msredmond

Although anyone can sue anyone, if this isn't dismissed on summary judgment, this is going to be a case to watch -- scary (and stupid) precedent.

You really should see a professional -- do it right away (why suffer further?) This may be a chemical thing you can't control. Or something else. Fixing it yourself could work, but it could not. Go to a doctor or mental health counselor first; they will be able to help or refer you to someone who can. It's really important -- it could be caused by many, many things, and a doctor/mental health professional will be able to help figure this out/eliminate other causes.

Please make an appointment with whatever you have available at your school today (all colleges should have these services).

BTW: You're extremely brave to reach out -- my hat's off to you! But don't stop here! Take the extra step to get the help you need -- you do deserve it.

This is a fascinating ruling. It's almost like the judge invoked a "don't be a dck" penalty against them. Seems like if the original copyright holder had filed suit (instead of Righthaven), if they went through the standard request for takedown first, if there was some sort of damage that could have been proven (possible Google issues are just one possibility even if $ not being made off by site reprinting article), if there was some kind of actual monetary damages (in some ways just wasting the courts time if results in $0) -- any combination of that and it could have gone other way. Also really* leaves you wondering how competent the Righthaven attorneys are.

Another very nice piece by Nate Anderson.

I think the big issue here is that if you own the content, and the other person is making money off that content without your consent, that's a problem (as in potential liability). One way around that is to make absolutely no revenue from it -- some publishers may not care. I don't know that would solve any problem, but do know that's worked for others (and in fact it's rumored -- or maybe even confirmed -- that that's the reason Google doesn't run ads on Google news, and for the most part they're not even using the full story)

In a way I can see how you got there, but I still think you may have copyright issues: Say, for example, there's a Web site that likes an article another Web site has published. So that first site grabs the entire article, post it on their Website without permission, and then give source and link information back --- most publishers are going to consider that a copyright violation. Again, would be different if not the entire article -- few paragraphs and a link would be OK, but with entire article and no previous permission, probable copyright violation (at least enough to request it be taken down).

I know law changes/not everyone sees it the same/different courts rule differently, but if one accepts that taking an article in full and republishing on another site (even if sourced/linked back) without permission is a copyright violation, I'm not sure that you doing the same thing (and on a wider scale) isn't also a copyright violation, even if the final article is presented on a different medium.

I'm so very much not a lawyer (pretty obviously), just someone with a publishing background, but it might be worth you talking with a copyright lawyer just to make sure you're on solid ground before you launch it with the content/way you're currently planning.

I think I'm missing something on as far as the copyright issues of this project....

You say that you're downloading the entire internet for content, and that you'll be serving it up to your readers directly for the various reasons that you site through your app.

If you're linking to the content, no issues. But this doesn't sound like linking: you're stripping the content, and now you're serving it to your readers yourself, so isn't that taking the content from the provider and using it for your own purposes? Are you only doing this with providers that gave you permission to do so? And if not, is there some sort of fair use clause that you see applies here?

Just very curious as to how you see this model working with copyrighted content (and/or definitely let me know if I'm just missing the model here/misreading what was written in your post...end of a long day! ;-)

Thanks for the feedback -- appreciate it!

+1 for domain name. I don't see any need myself for creating a longer URL, but I see the appeal of putting the f'word into some.

Excellent, excellent post on the topic!

Really think its a better idea to find out what this is first -- really could just be marketing (albeit dumb marketing). Unless there was a direct threat (wording would need to be shared here by original poster), sounds like there's not much of a case for involving law enforcement, at least at this point.

I suspect this is marketing more than anything. There are companies out there that specialize in cleaning up online reputations. Perhaps that's just how they market -- look up companies, then try to reach out to do it -- but not in a very good way, it sounds like.

Have you done a reverse look-up on the numbers (phone # provided and fax)?

The editor who responded to her e-mail is a complete idiot who knows nothing about copyright, and is being completely irresponsible and liability to her company. If she worked for me, she'd be fired, instantly (although I make sure all my editors understand copyright law -- so this is probably coming from higher up -- how could her bosses leave her so misinformed?).

I too have been in publishing for 20 years, and now work exclusively in online publishing. They violated her copyright, period. We get the rights to everything we publish for a reason, and if someone publishes something of ours without permission, we request them to take it down -- most do it instantly (I've never had to file a DCMA), but that's her next step -- DCMA/e-mail her ISP.

Really is mind-boggling that someone who considers themselves a professional journalist would send an e-mail like that -- embarrassed for our whole profession.

We once (8 years ago?) had a woman pull a beeper out of her bra in the middle of an interview. And that was not, by far, the weirdest interview.

This is a good point: although it does depend on the interviewer, I know I personally am horrible at not showing what I think when I'm talking to someone (esp. as I'll usually ask a follow-up question to an answer I don't like, just to make sure they really are saying what I think they're saying). And if someone can't figure it out from there where they got it wrong, maybe they don't have the interpersonal skills we'd want in the first place...

There are times when I've really, REALLY wanted to be able to give that feedback -- usually when a candidate came in second in a close race and I wanted them to know they did really well, but there's been other times when I thought specific feedback would really help someone (I interview a lot of fresh college graduates) -- but HR has told me every time not to do it, not even if they review the language first.

What's funny is the one time I got such feedback myself I thought it was because the company I interviewed with did it because they were paranoid I would sue: About 12 years ago I interviewed when I was 4+ months visibly pregnant (and I openly talked about it too -- I don't hide anything), and afterward the person I interviewed with sent me an extremely nice note that they liked me at lot, but they had to go with the more qualified candidate, although if she didn't work out, they'd hire me. I blew the letter off as them being paranoid about getting sued, but a few weeks later I got the call -- the other person didn't work out and I was hired. Go figure.

Really interesting stuff -- thanks for reposting here.

Commentary is really scary for his lack of understanding of the actual law that could be applied to this (whether or not you agree with what was done, there's a difference between that and what's legal/what's not). For a great breakdown of whether or not its legal, see http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2010/07/26/pentagon-papers-ii-on-wi...