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Post by sumgai on May 28, 2012 12:42:26 GMT -5
My Fellow Nutz, As of today, May 28th, 2012, newey and I have set in place a Policy outlining what's acceptable in regards to certain links posted by members. This has been done because of all the usual copyright concerns, so please bear with us. Alright, here we go: A) Please do not post any link that initiates a download of material or content over which you do not personally exercise full and complete copyright control, or there is a disclaimer attached providing that the material or content has no copyright, express or implied. Posting such a link will get you one Warning, and only one. After that, it's all over but the shouting. ( EDIT: Some questions have arisen that tell me I wasn't clear enough. Please see Reply #3 below for more details.) B) The exception to the above is a YouTube video, for which ProBoards provides a direct means of viewing that content. For the purposes of this Policy, we'll go so far as to include any video or any audio, regardless of which site it is hosting it, provided that such sites must host and provide their own players for "in browser" viewing/playing, provided further that such material is subject to the copyright policies of that site. C) You may do any of the following without fear of facing the Ban Hammer: [/a] tags to disguise those names as immediate-download links; 5) Discuss in general or in particular the methodologies of such transferring of content or materials. [/ul]D) This includes any form of reference to downloading material or content, such as Torrents, magnets, sharing sites, blogs, P2P networks, etc. Those are only examples, the point being that any form of sharing material or content falls under this Policy. The Short and Sweet:You can talk about it, you can reference it, you can say almost anything about it, but you can't do it directly. Capisce? Further: This Policy is set in place to guide members who might wish to share their resources for finding things that might be of interest to other Nutz. As usual in this joint, newey and I will deal with questions of intepretation on a case-by-case basis, should the need arise. [/Policy statement]p.s. - newey advises me to add that all of this is subject to the Statutory and Case Laws of the good ol' USofA. Should Congress, or the Courts, turn in another direction, this policy will be updated to concur with such changes. sumgai OK, we return you now to your regularly scheduled Forum, already in progress........ ....... ..... ... . |
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Post by reTrEaD on May 28, 2012 12:54:16 GMT -5
p.s. - newey advises me to add that all of this is subject to the Statutory and Case Laws of the good ol' USofA. got a link? |
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Post by JohnH on May 28, 2012 15:33:23 GMT -5
hmmmmm....I need more clarification.
The only material over which I have complete copyright control are my own scratchiings and noodlings - a rather small subset of the WWW. Everything else, including everybody elses web site would be excluded, since they are all original in some way, and include at least images, writing etc.
So is it legal to post links at all or not? How about links to pictures on other sites? song lyrics? or are we just talking about performances and recordings?
cheers
John
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Post by sumgai on May 28, 2012 22:38:48 GMT -5
upside-down reTrEaD, No, as it happens I don't seem to be able to find any links to him just now...... 
John, Coincidentally, I got a couple of PM's along similar lines, one asking for permission to use a link, the other raising a question I hadn't thought about at all. I'm going to elucidate and expand upon the above by incorporating some of my answers to those folks. The second question was "can I post this link"? Besides a simple "yes", I wrote the following: If we had to vet every link, there'd be no Forum!
So I'm not getting on your case here, I'm telling you that we'd have a difficult time discussing anything if we couldn't refer to outside resources, I'm sure you'll agree.
The subject of my Policy post is "certain links", namely those that point to downloadable materials that are likely copyrighted by someone else besides the poster. Let me illustrate:
You can link to Duncan's website with wiring diagrams and schematics, that's fine - you're not downloading them (well, you can, but why bother, they're right there), and even if you were, they were posted for informational purposes for the General Public. All copyrights are still held by Seymour Duncan, but he has granted full access via the Internet, so it's damned hard to believe that he'd try to sue someone for downloading them. OTOH, if you were to take his diagram, make a small change, erase his name and put yours on it, then no one would blame him for getting a case of the jaws.
What you can't link to is something on the order of an MP3 (or other audio format), a document such as sheet music (traditional or tab), or a book that is for sale by the author, things like that. Now if the author of whatever work has posted said work to the web (in whole or in part), that's another story - he or she has probably opted to go for the publicity (and the fame), instead of trying to sue every Tom, Dick and Harry... Just like Seymour, above. The first question that really showed the holes in my post was about song lyrics. They're a real grey area for us. Specifically, they are covered by copyright, but at least half of all the Toms, Dicks, and Harrys in the world have posted the lyrics to nearly ever song ever sung, somewhere on these here innerwebs. How is the publishing industry gonna sue, and shut down, all of them? They ain't, that's for sure.
So, are links to lyrics fair game? I'd like to believe so, but there is the question of garnering unwanted attention. Do we allow it, and hope the watchdogs are looking the other way? Or do we take the safe route? My take is this: if there is a discussion in place about a certain phrase in a song, and there's disagreement, then by all means, a link to "the real source" should pass muster with any court - it was being used to resolve a difference of opinion and to educate, and not to earn money by theft of content. Bottom line for that is, anyone that's going to steal a song, or even just a part of one, is probably not gonna go searching for GuitarNuts2 on ProBoards just to find them, there are lots of other sources out there. Likely the courts would go along with that line of reasoning, but as we all know, when it comes to any court case, there is no "lock" on the outcome.  Let me re-iterate here: The subject of this Rule or Policy is "certain links", and those are defined as links that point to direct downloads of copyrighted materials and/or content. Case in point would be a blog that says "get it here", and points to Rapidshare. Under our new Policy, you can point to the site/page that says that, but you can't copy that link to Rapidshare to your posting on this Forum. Further illustration: If you think the MAFIAA would be very interested in what you're about to post (what you're about to advocate that a reader should do), then do us all a favor and don't post it.... at least not here in The NutzHouse. That's why I opened with a big Please as the first word. newey and I will at least give you the benefit of the doubt, should we ever need to, and that's more than you'll ever get out of the MAFIAA - you can take that to the bank!  Further questions?  sumgai |
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Post by newey on May 28, 2012 22:55:53 GMT -5
Gentlepersons-
First of all, let's all take a deep breath. What sg has laid out here is not really a change of policy, just perhaps a further explication of it. We already have a policy in place regarding posting of copyrighted materials, this just lays out some further specifics.
JohnH-
The key words are, I believe, "links that initiate a download". Simply linking to a site that has copyrighted materials is not a problem, in general. The concern is towards P2P, torrent sites, and so forth.
Now, the word "download" may be problematic here, as I suppose that anytime one visits any website it could be said that some info has been "downloaded", even if only a notation in one's browser history. But that's not the type of "download" sg means here.
Reposting copyrighted materials can be a violation of copyright. Simply linking to copyrighted materials is not.
The concern with linking to sites which offer "free" file-sharing of the copyrighted materials of others is that posting such a link could be construed as facilitating others to violate copyrights.
If you know someone else has plans to rob a bank, and you draw up a map of the layout of the inside of the bank, thereby facilitating the robbery by another, criminal liability for "aiding and abetting" may attach to the otherwise innocent action of drawing up a map. This sort of linking could be construed to be no different legally.
And to old-what's-his-name-
There have been several bills in this Congress which would have changed the laws regarding copyright enforcement; none have (to my knowledge) been passed. All I meant by my comment to sg was that things are subject to change in the future.
EDIT: Ninja'd by sg! But, essentially, we're both saying the same thing here.
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Post by sumgai on May 28, 2012 23:07:57 GMT -5
Well, they do say that great channels run in the same mind! ;D |
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Post by reTrEaD on May 29, 2012 9:49:22 GMT -5
Let me re-iterate here: The subject of this Rule or Policy is "certain links", and those are defined as links that point to direct downloads of copyrighted materials and/or content. Case in point would be a blog that says "get it here", and points to Rapidshare. Under our new Policy, you can point to the site/page that says that, but you can't copy that link to Rapidshare to your posting on this Forum.
Further illustration: If you think the MAFIAA would be very interested in what you're about to post (what you're about to advocate that a reader should do), then do us all a favor and don't post it.... at least not here in The NutzHouse. That's why I opened with a big Please as the first word. newey and I will at least give you the benefit of the doubt, should we ever need to, and that's more than you'll ever get out of the MAFIAA - you can take that to the bank! Okay so this clarifies thing nicely, imho. My first impression was there would be draconian changes to the way we operate here. Not so. Pretty much business as usual, except for an issue that recently presented itself on one particular thread. To my way of thinking, just use your head for something more than just a hat rack. If the creator of the copyright material presented it with full intention of making it available for public consumption right here on the interwebz, posting a link is obviously clean. If a third party is providing access to copyrighted materials using the internet to circumvent the creator getting his royalties, this is obviously dirty. Don't link to it. If the lack of ethics involved in avoiding royalties isn't enough to keep one from using these shady download sources, the danger of viruses, spyware, malware, etc, might be enough of a deterrent. You may think you're getting something for nothing. While this might be true, you could also get a little something "extra" in the process. |
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Post by newey on May 29, 2012 16:13:52 GMT -5
Absolutely true. My son, now 23 and beyond all that, was a teenager in the early days of Napster; crap in the downloads cost me a major system meltdown and much gnashing of teeth.
And yes, nothing draconian here. We haven't had problems with this sort of thing in the past, and I don't think we're suddenly going to start. But it's always best to spell out the parameters.
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Post by sumgai on May 29, 2012 19:33:34 GMT -5
To my way of thinking..... If the creator of the copyright material presented it with full intention of making it available for public consumption right here on the interwebz, posting a link is obviously clean. If a third party is providing access to copyrighted materials using the internet to circumvent the creator getting his royalties, this is obviously dirty. Don't link to it. Dammit, why can't I express myself that clearly?! Good job, upside-down reTrEaD, much grass! ;D +1 for covering my back! sumgai |
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Post by cynical1 on May 30, 2012 9:07:39 GMT -5
I think what this really boils down to is just avoiding a problem before it starts.
While successful prosecutions are rare, the legal bills in defending yourself are real. I doubt you'd see much resistance to having a forum pulled by ProBoards if there was a legal nastygram delivered to them targeting one of their forums for piracy, or the tolerance or proliferation of piracy. We have clarified a policy and in so doing have created a record of compliance to placate those that have more lawyers then creative minds.
My feelings and opinions on the whole file sharing\piracy\end of the world are irrelevant. Keeping the wolves away from the doors is relevant. That's really all this is about.
Happy Trails
Cynical One
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Post by sumgai on May 30, 2012 12:32:52 GMT -5
^^^ what c1 said. After another night's cogitation, I realize that we've all been looking at this in two ways and mixing them together, me included. In essence, what c1 said is that we're covering our butts on the legal front, and what upside-down reTrEaD said is do the moral thing, at least where it regards this Forum. I freely admit that I did intend for this to be pointing towards the legal side of the discussion (not argument), as I don't want to discourage anyone from sharing their thoughts on a topic without being able to back up their position by citing other sources. (Ditto for asking a simple question about something seen elsewhere on the web.) We all know that the MAFIAA is morally bankrupt, there's no question on that score, but that's not the tool they're using to hemorrage millions of dollars out of the public's pocket - they're using the courts, and that's where the legal end of the stick gets applied. Since we've never attracted anybody who stuck around long enough to actually do these things that might hurt us, I don't visualize a problem any time soon. As noted, we're just making a statement that covers our butts, should the need somehow ever arise. Beyond that, I don't think we need to ruffle our feathers any more. I'm not even sweating over the comment "there's always torrents", that just doesn't phase me in the least, either legally or morally. I am not my brother's keeper in the moral sense, but this is My Watch, so I think I've done my duty in the legal sense. But when it's all over but the shouting, at least for me it's business as usual here in The NutzHouse.  HTH sumgai |
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Post by yakkmeister on May 30, 2012 22:46:43 GMT -5
I feel a little bad about causing such a stir ...
Allow me to state, categorically, I had no intention to ever post links to torrent sites or endorse pirating over legal purchase. The wording of the phrase was intended to be humorous not inflammatory.
I think it odd that you didn't have this rule in place before - I had assumed it was the case - but it sure is good you guys are both a) open and b) honest about the construction and rationale of your rules. Commendable.
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Post by sumgai on May 31, 2012 0:49:01 GMT -5
yakk, Thank you. But as newey said, the Forum's orignator, RandomHero, had already said similar things when he opened up shop. All we've done is clarify our official stance, insofar as the law is currently interpreted by most courts. (Meaning, as they perceive the intent of Congress.) Yes, you're the official instigator, but take heart - no one can smite you just because we re-hashed an old topic. ;D It probably needed doing anyways, and now that I think about it....... I'm a bit surprised that ProBoards hasn't come out with a statement to Forum Admins to the effect that we'd all better have a policy of similar nature in force, and published for all to see. While that's no guarantee of proper conduct, it does help alleviate and assuage the "joint and several liability" usually claimed by plaintiffs. Again, thanks. sumgai |
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Post by cynical1 on May 31, 2012 4:52:34 GMT -5
I feel a little bad about causing such a stir ... Don't. I never thought you would. My reply was strictly a knee jerk CYA response. I figured it was. Not everyone is so humorously inclined... Well, a quick look at the stats of our members will reveal we are, by in large, an older crowd. Musicians and "older crowds" tend not to be technically savvy, nor prone to the ins and outs of copyright infringement. We never specifically stated it before because it never came up before. We have been very lucky in that all that is necessary to keep peace around here is a soft touch. The vast majority of our members are agreeable, well behaved, respectful and not prone to causing problems. [Aside] In the United States we have over 1.1 million practicing lawyers. We have just over 350,000 practicing physicians. What does this tell you about us? We are a very litigious society and will sue at the drop of a hat...and are perfectly happy to drop it ourselves if need be. In order to CYA here, you must create a public record, or history of compliance to aid in any potential litigation. Does it stop you from being sued? No, but it does aid in your defense. The money expended in frivolous litigation here is obscene. So, to all of our friends not living in, nor familiar with life in the US, please don't take things like this to heart. We're not targeting you, we are just covering the part that got over the fence last. [/Aside] That is all. Nothing to see here...move along... Happy Trails Cynical One |
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Post by yakkmeister on May 31, 2012 5:26:02 GMT -5
Sounds good.
I'll leave you guys to it then ...
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