It's no "big deal" if you post a couple of sentences from a CNN article and then link that article so interested people can read the rest of said article.

The problematic thing is posting a full article from CNN even if you provide the source and link. That way, the reader has no reason to visit CNNs website to read the full article and cnn.com loses that visitor/page impression.

While I understand that you are touchy on this issue, I will catagorically state that I have no connection to PFA, have never been a member and have never posted there. Neither, do I have any personal connection to T. Witteles. Thus, your insinuation that I am biased towards him is silly. Have I attacked you personally as some posters have? Just because you don't like, or agree with, my legal analysis does not mean that I am out to get you. I have been as objective as I can based upon your statements and this site's TOS which are what have created this problem not me. My interest is as a registered user of this site whose (like all users) IP rights are affectex by the TOS. We have a right to know exactly how it affects those rights.



Yes, it states in this section. You strengthen my previous point in that earlier in the TOS it states that the user maintains ownership of his/her post and here it says it is owned by either the user or 2+2. Again I find this to be disengenuos in that the earlier section leads the user to believe that he/she maintains ownership in the content of the post and later says somethin different. Which is it? Frankly, I am not sure what legal effect saying it is owned by one or the other has. How could that vague statement transfer an ownership right to 2+2?



I am sorry but this is just deflection. If a user is banned then he/she is not, and cannot, be a party to the TOS - even if that person may have seen it when a registered user.

The TOS is basically a contract between the site and a registered user. The user may give up certain rights (to have a post deleted upon request for example) to gain the right to post on the site. If one side revokes that contract (by banning the user) the other side can no longer be bound by the terms. The TOS of a site cannot, by itself, be legally binding upon a third party.

I am sorry that you seem to think that I am taking sides here. You have my irl info - feel free to google me and you will see that I, am indeed, an attorney in Pittsburgh. I have only made an objective analysis of the situation based upon your own TOS. In fact, I even offered a potential solution in requiring users (in the TOS) to grant the site exclusive publication rights to posts made here. I believe that in that case the safe harbor would still apply as the site would not be claiming actual ownership of the content. However, you would be able to block others from copying that content based,upon infringement of the exclusivity contract between you and the user.

As I said, I understand your instinct to protect your business model and hard work but I just don't believe the way you are trying to do so comports with basic legal principles

Witteles vs. Malmuth!! A fight for the ages. The Autism/Asperger levels will be off the charts! Just make sure both parties are wearing their hockey helmets...

Not to beat a dead horse but this analogy is inaccurate. The difference is that the content on cnn is created by employee's (or others who give it that right by selling their content to cnn) and is owned by cnn. Therefore, cnn can claim that IP rights have been infringed.

This site's TOS states that the poster keeps ownership rights in the contents of a post.

An accurate analogy would be google news feed which aggregates news articles from many sources. Google may have a right to publish (or link to) that content but it could not sue a third party for also posting that content. The original creator could but not google as it has no ownership rights to the content. Pursuant to this site's TOS the same is true here. You just cannot sue someone for infringing on IP that you don't own.

So 2+2 doesn't want ownership of the posts (the user posts something illegal such as child porn) however they want to own the material so it can't be duplicated?

Which is it?

Please reread my posting and the sentence I quoted. I did not make any kind of analogy but merely stated what "the big deal" of copying full articles from cnn.com is.

You are correct. The analogy was made by the poster you responed to - I was confused by your response addressing that analogy.

That fraudalert site doesn't seem to have much traffic. Starting a fight with 2+2 is probably a good way to get noticed.

Good point, I've never visited PFA and wasn't aware of its existence until today. Spent an hour over there that I could have spent on 2+2.

This has nothing to do with the Larry thread. Witteles was contacted by our representative concerning this issue over two months ago.

Mason

That's a great question for your lawyer.

But you made this a public issue three days ago by starting this thread. Giving the appearance they could be related. It is no secret that you and Todd have had a long term simmering feud. Todd responded to this issue in a reasonable way, he posted directions in every subsection of the PFA forums to alert his users on how to comply with what your attorney requested. Then Larry took it upon himself to give you a poke, I would suggest this was deliberit, directly related as well as childish. I would also suggest you have not done yourself any favors in how you have handled that thread or this one. That's just my opinion you are free to take it or leave it any way you wish.

Righthaven, which sued over Las Vegas Review-Journal articles and eventually imploded, lost some fair use claims involving forums. Among them was a time someone copied a 19-paragraph column in its entirety in a forum to generate a discussion about the topic.

Righthaven Loss: Judge Rules Reposting Entire Article Is Fair Use

This ruling occurred in a Las Vegas federal court. The fair use precedent was vacated when the Ninth Circuit ruled Righthaven didn't even have standing to sue over the content because it did not have "assignment of an exclusive right under the Copyright Act."

This wasn't the only fair use case Righthaven lost, however. Those other cases stand AFAIK. They involved using smaller portions of R-J articles. Righthaven imploded before it could ever challenge many of its court losses.

Bump
Sticky
Letter in mail
????
Profit

You have some issues here that may make you want to rethink DanDruff as your next Dutch Boyd style victim:

1) Fair use is decided randomly by trying a case, and the case law is conflicting, and spread out. While I take your view it shouldn't be fair use, it more likely than not can be argued that it is.

2) Even if you win, you will not collect DMCA awards. The cost of keeping your content current enough with the copyright office to pursue such a case would easily exceed the revenue of this site. That means there are no statutory damages to be won above $2,500, and no punitive damages to be won likely either. It's going to be actual damages, which will be very near zero. There is no revenue in poker affiliation left, and very, very little money in advertising.

If your intent is the moral high ground, perhaps you are right, but you just reminded me to check out pokerfraudalert by making this thread. Your post has already done more to damage yourself than whatever DanDruff is stealing.

I feel bad for the fourth-year Greenberg associate who is going to be tasked with coming into this thread to proffer a tortured defense of the TOS and Mason's bizarre notion of fair-use jurisprudence.

"Okay, after two all-nighters, I finished my section of the amicus brief.... you want me to do what? Go into an internet message board and make a specious argument to a bunch of NVG-tards???? I'm quitting to go into investment banking."

The obvious difference here is that in the example you cited, CNN owns the content being reproduced. 2+2 does not.

This is how I interpret the T&Cs.

I own my IP so I may post the same thing on multiple sites or my own book or blog and 2p2 is fine with that.

2p2 is a copyrighted site and as such others may not reproduce my post or any of 2p2's content in whole without 2p2's permission, or in the case of my post, my permission. Fair use of a small excerpt with a reference link back to 2p2 is allowed.

Simple eh?

What ever happened to Gary Carson?

What ever happened to Masons attorney ?

IANAL but can't the T&C be rewritten to state that unless we say otherwise, we give power of attorney to 2p2 to sue for copyright violation on our behalf?

What happened to reading comprehension?

Somebody asked what's the deal with copying CNN content and I replied to him. I didn't say (or think) the 2+2 situation was in any way similar to that. Contrary, I think raidalot and pghduilaw point out valid things that make me curious about the upcoming lawyer statement.

That's always been my understanding.

Now I'm confused and wondering if, in real life, Munga30 looks like a lion putting a paw across its face.

Only took 100 posts to get there.

Mason - if you are going to serve Druff - please to do it at WSOP with cameras running.