Pretty much anyone who has put content online has encountered it.  Someone takes your content and puts it on their own website.  They might be generating ad revenue from your content or they might just be trying to gather good content (as opposed to generating good content) to that their site looks good.

Whatever their reasons, their theft of your content has serious repercussions.  Beyond simple copyright theft, search engines can knock sites down if it sees the same content on multiple websites.  If a content thief takes your content, it could mean that you actually get dinged in the search engine rankings.

Thankfully, content owners have a recourse via the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).  The DMCA says that copyright owners who find their content online without permission can send a letter (DMCA takedown notice) to the person or company hosting the material.  The person/company then must take down the material.  Once they do, the person who put the content online can then either accept that the material was taken down or contest this takedown.

Once they contest it, it is a matter between the poster and the copyright owner.  The hosting company is off the hook and isn’t involved.  This is a good thing.  Were this not the case, the mere act of letting users put any content online would be too much of a lawsuit risk.  The Internet as a whole would grind to a halt.

Sadly, however, DMCA requests can be abused.  Recently, Retraction Watch, a blog run by Ivan Oransky and hosted on WordPress.com, found many of their postings gone.  After doing some investigating, it turned out that one of the subjects of his postings, a cancer researcher who was being investigated for fraud in his research and inaccuracies on his resume wanted to improve his online reputation.

To improve his online reputation, the cancer researcher hired a company.  The company copies Retraction Watch’s content.  Then, they filed DMCA takedown notices with WordPress, claiming the content was their own.  WordPress complied and the content was deleted.  Now, Retraction Watch is trying to recover their lost content.

This is, understandably, very worrying.  Theoretically, false DMCA takedown requests constitute perjury.  Practically, though, there is no penalty for filing a false request.  How many more people will find their content gone via DMCA takedown because some person or company doesn’t like what they posted?  How many content thieves will steal content and then try to take the originals down to bolster their claim over the stolen content?

How can you protect yourself?  The best way is to always back everything up locally.  This way, even if you are struck with a malicious DMCA takedown notice, you won’t actually lose any content.  If you are running a self-hosted WordPress blog, there are many plugins that you can use to back up your database.  (I prefer WordPress Database Backup.)  If you are on WordPress.com or Blogger.com, this site has some recommendations.

Even if you think you can trust your host, it is a good idea to back up.  You never know when a malicious DMCA request will come your way and it is the best method of protecting yourself.

NOTE: The burglar image above is by tzunghaor and is available from OpenClipArt.org.

It isn’t news that people seem to think that “on the Internet” equals “free for us to use in any way we see fit.”  It happened with NickMom.  It happened to Kristine and photos of her baby Cora who passed away from congenital heart disease.  It has even happened to both B and to myself with scrapers taking our content for their own uses.  This instance, however, is a bit bigger.

In 2006, a former computer programmer turned musician, Jonathan Coulton, wrote a cover of Sir Mix-A-Lot’s “Baby Got Back.”  He made some major alterations including turning it into a light acoustic, almost folksy, song, including duck quacks where curse words might be, and changing a “Mix-A-Lot” reference to “Johnny C.”

Everything seemed to be fine until a fan of Coulton’s spotted his song on iTunes.  Not under his name, mind you, but as a song for an upcoming episode of Glee.  Furthermore, he didn’t appear to be credited.  Many people figured that there was some kind of mistake, but then the song played exactly the same on the episode itself.  And I mean, exactly the same.  It had the same melody, the same duck quacks (barely heard like someone tried to “scrub them out” but failed), and even the changed “Johnny C” lyrics.  Furthermore, Glee is selling “their version” on iTunes without crediting or publicly acknowledging Coulton in any way.

Sound Cloud even put up a comparison.  You can put on some headphones and listen to the two together.  I did and couldn’t tell them apart.

Coulton tried to get in touch with them and was told that he should be thankful for the “exposure.”  You know, that massive exposure that one gets when a big television show on a major network steals one’s work and doesn’t credit one in any way, shape, or form.  They claimed that they were within their legal rights to do what they did.

The kicker:  They might just be.  It turns out that, thanks to the complicated twists and turns of copyright law, If Artist A makes a song, Artist B makes a derivative work of that song, and Big TV Show C uses Artist B’s version, they just have to pay Artist A.  Jonathan Coulton’s only possible legal avenue centers around the possibility that Glee took his exact audio tracks and used those instead of recreating them.

You see, at one point, Jonathan released his source tracks for a Creative Commons fundraiser.  Some people believe that Glee took these tracks and used them for their own version.  The problem here is that the license they were released under was Non-commercial.  This means that I could take them and release a version of me singing to the song, but I can’t sell that version or use it in a commercial work.

You know, like a television show.

This situation is still developing and it isn’t clear whether Jonathan Coulton will get any credit or payment from Glee.  Since Coulton’s song was copied, many other artists have come forward (or have had their previous claims publicized more) about Glee ripping them off as well.

A television show about underdogs whose only recourse is their singing skills stealing from other artists and using their mega-corporation’s legal might to make sure that they can get away with it?  I’m not sure if that’s irony, but it is extremely repugnant.  It almost makes me want to start watching Glee just so I can quit watching in protest.  (Almost, but not quite.)

Instead, I think I’ll buy a song or two from Jonathan Coulton’s shop.  In fact, if I buy his newly released cover of Glee’s cover of his cover of Baby Got Back (that is to say, his original version), he’ll donate the proceeds to charity.  A very classy move by Jonathan Coulton in response to Glee’s much-less-than-classy move.

The bottom line here is the same as pretty much every case that I detailed in the beginning of this post.  Had Glee offered to pay Jonathan Coulton for permission to use his arrangement, he likely would have agreed.  Had they asked politely, not offering payment but only credit, he still might have agreed.  However, to take the arrangement, give no payment or credit, and try to claim that this gives the artist exposure is flat out wrong.  When it comes to copyright, the rule of thumb is “Ask permission first”, not “Seek forgiveness, not permission.”

Google is a great tool.  With it, you can look up virtually any information and find it rapidly.  Thanks to Google Image Search, you can easily look through millions of photos, drawings, and more.  Unfortunately, this also means that copyright infringement is all too easy and people get confused as to what constitutes fair use.

You might not know the story of Cora.  Cora was only five days old when she died in her mother’s arms.  Cora’s mother, Kristine, has tirelessly worked to raise awareness of congenital heart disease.  There are many children alive today because of Kristine’s efforts.

In another corner of the Internet, there was a person who wanted to bring to light stories of babies who died due to child abuse.  A laudable goal, I must admit.  However, this person couldn’t find photos of all of the babies.  Instead of making a generic "no photo available" image, she took some photos of babies from the Internet and used those.  One of those photos was Cora’s.

Obviously, when Kristine found out she was upset.  She asked the page owner to take the images down, pointing out that they are copyrighted.  The page owner replied that images that appear in Google listings are free for anyone to use.  While, she took Cora’s image down, she is still using other babies’ photos.  In addition, she is calling Kristine and her supporters (including parents whose babies’ photos appear on the page) trolls for pressuring her to take down the photos..

Sadly, this isn’t the first time and likely won’t be the last time that someone mistakes "uploaded to the Internet" with "free for anyone to use."  Unless otherwise noted, items uploaded to the Internet are copyrighted.  This includes results from Google Images.  Google indexes the images (unless the site specifies for Google not to) and presents them in an easy to find manner, but it doesn’t grant permission to use them.  This is similar to how Google can let you search for a blog post, but it doesn’t grant you the right to take the text and put it on your website.

Now, there are some exceptions.  There are some times when you can use an image and be safe from copyright infringement.  The first of these is news reporting.  If I was putting together a news report about Cora, I could legitimately use an image from the site.  It would be better to ask for permission first, of course, but it wouldn’t be required.  The other instance is parody.  When Weird Al Yankovic takes a song and makes his own version, he doesn’t need to ask permission.  He does (just like with news reporting, asking is nicer), but he isn’t required to.

However, using an image from a site just because that happens to match up with a blog post you’re making or because the website you’re putting together would look a little nicer if you grabbed that graphic?  Not allowed.  That’s copyright infringement.

Perhaps you are thinking that copyright infringement isn’t that big of a deal.  After all, you can just grab the image, use it, and take it down if someone complains.  The problem with this is that the penalties for copyright infringement are $750 to $150,000 per infringement.  Taking the image down isn’t a protection.  You still infringed when you used the image without permission.

I don’t know how many times Cora’s image was used on the infringing site.  Kristina used the term "several", so let’s say it was used five times.  In that case, the page owner could be sued for anywhere from $3,750 to $750,000.  Add in time and money spent defending a court case and you need to ask yourself if grabbing that image worth a few thousand dollars’ risk.

So where should you get images if not from Google?  After all, you can’t be expected to go out and photograph every possible scenario, right?  Well, photographing your own is the best option, of course.  Failing that, there are plenty of outlets, such as ShutterStock.com, where you can buy images to use on your websites.  (NOTE: I have no relationship with ShutterStock.  They were merely the first listing in my Google search for "Royalty Free Stock Images.")

If your budget is $0, though, there are still options.  You might have noticed that my blog posts often credit OpenClipArt or Wikimedia Commons.  Both provide public domain images that you can use or copyrighted images that grant you the right to reuse them freely.  With these, though, make sure you credit the author/source.  Even if it isn’t required, it is nice.  In the case of the page owner who used Cora’s image, this image of a crying baby by labc and available for free from OpenClipArt.com would have been appropriate and free of any copyright entanglements.

So the next time you see an image in a Google Images search and think "that would go great on my blog post or website", please stop and think again.  Don’t use copyrighted images unless you have the permission of the copyright owners.  Use your own photos, paid stock images, or free images from sites like OpenClipArt or Wikimedia Commons that specifically allow usage.  If you absolutely must use the copyrighted photo, ask for permission first.  Depending on the purpose of your usage, the owner may grant permission.  This is one time when it is better to ask permission than to seek forgiveness.

NOTE: The "copyright search" image above was created by Xander and comes from Wikimedia Commons under the GNU Free Documentation License.

On Tuesday, after Rosh Hashana services, NHL and I began having a discussion.  As our talk wandered from Rosh Hashana to Yom Kippur, I told NHL that the purpose of Yom Kippur was to apologize for our transgressions.  However, I informed him that saying you are sorry wasn’t enough.  If you were truly sorry, you wouldn’t repeat your misdeeds.

I gave him the example of a bully I had back in middle school.  This bully claimed to be my best friend.  He even acted the part much of the time.  Then, he would begin to mock me, stab me in the back (literally, he used a sharpened pencil), and would torment me in various ways.  After awhile, he apologized.  He claimed that someone had told him that I had said nasty things about him.

Being extremely naïve, I took him back as a friend and everything was fine for awhile until he tormented me again.  The pattern repeated itself over and over.  Tormenting, apology, naive-younger-me refusing to believe that his one friend was really not a friend at all.  Finally, I couldn’t deny it any longer and I refused to accept any more apologies from him.  I finally realized how worthless his apologies were.

Recently, NickMom has raised some folks’ ire.  Amy, aka ResourcefulMommy, has a good summary of what happened.  Short version: NickMom rips off HowToBeADad. NickMom is caught and apologizes.  Then, NickMom is found to be stealing more content.  Including photos of peoples’ kids.  Including photos of peoples’ kids with the watermarks covered over by NickMom.  They apologize again and take it down.  They even issue a blanket statement that they’ll take down any content that the creators complain about.

Here’s the problem, though.  Their apology means nothing.  Of course, they’ll take down the stolen content when people complain about it.  If they don’t, they face copyright infringement fees of $750 – $150,000 per incident.  However, they have shown absolutely no willingness to stop the copying in the first place.  They know that their editors are lifting content and yet they just stay the course.  Without even the slightest bit of effort to change their ways, their apologies mean nothing at all.

My Aloha Friday question for today is: How do you handle an insincere apology?

P.S. If you haven’t already, try out my Twitter applications: FollowerHQ and Rout.

Disclaimer: The "burglar" image above is by tzunghaor and is available through OpenClipArt.org.

Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the linky there if you are participating.

Aloha #157

I recently read a review that Phil Plait, aka Bad Astronomer, posted about Year Zero by Rob Reid.  (If the name sounds familiar, it’s because he founded Listen.com which created the Rhapsody music service.  If it doesn’t sound familiar, then never mind.)  In it, there are countless alien civilizations in the Universe.  Most tend to self-destruct, but a few don’t.  These precious few (well, "few" percentage-wise is still many, many civilizations numbers-wise) get to join the Refined League.  By doing so, they gain access to the technological and, more importantly, the art that all of the other civilizations have.

For the longest time, Earth seemed to be a nothing world.  We were primitive nobodies, barely even worthy to be paid attention to.  Until, that is, Welcome Back Kotter aired.  Even this, however, was laughable to the aliens until the closing credits theme song played.

There’s this funny thing about aliens.  They are leaps and bounds ahead of us in every area known to man… er, sentient species, except for one: Music.  Here, we soar beyond any of their wildest aspirations.  In fact, our music is more than just "good" to them.  It has a certain drug-like effect on them.  Human music is like LSD on crack to aliens.  They shuffle wildly, approximating dancing – aliens stink at rhythm, and can even go into a trance-like state where they are aware of nothing but the wondrous sensation of the heavenly tones coming from those otherwise hopelessly backwards Homo Sapiens.

Now, like many music fans, they decided they needed to have copies of the songs.  Since landing in flying saucers en masse was out of the question (for one, they don’t interfere in non-Refined civilizations and secondly they don’t travel in flying saucers), they took the route that many human music fans take: they "downloaded" the music.  Every alien has a copy of every song released since about 1978.

Unfortunately, the aliens are also sticklers for the rules.  They have a law that they need to follow the laws of whatever planet the art form comes from.  And Earth (specifically, the United States) has this pesky copyright law.  When you add up the fines that would result from every alien pirating every song released since 1978, you get more money than the entire Universe.  Yes, thanks to copyright law, the entire Earth (except for North Korea) is now fabulously wealthy and the Universe is bankrupt.  And that’s a problem.  Especially since some aliens would like to see the debt wiped out by any means necessary.  Even if it means humanity is wiped out.  (Hard to collect on your debt when you’re kaput.)

Rob Reid takes this setup and runs with it in a way that alternates between hilarious and insightful.  (Often being both at once.)  His characters struggle against impossible odds to find a way out of this situation.  Their travels take them from New York City to the other side of the Universe and back again.

I found this book as addictive as the aliens in it found humanity’s music.  I couldn’t put it down for more than a few minutes.  When I did, I found myself finding excuses to sneak off with the book just to read a few more pages.  A few times, I thought I had figured out how they would solve the problem.  I was even close once, but not close enough.  The actual resolution makes perfect sense and is one of those "why didn’t *I* think of that" situations.

The entire book is told from the main character’s point of view and, just to add to the fun of the book, there are footnotes scattered here where he adds background to sections, terms, or statements that characters make.  I was drawn into this world and it would not let go until I finished the very last page.  (Yes, I read all 357 pages in 2 days!)  The story was just too engrossing not to keep reading.  And even when you think everything is tied up in a nice little package, the author tosses a new wrinkle (albeit one he mentions earlier in the book but then gets conveniently "forgotten" about until the end) that not only adds an interesting twist, but also possibly sets up a sequel.

However, whether there is a sequel or not, Year Zero is a very interesting read and I would recommend it to any music or science fiction fan.  I would doubly recommend it to people who are fans of both music *and* science fiction.