What Would You Do If You Found Illegal Content In A Members Area...

Of a well-known site and you had a feeling the site owner knew full well that the content was stolen?

The problem being, the site owner in question has somewhat of a 'following' on the various industry message boards, despite having been caught up in scams before?

Do you contact them directly, warn affiliates about the potential issues with the content they are promoting, what about contacting the DVD producer who's content has been stolen, etc?

What would you folks do in this situation?

Regards,

Lee

Turn'em IN... They know better...:evil:

I guess that depends on the type of person you are.

I would keep my mouth shut since it doesnt pertain to me, and eventually someone will step up to the plate and make it known to the owners of the content.

I used to run a solo site years ago, and had people emailing me regularly, informing me of sites that stole my photos.

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Originally Posted by Epic Men

I used to run a solo site years ago, and had people emailing me regularly, informing me of sites that stole my photos.

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How did you feel about being told you stuff was being stolen?

Were you glad that you were told?

Regards,

Lee

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Originally Posted by Epic Men

I would keep my mouth shut since it doesnt pertain to me, and eventually someone will step up to the plate and make it known to the owners of the content.

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So, you would knowingly withhold information and pass the buck onto someone else?

Once upon a time, I had 1 (singular) photo that belonged to a Well Known Gay Video Company. I was ordered to remove it and pay $100.00 for the use up till the time they found it. I payed the fee and moved on.. LESSON LEARNED...:fucked:

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Originally Posted by IdolKnights

So, you would knowingly withhold information and pass the buck onto someone else?

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You got it!

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Originally Posted by Epic Men

I would keep my mouth shut since it doesnt pertain to me, and eventually someone will step up to the plate and make it known to the owners of the content.

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So, having experience with people stealing your content in the past, why would you not be the one to step up to the plate? It's only through this type of user participated policing that can keep copyright infringement in check.

And shame on any paysite that knowingly distributes stolen content in their members area. It just seems like such a stretch for a "well-known" site with a "following" on gay webmaster boards would take such a risk. Why would they do that? Why would they think noone would ever notice?

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Originally Posted by tombarr

So, having experience with people stealing your content in the past, why would you not be the one to step up to the plate? It's only through this type of user participated policing that can keep copyright infringement in check.

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So what your telling me is, every time someone runs a red light or blows by you at 85 MPH on the road, your writing the tag number down and crying to the authorities?

Please... There is people that do this work already and isnt my job!

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Originally Posted by Epic Men

So what your telling me is, every time someone runs a red light or blows by you at 85 MPH on the road, your writing the tag number down and crying to the authorities?

Please... There is people that do this work already and isnt my job!

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Actually, you have an obligation that if you see a crime committed to report it. People call 911 all the time when they see drunk drivers on the road, or hit and runs... and I believe they could be held to account if it was shown they had witnessed a crime but did not report it. Now of course with the number of red light blowers that there are it would seem a bit trivial...but technically, you would be in the right by doing it...

So using your logic, you would just let them continue to get away with it even if you knew it was stolen content?

And I'm sorry, but it is our community obligation to help each other out, and yes, even report violaters, when we not only see someone's content being stolen, but especially when we know one of our own community is the one doing the stealing. You see threads on this and other boards all the time warning sites about places where their content is being stolen...that is what community is about, looking out for each other. And yes, as part of a community, you don't get the luxury of just sitting idly by and letting others break the law. It's your obligation as a part of that community to help police it. You can't just take all the benefit of site ownership, and community participation without contributing to it as well.

Well, helping each other out is one thing, but chasing someone down to report stolen content or reporting a crime is another.

I am sorry, I stand by what I said.

Reporting a crime to the authorities is not the same as telling someone to stop committing the crime. Reporting content theft of porn to the FBI is slightly less productive than arguing with a baboon's ass. Going through the steps to get stolen content taken down usually gets the results desired.



I typically recommend demanding the content be removed. If that does not get results, sending the demand to the host gets the results needed.

Lee also asked about publicizing a claim of theft. This is a judgment call -- I would probably lean toward resolving the theft privately but publicize the facts if the person using stolen content did not take it down.


BTW -- the $100 someone demanded for use of an image was a bluff.

For myself, I'd try to do it privately first, and then if it isn't resolved would I make it public, insuring that I had irrefutable proof prior to making it public, given how some are quite capable of twisting things around.

:morning:

if it was content i knew belonged to someone else, i'd email or call the content owners.

btw, chad - i know of at least 2 court cases where i believe $100 per image was awarded for use of unlicensed content. one was falconfoto vs. ounique, which might have been in 1999 or thereabouts.

I have a suspicion who the person in question is; if I'm correct, the person has done this many times before and has probably never stopped doing it.

If it's who I think it is, I would say there is absolutely no reason not to simply report this to the people whose content is being stolen and perhaps have them file a DMCA request against the ISP, because the person I'm thinking of doesn't seem to care one whit about using stolen content.

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Originally Posted by basschick

btw, chad - i know of at least 2 court cases where i believe $100 per image was awarded for use of unlicensed content. one was falconfoto vs. ounique, which might have been in 1999 or thereabouts.

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That is true -- but those were not the result of one company saying "Give me $100 per image" there were significant expenditures of time, money and anguish [always when lawyers are involved there is anguish]. ESPECIALLY in this case that southernexposur mentioned where it dealt with ONE photo. If a producer-client came to me and wanted me to help him recover $100 for ONE image I would probably (1) laugh at him/her (2) bill him/her $50 for explaining the value of $100, the filing fees alone in small claims court being more than $100 and (3) fire the client

There have been some negotiated settlements in the past, but those are very few and far between and always involving large numbers of images. Sending a domain owner a bill for $100 for ONE image is a bluff.

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How did you feel about being told you stuff was being stolen?

Were you glad that you were told?

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yes i would be glad that someone gave me a heads up so I can go check it out and take whatever action I fellt appropriate, this is my livelihood

If I see stolen content in a member's area I will notify the copyright holder. Plain and simple.

That is of course if they have an easy way of notifying them.

It's a damn shame that companies can spend tons of money on affiliate tools, press releases, ads in magazines, RSS feeds, and all the bandwith for hosted galleries but has to steal content.

Seriously, I as an affiliate, would like to know who it is. I am just not the type of guy that wants to market a site and make money off from stolen content. It's not good for the industry.

Chip, I don't think it's who you think it is. I don't think his site is either well known or even has dvds.

If you are sure, or very nearly sure, then there is only one right answer to this, and that's to take screen caps and rat them out to whoever you think the victim is.

If there's a chance it was non-exclusive content bought from the same broker or that they are legitimately promoting the site that created the content then of course those are different situations, not theft.

I don't understand why there are two pages of posts in this thread and not one advising us of who this person and company are.

He must be a very powerful man with a very powerful company for all of you who know to be beating round the bush here ;)

If any of my content is on this mystery site someone please at least pm me and let me know. Thanks

I think you have a duty to contact the owner at the very least.

I had a similar thing when I found a massive list of hacked passwords, this was before I posted on the boards. I emailed every site I could that was on the list. Not one replied, but thats their look out. If you have warned them youve done all you can imo.

From experience I've stopped reporting stolen content to owners. I used to do it whenever I stumbled over stolen content on my journeys on the internet. Response or reaction from site owners: ZERO! So I simply stopped wasting my time.

I feel that in most cases there is generally little to no interest in going after content thieves. Actually I'm inclined to think that not all stolen content is really stolen, but adopted by some side deals from the content owner. Like: I sell you a number of sets/pictures under the condition that it's kept inside your members area and not used for promotion.