Question to the U.S. guys about Copyright law and VEF

[UriF]

I live in the U.S. Therefore I suggest that my question is absolutely relevant. I have some films in my collection were downloaded from other sites/forums that some of them are not exist on this forum. I am a VEF member for a long time but I never posted before except couple films last week. I can post some of them are not violate a banned list. My question is - if any VEF member were penalized/fined by copyright organizations or got emails form copyrightsettlements.com and so on? I would like to share my collection with VEF members but I don't want to get problems. I would appreciate if you tell me about this experience

[Sir Honkers]

I'd assume that copyright lawyers are not monitoring every forum on the internet and go ahead and share it.
Of course, as an unabashed pirate myself, it's always possible that I've been lulled into a false sense of security by the fact that the Internet fuzz have not yet kicked my door down.

[9876543210]

UriF,

I'm not an attorney and have little info on your question. But I do have a little.

I've been a member of several forums over the years and, more than likely, its probably illegal to upload any copyrighted material. But, then again, most everything on any forum is probably copyrighted.

From what I've seen, the problem comes up when someone representing the copyright holder finds a sight with the "questionable data" on it. The attorney for the copyright holder then sends a letter to that web site telling them to "cease and desist" and the web site should then remove the "questionable data".

So, "technically" its probably illegal to upload any copyrighted material (unless you own the copyright). And the website usually won't take the offending material down unless they receive that "cease and desist" letter.

Hope that makes sense to you.

[UriF]

Guys, to tell you the true I don't seriously care about VHS rips because video cassettes were distributed before the Internet era and therefore are not a subject of DMCA claims. My concern is about DVD rips. Moreover, I am interested in vintage movies not a modern ones. Therefore there are ambiguous and questionable situation. A lot of video providers were created these films are not in the business anymore. Moreover some of films totally disappeared and appear from time to time when some collectors posted them on forums. Then appeared companies who re-mastered old video tapes and started to sell these old films. For example, Alpha France DVD. There were a lot of old stuff were cleaned out from noises and improved video. Who is a real owner of these films???

[HugoHackenbush]

Here's the short answer. The VEF does not host anything. Everything is stored someplace else. An aggrieved copyright owner can send to the VEF what is known as a "take down notice" and a mod will remove the thumbnails and the link. The VEF does work with porn producers who want their stuff not to appear on the site. That is why there is a long list of banned material posted, and members are expected to comply and not post from those sources.

While there might be liability for a member posting, most copyright owners are not interested in suing you for posting here. If you are actively using torrents to download movies, that is another story, and just might get you sued.

[LadyLuck]

Originally Posted by UriF

Guys, to tell you the true I don't seriously care about VHS rips because video cassettes were distributed before the Internet era and therefore are not a subject of DMCA claims.

Where did you get that idea? If someone owns the copyright be it music, video, et cetera then what format it was issued on is not relevant. They can still protect those rights. The D in DMCA refers to the manner in which it is distributed, not the type of medium it was originally issued on.

[LadyLuck]

Originally Posted by HugoHackenbush

Here's the short answer. The VEF does not host anything. Everything is stored someplace else. An aggrieved copyright owner can send to the VEF what is known as a "take down notice" and a mod will remove the thumbnails and the link. The VEF does work with porn producers who want their stuff not to appear on the site. That is why there is a long list of banned material posted, and members are expected to comply and not post from those sources.

While there might be liability for a member posting, most copyright owners are not interested in suing you for posting here. If you are actively using torrents to download movies, that is another story, and just might get you sued.

A while back there was an NZB site called NZB Matrix. They only stored nzb files uploaded by users which are nothing but pointers. No content was stored on their servers. It was all on Usenet. Movies, music, pirate software. They had nzb files for it all. After considerable heat and pressure from copyright holders the administrators opted to close the site down.

True, that was a mainstream media site (whose rights holders have much more legal ammunition behind them) where VEF is just porn but it illustrates that just because you don't host any media doesn't mean it cannot get uncomfortable for you.

I'll bet the percentage of porn marketers who actually police this stuff is fairly low. Maybe even in the single digits. And even then, as you noted, they are after the hosts.

[UriF]

Originally Posted by LadyLuck

Where did you get that idea? If someone owns the copyright be it music, video, et cetera then what format it was issued on is not relevant. They can still protect those rights. The D in DMCA refers to the manner in which it is distributed, not the type of medium it was originally issued on.

I repeat my point. If a film producer is not in business anymore who would be a copyright owner? If there are no ORIGINAL copyright owner is a company who re-mastered a film is a copyright owner or such company has a copyright for a re-mastering product ONLY? For example, Dorcel company produced films in 80-th. Therefore they have still rights for this old stuff. By the way I can not find any information who is the owner of Alpha France production today? I have no idea how HotMovies or Gamelink got some Alpha France dubbed films. By the way I did not find any info @ imdb that some of these films had ever dubbed? Who re-mastered Caballero products? I suggest that Caballero also is not in business anymore. Therefore I do no see a clear answer.

[LadyLuck]

Originally Posted by UriF

I repeat my point. If a film producer is not in business anymore who would be a copyright owner?

Whoever owns the rights. It might still be the individual who owned that now defunct company. Perhaps the rights were sold to another party. If it's old enough it may have lapsed and not been renewed but anything produced after 1988 looks like the rights are retained in perpetuity. It looks like after 1988 public domain is a thing of the past. The following is from Wikipedia:

Prior to 1988, all motion picture films published after 1909 with a copyright notice where the 28th year of copyright would occur before 1988, had to be registered and before the 28th year, the registration had to be renewed, or the copyright for the film would expire and it would enter the public domain. This would apply to all films registered for copyright prior to 1960. Copyright renewals became optional in 1988.

If there are no ORIGINAL copyright owner is a company who re-mastered a film is a copyright owner or such company has a copyright for a re-mastering product ONLY?

You are confusing copyright with licensing. Someone probably owns the copyright. The company who remasters it licenses it from the rights holder but they probably do not own it. If they don't license it properly they can find themselves in hot water

For example, Dorcel company produced films in 80-th. Therefore they have still rights for this old stuff. By the way I can not find any information who is the owner of Alpha France production today? I have no idea how HotMovies or Gamelink got some Alpha France dubbed films. By the way I did not find any info @ imdb that some of these films had ever dubbed? Who re-mastered Caballero products? I suggest that Caballero also is not in business anymore. Therefore I do no see a clear answer.

Where are you looking for this information? On Google? If I were in the video business and was interested in re-issuing a title I probably would have some sort of copyright attorney do the research. They have the knowledge and experience to investigate such matters. I wouldn't trust online searches.

It all has to do with how aggressively the rights holder protects those rights. You can download video all day long from Kink.com and they don't seem to be doing much to stop it. I know of one very small California based outfit that goes after anyone he sees posting his (incredibly lame) material.

If you post something to one of the filehosts and they get a DMCA complaint they'll take the file(s) down and notify you. You'll know not to upload stuff from that source anymore.

[9876543210]

UriF,

Originally Posted by UriF

I repeat my point. If a film producer is not in business anymore who would be a copyright owner?

The experience I'm most familiar with is a forum similar to this. Maybe 10 years ago the site was doing pretty well and had a lot of Pboy stuff on it. Apparently, someone from the magazine found the site and an attorney sent the site owner a letter saying they had to take all of the pix from Pboy off.

The owner complied (as he didn't want to be sued) but it almost destroyed the site.

Pboy is still in business (I guess) and will go after anyone they believe is stealing from them. Any smart businnessman, photographer or videographer would probably do the same if they want to stay in business.