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Penalties for copyright infringement

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will pay "actual dollar amount of damages and profits".You will pay "from $200 to $150,000 for each work infringed".You will pay "all attorneys fees and court costs" (for both sides!)"The Court can issue an injunction to stop the infringing acts" (i.e., shut down the website and impound the archives)You can go to Federal prison for at least a year. (I'll need to research further to see whether that's one year, total, or one year per stolen RCTN post.)

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"The most recent amendment to criminal copyright infringement was the No Electronic Theft Act of 1997 (NetAct) which made it a felony to reproduce or distribute copies of copyrighted works electronically REGARDLESS OF WHETHER THE DEFENDANT HAD A PROFIT MOTIVE." "A commercially motivated infringer can receive up to a five-year federal prison term and $250,000 in fines; a noncommercial willful infringer is subject to up to a one-year prison term and $100,000 in fines. The prison term maximum for repeat infringers is up to 10 years for commercially motivated ones and up to six years for noncommercial infringers."

Lessee... Jim, how many RCTN posts did you say there were last year? @$200 each, that's a nice chunk of change!

Someone who posted even just once a month can take a nice vacation at SewGirls' expense, and the most prolific of us could go buy a house with our take. (Of course, that's just a dream, since I doubt they have the millions necessary to satisfy such a judgment, and will, like the head PatternPiggy, have to sell everything they own just to pay their lawyer and pennies on the dollar to those of us whose copyrights they have infringed.)

Let's hope that this post (copyright KMC-2010), stolen from RCTN, winds up on SewGirls and inspires some embarrassing discussion there about the legitimacy of their source material. That could be just as shameful to them as going to prison.

This post serves as legal notice to the owners and operators of SewGirls.com that their conduct may constitute copyright infringement. (I'm a paralegal, not a lawyer, so I gotta say "may" to avoid any claims I'm giving legal advice.) I would strongly suggest that they consult their own attorney to verify my sense that it is, in fact, copyright infringement.

If they had not known before now that copyright infringement is illegal, this post imputes the necessary knowledge to them now, as it is presumed that they review the material posted on their website.

With any luck, the threat of losing everything they own and facing jail time will put an end to the RCTN feed appearing on SewGirls.com (though I have no problem with them providing a link to the RCTN feed on google

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And, now, my dears, let's inspire hearty discussion in this thread to ensure that it is highly visible over on SewGirls. Remember, every post you make is now worth $200 in cash and prizes! Vote early, vote often!

Reply to
Karen C - Calif
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Karen this is just so beyond ridiculous it's stupid. First of all you really need to re-read the UNC article. It has nothing to do with Usenet discussion posts.

Usenet is hundreds of thousands of computers/servers connected together. By posting to Usenet you are giving permission for your post to be propagated throughout the Usenet pipeline. (If you don't believe me read your news server's TOS.) You can't claim copyright infringement simply because a news server owner chooses to use a website (such as Google or Sewgirls) to make posts available to the public over using news readers.

Bottom line........anyone who doesn't like the fact that they have no control over where their posts go or who sees them, doesn't belong on Usenet. They should go join a Yahoo-type group where only members of that group have access to their posts.

Reply to
Jeri

You don't have a legal leg to stand on, so before you run off and embarrass yourself filing a frivolous lawsuit against SewGirls, you need to spend a significant amount of time learning about RSS feeds, Usenet and Google. There is no "Usenet" entity from which permission can be granted, just like the "world wide web" or the "internet". It's not like AOL. Usenet is also not under the jurisdiction of Google. Google is nothing more than an online news server with a built in newsreader.

Oh, and you won't find any owner information on SG because that info has been privatized, much as I've done myself with my own website.

Jinx

Reply to
Jinx Minx

"Jinx Minx" wrote

I do think it is fairly clear on the sewgirls site that they provide a one-stop access to a number of boards--needlework, machine embroidery, knitting, quilting--and the board they access in each area is stated (albeit in small letters), along with a message count. The advantage to advertisers is catching a large group of users with somewhat related interests in one place. I do not like having my posts on sewgirls for the simple reason of the board name. I think it is sexist. I would not join a group with that name or post to a board with that name, so I dislike my posts turning up there, as if I am part of it and condone the name. I agree there is really no way to govern where your usenet posts, emails, Twitters, Facebook stuff or other communications might end up, which is why you should write as if the whole world will read them (which they might!). I will continue, once in a while, to state my objection to the sexist name, just because I want to dissassociate myself from sexism and stereotypes. Dawne

Reply to
Dawne Peterson

Not only sexist, but ageist and patronizing...

Jinx

Reply to
Jinx Minx

This statement proves you have no clue what Usenet is or how it works. NOTHING has been copied.

Again you have no clue what you're talking about. There is no one to get permission from. No one owns RCTN or Usenet. Google is not Usenet. It's simply a news server that uses a website as it's reader. The Sewgirls website is just like Google. They're not copying anything so copyright doesn't apply at all.

I know how copyright works.

Pity you didn't put that disclaimer on your first post.

-- Jeri

Reply to
Jeri

This appears on the bottom of every post originating from Sewgirls.... ##-----------------------------------------------## Delivered via

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Community of the NetWeb and RSS access to your favorite newsgroup -rec.crafts.textiles.needlework - 75312 messages and counting!##-----------------------------------------------##>

Have you actually gone to their website? The only ads there are provided by Google. They're the same type of pay per click ads you find on thousands of websites.

Anyone who bothered to read the TOS when they joined Sewgirls. It's plainly explained that the Sewgirl forums are part of Usenet. People are even warned that Sewgirls has no control over the content of posts and once sent, a post cannot be recalled or deleted.

I'm sure there are people on Sewgirls who are unaware. After all, look how many years you've been posting to RCTN with no clue as to what Usenet really is or how it works. If they didn't read the TOS when they joined they only have themselves to blame.

-- Jeri

Reply to
Jeri

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