if no response, then Google. So Google wouldn't be aware of anything you might have done wrong, you simply handled it yourself directly with the copyright holder.

 

I think what we're talking about is "Fair Use" of a copyrighted work.

Wikipedia, while not a legal authority, has a nice overview on it here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use

 

Somehow I think someone is mad and banned from adsense

If this were really a concern of the illegal use of copywritten property, then the OP should look at then end of the line, and not the distribution channel.

Myspace Profiles -

The OP probably has one and it probably uses some form of copywritten material as well. I could be wrong though however this leads to my main thought

will those images, videos,etc be retaken from the millions of myspace profiles? which all contain copyright protected images, backgrounds, trademarks, videos, text, and whatever else is published??

It cannot be done and as such there are some battles that wont be fought.

Why if I am not mistaken illegal music downloads where the worry a few years ago.. and now those are out of the limelight and video piracy is the worry de rigeur...till something else which piques the publics interest comes along.

Lastly Google is kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place, being as they did not mind paying 1.6 billion for a company with 65 employees, no real revenue model, and its existence based on stolen copywritten material....

Makes perfect sense to me....

 

As long as you only borrow from a friendly copyright holder, that's probably true. However, check out one of the Getty Images threads to see a company that doesn't bother sending a friendly take-down notice first.

I'd say that Google should be the least of your worries. Adsense publishers are much more likely to break the TOS in some other way.

 

No I'm not banned. I simply am considering starting a MySpace profile site because I have a neat idea on how to market it. But I'm the "paranoid" SEO guy. I break no Google TOS rules and I go to extreme lengths to avoid getting banned (all of my sites I'm building are about non-trademarked things, etc).

I'm starting to conclude that it's just not worth it in the long run to pursue a site that violates the TOS, even if Google doesn't enforce it at the moment.

 

First, if copyrighted or trademarked items are being used only in an editorial sense, i.e. are not part of an ad, it may be covered under freedom of the press. The title of a book is copyrighted, but they can't go after reviewers for using it, nor can they stop a product reviewer from using a trademark. Unless the image is being used in an ad for libelous purposes, I'm not sure there is any violation. And lots of celebrity photos are made available for free by agents, etc., because it is in their interest to have the celebrity mentioned.

 

And I don't think it matters if you are earning money from the site. Newspapers earn money from ads. Blogs, etc., are journalism. If the site is solely a store, maybe there is a problem.

Google would have no legal standing, anyway, since it doesn't own the copyright.

Why are you so sure the items are illegal?

 

Copyright for images etc on the Internet all comes down to whether the owner cares or not, and in most cases they don't mind the use of images at all as long as items are not being sold. For Google it would just be a waste of manpower running after the everyday copyright violations you find on 999/1000 websites.

That said I've been in for police interrogation twice regarding copyright violation but that's because of retarded local press

 

You have no idea what you're talking about, please stop posting my thread.

 

I agree. I think there is an "insurance policy" in it that the copyright owner will first go to the site owner, then if no success, then to Google. So Google will not know of any confrontation between you and the copyright owner.

Regarding the local paper thing. I've heard some horror stories about local and region newspapers protecting their content. I've even heard of newspapers suing web forum owners because members of that forum reposted news articles in the forum. Some of them are really psycho about it.

 

There are better ways than AdSense to make revenue from MySpace sites; in fact, AdSense is probably the worst - you get maybe .01-.05/click probably. 2000 clicks at .05 and you still only make $100/day. I would look into getting enough traffic where you can begin to sell private links, use CPM banners, and get CPA programs to convert.

 

As said, the vast majority of these instances the movies/musicians whatever want the free promotion.

 

Yeah I had translated concert reviews from a local concert on my music community and apparently the journalists from the local paper had suffered severe financial loss and psychological stress because others than local readers of the paper got to read their reviews. Needless to say the prosecutor didn't bother

 

Don't be a rat ..
TONS of people have these sites, you would basically ban thousands of publishers which = lost revenue for google.

 

I agree, but I had an idea that could draw a lot of traffic to a site. I just wanted to test it out, but I don't think I'm going to now.