Wednesday 25th June 2003
NOTICE OF ALLEGED INFRINGEMENT
CafePress.com's copyright agent has received propoer notification under the Digital Notification Copyright Act ("DMCA") from an alleged copyright owner of Precious Moments. Under the DMCA, CafePress.com, as an Internet Service Provider, is required to take down web sites when all of the requirements of notice are fulfilled.
Okay. This is a problem. Not only does this baselessly accuse us of stealing images from Precious Moments; it also claims, by implication, that Precious Moments have a nice new line of hookers, zombies, and black people at PreciousMoments.com. This is news to me.
That was about eighteen months ago. I think I've given these retards enough time to prove that they're selling zombies, hookers, and black people. To date, I haven't seen any. So Predacious Moments are back.
Skipped another day. That's what I get for spending all my time fixing up Wasted, Inc., I guess.
About that: I'm still fixing all the Black Text Required stuff. Which is getting tiresome. So I started working on a couple of other things. Including Predacious Moments.
Some of the regulars may remember the problems with that. A couple of years ago, we started doing these little cartoon thingys spoofing Precious Moments. Which is fine, of course: the similarities are minimal; our lawyers, who dug them anyway, determined that there was no infringement at all. So we ran with it.
Things went well for about six months. Then, some idiot with PreciousMoments.com EMailed in, threatening to sue us for stealing images off their website and reselling them:
The complaining party has provided to us the following information under penalty of perjury:
1. S/he is the copyright owner or agent and has not authorized anyone to use the Precious Moments artwork for the sale of merchandise.
2. S/he is the trademark owner of Precious Moments.
3. S/he identified http://www.cafepress.com/predmom1-10 as the address that allegedly contains the material which infringes upon his/her copyright rights.
We have de-published your CafePress.com website in order to comply with the DMCA.
You have the following option.
1. You may respond with a proper "counter notice" if you think there has been a mistake. EMail the "counter notice" to copyrights@cafepress.com
Under the DMCA your counter notice must contain:
(a) Your name, address, phone number and physical or electronic signature;
(b) Identification of the alleged infringing material (a description) and its location before removal (e.g. the member's web address);
(c) A statement that under penalty of perjury (you must state specifically that you "under penalty of perjury...") have a good faith belief that the material was removed by mistake or misidentification (explain your rights to use the material); and
(d) You consent to local federal court jurisdicion in the district where you are located and will accept service of process from the complaining party.
E-mail to the copyright agent proper counter notice. If we do not receive notice that the complaining party has filed in a court of law an action restraining the infringing activity, we will republish your CafePress.com web site within 14 days following receipt of the counter notice.
If you have any question about complying with these requirements, please e-mail CafePress.com at copyrights@cafepress.com.
Copyright Alert
CafePress.com
Our official response to the matter was:
1) There has been no unauthorised use of any artwork, owned or controlled by Precious Moments, by anyone involved with PredaciousMoments.com™
2) The trademark owner of Precious Moments has our sympathy.
3) Having identified, under penalty of perjury, hattp://www.cafepress.com/predmom1-10 as the address that alledgedly contained material infringing upon copyrights held by Precious Moments, we counterassert:
A) that http://www.cafepress.com/predmom1-10 is not, to our knowledge, a valid URL; directories under http://www.cafepress.com appear to be limited to nine characters, and dashes [-] are not allowed.
B) That the images contained at the actual URLs of http://www.cafepress.com/predmom1, http://www.cafepress.com/predmom2, http://www.cafepress.com/predmom3, http://www.cafepress.com/predmom4, http://www.cafepress.com/predmom5, and http://www.cafepress.com/predmom6 are the original artwork of the entity known as Swyndle, and that PredaciousMoments.com™ had secured exclusive merchandising licence prior to the inception of the account with CafePress.com.
C) Notwithstanding the ability of the alleged copyright owner of Precious Moments to prove otherwise, the owner of Predacious Moments™ and PredaciousMoments.com™ holds the trademarks on Predacious Moments™ and PredaciousMoments.com™ via First Use.
4) It is the opinion of our legal staff:
A) That the artwork contained within PredaciousMoments.com™ is the original artwork of the entity known as Swyndle, and that no artwork owned or controlled by the alleged copyright owner of Precious Moments is, or has been, used within PredaciousMoments.com™, nor were any hyperlinks created from PredaciousMoments.com™ to any material owned or controlled by the alleged copyright owner of Precious Moments.
B) That the artwork contained within PredaciousMoments.com™ is sufficiently original to be protected by parody laws under the Copyright Act of 1976.
C) That the allegation made, under penalty of perjury, by the alleged copyright owner of Precious Moments [that the contents of PredaciousMoments.com™ infringe upon any known copyright] constitutes an act of libel.
D) That the implications of a potential injunction against PredaciousMoments.com™ by Precious Moments may constitute an act of barratry.
E) That damages sustained by PredaciousMoments.com™ as a direct result of this action include, but are not necessarily limited to, loss of time and income, defamation of character, and expenses incurred in the research of the potential frivolous litigation countersuit.
F) That the alleged copyright owner of Precious Moments is a fucking idiot.
At least until or unless Precious Moments accuse me of stealing these things from their site again. At which point I'm suing them to hell and back for libel.
More later....
--Gremlin