Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Re: Call the Shots

Author:Jeremy Bowers
Posted:11/10/1999; 10:55:37 AM
Topic:Call the Shots
Msg #:12936 (In response to 12934)
Prev/Next:12934 / 12937

Here's a sample calltheshots page, selected from their samples page:

http://i.calltheshots.com/P=72&U=joshua&ID=1_11133

It's a humor page, it contains a segment from rec.humor.funny.moderated (aka NetFunny), which is located at http://www.netfunny.com, and Dilbert, at http://www.dilbert.com.

Now, first read the copyright page Dave pointed to. Now read the United Media copyright page:

http://www.dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/sitemap/legal/index.html

Specifically, section 1 of the last part, reproduced here:

1. Ownership and Reproduction of UFS Materials. The contents of this web site (the "UFS Materials") may not be copied, reproduced, republished, uploaded, posted, transmitted, or distributed, in whole or in part, for any purpose other than individual viewing of this web site, without the express prior written consent of UFS. Modification of the UFS Materials or use of the UFS Materials for any purpose will constitute a violation of the copyrights and other rights of UFS. For purposes of this Agreement, the use of any UFS Materials on any other web site or networked computer environment is prohibited.

Calltheshots modifies the page, copies the content, transmits it to other individuals (which does not count as "individual viewing of the web site" because they are not transmitting the web site, they are transmitting only a small segment of it), and uses the material on the Calltheshots web site. In addition, they cause monetary harm by denying United Media the sole benefits they derive from the comic on the web, which are money from the advertising and the links to the rest of the United Media sites.

Calltheshots would like to shift the responsibility to the person who set up the page, but as any page (actually, any copyrightable content at all) that is not explicitly placed in the public domain and so marked is automatically copyrighted, the entire service basically consists of systematic copyright violation, except when the snipped sites are explicitly public domain (I don't know of any) or explicitly allowed by the site. In light of this, if Calltheshots were truly going to enforce the copyright policy, the only rational thing they could do is completely shut the service down.

It should also be pointed out that while United Media explicitly states those conditions so there is no confusion on which to create a defense in court, those conditions really apply to all sites unless other conditions are explicitly stated. Especially with any "real" content, where "real" content means "has advertisements", you can't just snip out the best part of a site and strip all of the advertising; that's pretty clearly monetary harm, which is the big bad no-no of copyright law - Don't Harm The Market Value.

I would not want to be standing in their shoes.

Perhaps calltheshots or the page creator has permission from United Media. However, considering the efficiency with which they defended Dilbert in the past from virtually identical infractions, I think this is extremely unlikely.

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