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Post by lillythekid on Jan 13, 2012 8:54:38 GMT -5
Hi everyone,
I'm pretty shaken right now because of recent events in my life concerning copyright and massive fees. These events were not vid-related.
However, now I'm kinda scared because of all the vids I made and I don't know what to do. I thought about temporarily deleting my journal, but I don't want to, obviously, especially now with festivids around the corner.
Since I don't know that much about the internet I have no idea how easily I might be identified as the person behind my lj.
Does anyone have any thoughts or ideas?
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Post by obsessive24 on Jan 13, 2012 10:06:02 GMT -5
I'm very sorry to hear about this! *hugs* I hope everything works out. If you don't mind my asking, although it's unrelated to vidding, is your copyright issue very your-situation-specific, or does it pertain to common internet practices that feasibly a lot of us could get pinged for? If the latter, how were you singled out as a target?
Qualified (i.e. not a US IP lawyer) thoughts:
1. I would have thought it's unlikely that you'd get sued straight away. Usually the copyright holder would send you a cease & desist notice first. I wouldn't have thought there'd be significant consequences as long as you remove your vids within the period specified on the notice, and getting a C&D is a big if in the first place.
2. Copyright holder could come from the video side or the audio side. In my limited understanding, there's quite a lot of wriggle room arguments on the video side because of Fair Use, etc; although that may be harder to argue on the audio side.
3. If your LJ has been specifically targeted and they have a right of action against you, I think it would be fairly easy for them to obtain IP records to match your RL identity against your LJ. However, again that's a big if in terms of them having to specifically target you first, and then going to the money/trouble of bringing a case against you as opposed to hundreds of thousands of other vidders on LJ or YT or whatever.
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Post by giandujakiss on Jan 13, 2012 10:32:49 GMT -5
Lily - I'm so sorry whatever is happening it happening?
First, I'd say you may want to talk to the OTW's legal comm - they may have some advice that would allow you to be more specific about your situation.
Second, I agree that if they want to connect your RL identity to your journal, they'll be able to. But the way they'd do that, usually, would be by filing a lawsuit against you, and then demanding access to your records - which would then reveal your journal. If the issue that's come up is coming up for reasons unrelated to your journal, that is. If the issue came up because of your journal, it would be the other way around - they could demand information from Livejournal which would reveal your identity.
Depending on the issue, it's not obvious that deleting your journal would be helpful - for example, the OTW just garnered certain legal protections for vidding-related activities, specifically - activities that would ordinarily be illegal (like breaking the copy protection on a DVD) is actually not if you're doing it for the purpose of vidding. So I think it's worthwhile to talk to someone you can be more candid with before doing anything drastic.
If you do delete your journal, though, you can undelete it within 30 days, so it won't be gone forever!
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Post by lillythekid on Jan 13, 2012 11:40:41 GMT -5
obsessive24 and giandujakiss - Thank you both so much for your thoughts.
"is your copyright issue very your-situation-specific, or does it pertain to common internet practices that feasibly a lot of us could get pinged for? If the latter, how were you singled out as a target?"
It's the latter and I guess, mostly bad luck. In fact a lot of people were singled out lately. (I'm sorry for being so vague about it.)
EDITED BECAUSE I FELT I HAD TO BE EVEN MORE VAGUE, SORRY
giandujakiss - Thanks for the tip with the OTW, however, I'm afraid that in my country the concept of fair use does not exist. But how could I contact them? It's certainly worth a try.
I felt that the temporary deletion of my journal might be something to consider.
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Post by obsessive24 on Jan 13, 2012 11:50:55 GMT -5
I wasn't aware you weren't US-based, sorry. Of course the legal arguments you can run would depend on your jurisdiction, but I second contacting OTW just as general help and guidance even though - to my understanding - they focus on US law. Here's the Contacts Page for OTW. Good luck! |
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Post by giandujakiss on Jan 13, 2012 11:51:41 GMT -5
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Post by lillythekid on Jan 13, 2012 12:08:03 GMT -5
obsessive24 and giandujakiss - Thank you both so much!!! I'll contact them.
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Post by lillythekid on Jan 13, 2012 19:54:43 GMT -5
I want to thank you again for your answers and support. I contacted the OTW, even though they couldn't really tell me all that much, I think it was a good thing to do.
I tend to panic easily in cases like this and I'm very sorry if I scared or upset somebody with my post.
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Post by obsessive24 on Jan 14, 2012 5:16:10 GMT -5
You are very welcome and I hope the conversation stemmed your panic a bit, if nothing else.  I really hope that things go smoothly with the copyright issue and that you can quickly move on and just put it behind you. |
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I really hope that things go smoothly with the copyright issue and that you can quickly move on and just put it behind you.