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"One judges a man by the quality of his enemies." - Michael, Archangel
Al Smith, who lost the Presidency to Herbert Hoover in part due to his Catholicism, was known as "The Happy Warrior." For the first time in years, I can sympathize with the man who ran the Empire State Building, because I am indeed a happy warrior in the trenches today.
Brief recap for everyone: On October 30, I was doing a Google search for references to my comic strip, The New Adventures Of Queen Victoria, when I came across a hit on a certain neocon website with an eerily familiar name. Looking into it, I discovered that the hit was not from a reference to the strip, but to the link in my signature on Democratic Underground. What was quoted, in its entirety, was a post I had made on DU about problems we were having with Wachovia Bank, NA, with whom my mother and I had been tied up in court for over three years, along with abundant schadenfreude at our misfortune. Investigating it further, I discovered that the post was copied into a forum dedicated entirely to copying material wholesale from, and making fun of, members of Democratic Underground. Among the material in question were two copyrighted essays of mine and one instance of my comic strip.
The person running that site, as most cowards do, chose to hide his identity rather than own up to the hatred and bile associated with the site. He used a proxy domain company as his shield, and since I couldn't serve him with a Cease and Desist letter otherwise, I asked the company for his ID. They contacted him almost a month later, when they got around to my complaint, and told him to call me, which he did. I didn't want to talk with him right then due to a loud buzzing that was causing problems with my home phone, but he wouldn't allow me to call him back, and refused to provide his legal contact information so he could be served. I offered to settle for the removal of all my material, and the removal of that forum since the only purpose it served was for the illegal reproduction of others' writings. He refused. I went back to his anonymity provider and demanded his information.
At the same time, I started some research of my own. I got what appears to be all the relevant information needed to serve him, and had planned to do so after the first of the year. I mentioned this to another DU'er who was also suffering at their hands, and let him know I would be dealing with them. This sparked a great outcry on their part, including the reproduction of even more material of mine solely to goad me, while at the same time digging them a deeper hole. The events after that are pretty well documented in the existing articles and the discussion extending from them. This brings us to the current moment. Here, now, the latest.
1. I had suspected that I was going to have to change my tactics, and work up another set of C&D letters for this person's LLC, since the website now claims to be run by a Limited Liability Company. (In fact, one of the people involved in running the site suggested that they just dissolve the LLC and reform it under another name the next day to keep me from receiving any award if the case is found in my favor.) Turns out I may have to do that for the more recent (and more egregious) violations, but my work done so far was not wasted. The LLC runnning that site was not created until 12/7/2006 at 8:13 AM, when papers were filed in Nevada. As a result, the vast majority of violations in my planned complaint happened when he, personally, was legally the operator of the website, not some other legal entity. Thus, I will probably have grounds to sue him personally for the activity that took place under his watch that he failed (and refused) to guard against. More work for me, but work I don't mind. I had prepared, and was ready to link to, fill-in-the-blank C&D letters for those people whose material has also been used, but will be amending them to include both the LLC and the person personally responsible. Stay tuned.
2. Recent cases greatly undermine any fair use claim they might be willing to make. You see, they sell ads on that site and solicit donations. (One recent solicitation dates back to before the site's transfer to the LLC, too, so it was the individual who was collecting money, unlike Democratic Underground, LLC doing it for DU.) Since a lot of the traffic and activity on that site is generated by infringing and potentially infringing material (at last count over 40% of all threads on that site are dedicated to material copied from DU and journals like mine) they benefit financially from these infringements. This takes non-profit use out of the picture, which seems to have been (like Free Republic before them) one of their major defenses.
3. They seem obsessed with my own use of public domain material, even trying to make the case that I'm infringing on expired copyrights for photographs because I might (in their logic) be using someone else's copyrighted digital representation of those photographs. Sorry, despite your theories I'm not using a scan from Groliers or Corel. I won't go into where they came about, but by their own logic, one of them who claims to be (I said earlier appeared to be) an attorney would be further infringing on my copyright by using my own digital manipulation of Bassano's Jubilee photgraphs of Victoria in his borderline-slanderous cartoons lampooning me. (By the way, if you're lurking, nice artwork, though your writing needs to be tightened up.)
4. They're getting increasingly desperate, trying to intimidate me with insults and physical threats. I'm not falling for it. I'm told over and over that "no one" reads my strip, but with 7,000 views a month (between subscribers and views at Comics Sherpa -- thank you to the people who have been doing publicity for me the last few weeks, it has helped A LOT) it's safe to say that more people are now reading me than the 4,000 users they claim to have. Or does "no one" read their site, too?
5. Even with the Cease and Desist letters on their way, I'm still willing to settle this, and not for money as some have suggested. All I want is to make sure that this kind of stuff doesn't happen again. I can do that through infringement proceedings, the DMCA, and the court, or it can be handled through out of court negotiation. Let them comply with the C&D and then make a counter proposal on how they plan to end this abuse by their users, and the incitement and inducement to it by the site owners, not only of my writings but all those similarly situated. If it can be done to my satisfaction without deleting the entire forum, fine, but I'm not going to stand and see others profit off of my material without my permission, and I'm not going to rest without proper safeguards in place to prevent it in the future.
I'm probably going to slip underground (pardon the pun) on this matter for a little while, unless they approach me to settle. There's no need for daily updates for most of the next week or so, until I start getting back the return receipts and responses from him, his hosting service, and his coward-screen company. Until then, rest assured that I'm loving every minute of the fight, and am eager for the next round.
Happy holidays to one and all.
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