Plagiarism, Image theft, Copyright, royalties...

by The Alex December 16th 2005, 11:26 pm

[ The litigation tool - Report TOS violations ]

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- Do I have rights to put music on my forum?

You do not have the rights except if this music is free of rights. The majority of famous music: Film OST, singers... are not free, that means that to use them in its entire legality you must pay the author or at least to ask him for permission.

CAUTION: If you put a copyrighted music you will be the only responsible in front of the law. The author can sue you.

- Do I have right to put an image or a text on my forum?

When you wish to put on your forum an image or a text you haven't created yourself, you :
- ask the author for permission.
- if it gives it to you, quote your sources, for example by putting a link to the site or forum where it comes from.

- I saw that another forum took images or texts from me, what can I do?

2 solutions:
> if you are the author of its images or texts, i.e. that you completely manufactured them, and that you can prove it in front of justice (copyright registration, royalties...) contact the admin site in question and say him that these images belong to you and that if he does not withdraw them you will lodge a complaint.
> if you already had "stolen" its images elsewhere, from a phpbb theme or other, you can't do anything since you are not the author. The same if you cannot prove by a legal means that these works belong you.

- How then I to protect my forum from plagiarists?

To protect you you have several solutions:
> to install an anti-right-click, it will work only on the indez page of the forum, but it is already a small protection.
> When you create your own images you can insert in a discrete way your name, forum address, forum title... If somebody steals your image he will have to touch it up before putting it and he may be discouraged.
> the safest way however remains to formally do a copyright registration with qualified people. It is not free. You will easily find addresses of companies in google (which is your friend, I point out it to you).

- What is bandwidth theft?

Everything you put on the Net has an address of type http://... this address proves that the image, the text, the music is hosted on the Net. Hosted means that somebody took this element on his computer and putted it on the Net. Each time you see the image or hear the music: your Internet browser goes at this address and charges what it is necessary for the place or it is necessary. Certain hosters make pay their loading according to the number of visits. I.e. If 1 person sees the image, the webmaster which made the site will have to pay 1 cent and if 50 000 people sees the image it will have to pay 50 000 cents, so be it 500 dollars. If you do not host yourself this image before putting it on your forum, the webmaster will have to pay when the image loads on its own site (what is normal) but also when this image loads on your forum. That is not only unfair but more, it's illegal. If you have the authorization to take an image: make a right-click on it, choose "Save As", give it a name. Then host it by your own means.

- Can EditBoard help me if I discover a plagiarism of my forum?

EditBoard will not be able to help you because it does not have the proofs that it is the other one who plagiarizes and not you. You must thus settle this kind of business by discussing with the admin of the forum in question and lodge a complaint if you have the means to do it.

- is EditBoard responsible if a admin puts images which are not free of right?

When a admin is registered with forumactif it accepts a chart that says:

You are legally responsible of your forum.
AND
These elements are not allowed :
1. peer to peer link exchange (edonkey, emule, bittorrent…),
2. sexual elements,
3. elements having royalties.

That means that only the admin of the forum is responsible if he contravenes its measures. If a admin does not respect this chart, he may be sued but EditBoard can't be sued instead of him and EditBoard will not be able to sue the admin in your place.

- What can I do if I see an illegal forum?

If you see a forum which seems to contain illegal elements (illegal downloads, racism, pornography...), send a private message to a moderator while giving him:
- the address of the forum in question.
- the link to the illegal topics.

The moderator will transmit to the EditBoard admins.

You must know that the illegal forum will not necessary be removed immediately.

Dhalsim: Administrator on the French forum wrote:Many forums who don't respect the rules are preserved to be able to provide to the legal authorities the list founders, administrators, moderators and participants as well as an access to all the posted messages, the backups and the logs of connections. From this moment it is not difficult to find the name and the address of each member. The procedures can take several months, but you don't be surprised if you are convened or requisitioned if you created or if you took part in an illegal forum.

EDIT by Katt : I add this reminder to make it clear about the delay after sending a report : Most of all, it's useless to send the PM twice, three times, four times ! The moderators and admins have a private life and they all don't live in the same time zone, so they can't always respond in the following minutes, so it's useless to re-send a PM to the same person 1 hour after the first one !

by Cornelia March 30th 2006, 8:44 pm

Hello

Lately, we are receiving many complaints about French forums who steal copyrighted picture. In many cases, the person who complaints doesn't speak any word of French and the thief doesn't speak any word of English. In this situation, communication between the two parties become difficult.

So, to help the plaintiffs in this kind of situation, here are tools for you to make the communication easier.

A lot of thanks to my colleague larme d'ange to have given me the info for this message Wink

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Hello

We don't intervene.

The admin of the forum is responsible of its content. When he/she creates a forum, he/she signs this :

Vous êtes légalement responsable de votre forum...........

(translation : You are legally responsible of your forum....)

I advise you to contact this admin and to remind him/her that (laws about royalties in French) :

Le droit d'auteur en France est régi par par la loi du 11 mars 1957 et la loi du 3 juillet 1985, codifiées dans le code de la propriété intellectuelle.

La loi reconnaît en tant qu'auteur toute personne physique qui crée une oeuvre de l'esprit quelle que soit son genre (littéraire, musical ou artistique), sa forme d'expression(orale ou écrite), son mérite ou sa finalité (but artistique ou utilitaire).

Le droit d'auteur couvre donc toute création de l'esprit, qu'elle soit une oeuvre littéraire (livres, journaux, pièces de théatre, logiciels, site web, etc.),

D'après les article L.111-1 et L.123-1 du code de la propriété intellectuelle, l'auteur d'une oeuvre de l'esprit jouit d'un droit de propriété exclusif dès sa création, sans nécessité d'accomplissement de formalités (dépôt ou enregistrement), pour une durée correspondant à l'année civile du décès de l'auteur et des soixante-dix années qui suivent, au bénéfice de ses ayants-droits. Au-delà de cette période, les oeuvres entrent dans le domaine public. Toutefois, en cas de litige, il est nécessaire de pouvoir apporter une preuve de l'existence de l'oeuvre à une date donnée, soit en ayant effectuée préalablement un dépôt auprès d'un organisme habitilité, soit en ayant rendue l'oeuvre publique et en étant en moyen de le prouver.

You can also know more about royalties and how to assert your rights with these pages.

in French : http://www.commentcamarche.net/droits/copyright-auteur.php3
In English : http://www.fipr.org/copyright/guide/france.htm

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You can also know more about royalties and how to assert your rights with these pages.

Understand that if he/she doesn't accept your request, you'll have to apply and get enquiries from the law administration officeShe remains the only administration that has all rights to act in a lawful way.

Editboard remains at the disposal of the person enquiring the access rights for a legal inquiry, and for the identification of this person.

Plagiarism, Image theft, Copyright, royalties...

Plagiarism, Image theft, Copyright, royalties...

Re: Plagiarism, Image theft, Copyright, royalties...