A Christian Liberal is NOT an oxymoron.

Posted by XT on September 25th, 2008 in General

In response to my earlier post, I’ve received the following communications:

If you believe that your copyright-protected work has been copied and posted on SharpyNews.com in a way that constitutes copyright infringement, please provide our Copyright Agent with the following information: (1) An electronic or physical signature of the person authorized to act on behalf of the owner of the copyright interest. (2) A description of the copyrighted work that you claim has been infringed. (3) A description of where the material that you claim is infringing is located on the Website. (4) Your address, telephone number, and email address. (5) A written statement by you that you have a good faith belief that the disputed use is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law. (6) A statement by you that the above information in your notice is accurate and, under penalty of perjury, that you are the copyright owner or authorized to act on the copyright owner’s behalf. SharpyNews respects copyright owners rights to protecttheir content. To report a copyright violation you can contact us here . This email is only to be used for copyright related issues

I replied with a more lengthy, and explicit request. He replied:

I believe all those entries have been removed..please notify me if any were missed..

I replied: Your business plan appears to rely on stealing content. You have to know that you are not entitled to use other people’s material as your own. Continued infringements may result in further legal action.

His reply:

if you notice the link at the bottom of the entry says “more on this story at this outstanding news site”. So as for the stealing part, we wouldnt have added that to our software if our intention was corrupt. We are also working to pull the author info (if it is on the article) and as much other info to give credit as possible. We were hoping that would help the original author as well,seeing that we get very solid google and yahoo traffic. If this is not something that is good for you then no problem and we will remove your feed from our database.I would suggest however you add links and info like that in your articles and then they will be in the feeds anyone uses.Also if your stuff was on say the new york times would you care if you got credit and extra traffic to your site?

Trying to remain collegial, I sent this missive: If your intention was not to be corrupt, you would not have to be contacted and given cease and desist notices. Even if you put the author’s name down, you cannot reprint the entire post. Several courts have upheld that such a practice is not covered under fair use doctrine. Copyright law states very clearly that you cannot simply repackage someone else’s work and claim it as your own – and you are definitely not allowed to try and make money off of someone else’s work without their consent.

If you were hoping to give the author a boost, then you would have managed an aggregator site that lists their name and links back to them. I get no benefit from you running my article anonymously. The only reason you are getting good google and yahoo traffic is that you are stealing copyrighted material. I’ve already notified them of this and I suspect your rankings will drop very soon.

As far as adding “links and info like that” in my article – it’s already there. You simply bypass it and claim ignorance. My work is clearly marked with an author’s identification. If you wanted to remain on the right side of the law, you would have gone through the slight trouble of finding my email contact in the profiles of each place I write. Other aggregator services have done so. You did not. You waited for me to contact you.

After you pick my pocket, you want me to thank you for it? If my stuff was on the New York Times page, I’d get credit for it. Plus, the New York Times will not use my posts without asking permission. The comparison is simply stupid. You aren’t the New York Times and you never will be.

In the meantime, I have taken the liberty of contacting several other bloggers, and several other organizations, such as the LA Times and Reason Magazine, that you have stolen from. I have also filed a complaint with the IC3 internet crime division. I should not be in a position where I have to monitor you to make sure you aren’t stealing my material. You, in order to do business, have an obligation to learn applicable law and abide by it.

Thank you for your minimal compliance.

Suddenly he wasn’t so sure he was doing me a solid:

http://xpatriatedtexan.com/blog/2008/09/23/if-you-create-content-you-are-being-robbed

you are using my copy-written material take it down or we will see what kind of waves we can make for you..you didnt have permission or concent to use my words/work.

I told him as soon as he sends me a complete DCMA form, I’ll be happy to remove any offending material.

Stupid criminals.

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