StopPiracy

More on You-Send-It

I recently had a kit pirated, and the file was shared via YouSendIt.  I have obtained the following information. 

Their TOU indicates:

"7. Acceptable Use

You agree to not use YouSendIt's Service to:

a. upload, post, email, transmit or otherwise make available any Content that spreads messages of terror or depicts torture or death-images;  if serious enough, the content will be reported to the appropriate legal authority and/or the member's ISP will be contacted;
b. harm minors in any way, this includes any form of child pornography; if serious enough, the content will be reported to the appropriate legal authority and/or the member's ISP will be contacted;
c. upload, post, email, transmit or otherwise make available any Content that infringes any patent, trademark, trade secret, copyright or other proprietary rights of any party; YouSendIt's  DMCA Policy has more details;"

They have done a great job of giving you a vehicle to disable the link so that others can not access it.  When you get to the main YouSendIt page, the last link on the upper header is "Report abuse".  When you click that link, you only need to answer the name of the file to removed - which is just the link that people are using to access the file and your email addy.  Hit submit.  Shortly you will receive an email asking you to respond to confirm.  As soon as you respond the pirate's link is disabled.  Works very well.

Roberta D'Achille

Mega Upload Policy / Contact Info

Megaupload is an advertiser sponsored site for the upload and sharing of personal files too large to be emailed.  Megaupload has a zero tolerance policy and their Terms of Service, which must be agreed too by users each and every time when uploading file/s, states:

"8. Acceptable Use
You agree to not use Megaupload's Service to:
...c. upload, post, email, transmit or otherwise make available any Content that infringes any patent, trademark, trade secret, copyright or other proprietary rights of any party."

"8.4 Copyright or Trademark Infringement
Megaupload Services may be used only for lawful purposes. Transmission, distribution or storage of any material in violation of any applicable law or regulation, including export control laws, is prohibited. This includes, without limitation, material protected by patent, copyright, trademark, service mark, trade secret or other intellectual property rights. If you use another party's material, you must obtain prior authorization. By using the Services, you represent and warrant that you are the author and copyright owner and/or proper licensee with respect to any hosted content and you further represent and warrant that no content violates the trademark or rights of any third party. Megaupload reserves the right to suspend or terminate a Customer's transmission(s) that, in Megaupload's discretion, violates these policies or violates any law or regulation."

"8.6 Other Activities
... Complaints about violators of our Policy should be sent via e-mail to abuse AT Megaupload DOT com. Each complaint will be investigated and may result to immediate cancellation of Services without prior notice."

If you find that your copyrighted digital graphics and kits or those of another designer/s are being shared illegally through Megaupload report it to their Abuse Management Team this will bring up their infringement report form screen.

"Illegal files will be removed immetiately after notice. Furthermore we will add them to our file-filter, so they can't be uploaded again. Just write an e-mail to our abuse management and send us the exact links to the files."

RapidShare Policy / Contact Info

RapidShare have a very short but exactly to the point policy on uploading copyrighted files for sharing :: from their FAQ page:

Which UPLOAD-RULES have to be followed?

* No files that are not allowed to be shared. (illegal, pornographic, copyrighted, etc.)

And from their Contact Information page:

Illegal files will be removed immetiately after notice.  Furthermore we will add them to our file-filter, so they can't be uploaded again. Just write an e-mail to our abuse-management and give the exact links to the files.

Contact them by email:  Abuse Management :: abuse AT rapidshare DOT de

Sample of Correctly Written DMCA Notice

Some companies are quite specific in their requirements i.e. Google required that all reports be sent either by post or fax.

Below is a generic sample that should work for most companies, containing all the info generally required. Thanks for Roberta D'Achille for her input . Hope this helps others to speed things up!

________________________________________

Date ........
To .......... (the entity you're posting to i.e. Yahoo!Groups, Google, YouSendIt, Groupers, etc.)

Re: Notice of Copyrights Infringement
(or: DMCA Violation Notice, or something in this line)

I, the undersigned, certify under penalty of perjury that I am the owner of certain intellectual property rights, said owner being named _ (YOUR NAME HERE)_ (“IP Owner”). I have a good faith belief that the distribution of the materials identified below are not authorized by the above IP Owner, its agent, or the law and therefore infringes the IP Owner’s rights. Please act expeditiously to remove or disable access to the material or items claimed to be infringing.

Location of infringing material: (The URL of the files being shared)

Description of infringing material: Digital Graphic Files.
(or Digital Scapbooking Kits, as you see best).

As most companies wouldn't take email attachments for safety reasons, it is advisable to store any proofs such as screen shots of the group showing illegal sharing at a remote host such as PhotoBucket.com and then give this url instead of attaching images with your email report.

Include also references i.e. images or url to your store that shows clearly that you are the rightful designer/owner of the materials being shared.

Description of the copyrighted work(s) you claim is or are infringed:
(Detailed description of the materials - include/refer to the url above if necessary).

I may be contacted at:

Printed Name_.........._

Title & Company_..........._

Street Address_.........._

City and State_........, ........._

Zip_....._

Email (if available)_.........._

Telephone_.........._

Fax_n/a_

Date_.........._

Truthfully,

/YOUR_NAME_AS_SIGNATURE/(notes: the Slash / mark indicates that this is your signature),
YOUR_NAME

Ebay policy / contact info

I know that in the past, people have illegally redistributed the works of digital designers over Ebay.  I haven't heard anything recently about it, so maybe people are realizing the it is, indeed, illegal (umm, and STUPID).  But just in case someone else starts being stupid, here is the Ebay policy and procedural information.

Protecting Intellectual Property:
"eBay is committed to protecting the intellectual property rights of third parties and to providing its users with a safe place to trade. eBay created the Verified Rights Owner (VeRO) Program so intellectual property owners could easily report listings that infringe their rights."  Read more on ebay's Protecting Intellectual Property page.

Grouper policy/contact info

Grouper is SUPPOSED to be a way to share PERSONAL files with friends and family.  I'm told, though, that grouper is being abused by some as a way to illegially distribute the work of digital designers.  If you go to the "Directory" you can do a search for "Scrapbook" or "Scrapbooking" and see what groups come up.  I'm sure as word spreads they will get more sneaky about labelling their groups and allowing access inside for viewing.

In their Terms of Service page, Grouper states "Grouper respects the intellectual property rights of others. Accordingly, Grouper has a policy of terminating in appropriate circumstances the account of any user of the Grouper Network who uses the Grouper Network in violation of copyright law. Pursuant to Title 17 of the United States Code, Section 512, Grouper has implemented procedures for receiving written notification of claimed copyright infringement and for processing such claims in accordance with such law. If you believe your copyright is being infringed by a user of the Grouper Network, please fill out a Notice of Infringement Form and fax or mail it . . ."

So if you can get in and get proof that it is happening, go to the Terms of Service page to report it.  You can also click on the "Report Group" link to the right of a group's listing when you are viewing it.

Notifying Yahoo

This information copied from http://docs.yahoo.com/info/copyright/copyright.html

----------

Copyright and Intellectual Property Policy

"Yahoo! respects the intellectual property of others, and we ask our users to do the same. Yahoo! has no responsibility for content on other web sites that you may find or access when using Yahoo!’s products or services. Material available on or through other web sites may be protected by copyright and the intellectual property laws of the United States and/or other countries. The terms of use of those web sites, and not the Yahoo! Terms of Service, govern your use of that material.

It is Yahoo!’s policy, in appropriate circumstances and at its discretion, to disable and/or terminate the accounts of users who may infringe or repeatedly infringe the copyrights or other intellectual property rights of Yahoo! and/or others."

-----

Please click on the link above to read more about contacting Yahoo if you suspect a Yahoo group is distributing your work.

Notifying YouSendIt

YouSendIt has a Digital Millennium Copyright Act Policy.  "YouSendIt respects the legitimate rights of copyrights owners, and has adopted an efficient notice and takedown procedure as required by the DMCA and described herein." See here to learn about DMCA: http://www.yousendit.com/dmca.aspx).

from Lie Fhung:

I have a small triumph to update you with :).

Earlier today I sent an email, a 'Proper DMCA' to YouSendIt.com, the system that these pirates use to share large files.

And just now I received their reply which is VERY encouraging. I advise every designer affected by those groups to file a 'Proper DMCA' like this as well...

----copied message----

Thank you for bringing this to our attention. The illegal posting of copyrighted material is a serious violation of our Terms of Service. We have removed the files referenced below.

If you learn of anyone using our service to post copyrighted content in the future, please contact me directly. In addition to removing the files, I'm open to suggestions on proactive blocking of these files. Our options are somewhat limited, since it's not technically feasible for us to scan the content of each file uploaded. We can block certain file names, email addresses, IP's etc, but these measures are fairly trivial to circumvent.

regards

Josh Barrack

YouSendIt Inc.

----end of copied message----

So at least they no longer be able to download my kit there! For now. At least.