joshroot Posted February 9, 2008 Share Posted February 9, 2008 I encourage everyone who has photos posted on this site to report the copyright violation to Google Adsense and to Godaddy. I have sent an email off to our lawyer. She may not get back to me until Monday, and I'm still not really convinced that we can do anything, but it is worth a try. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WJT Posted February 9, 2008 Share Posted February 9, 2008 "Beautiful large prints are available at YarmouthLane.com"?<br><br> Playcomet grabbed a whole mess of my photographs, too, so I posted the English version of the above text pointing to my website as comments on all of the images they ripped. You don't even have to sign in; they allow anyone to comment on the stuff. Hey, might as well get some free advertising from them, right? Trying to bring down that Chinaman is going to be <i>mighty</i> hard. Regards. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobatkins Posted February 9, 2008 Share Posted February 9, 2008 The DNS servers for the domain are in China, and when I do a tracert to playcomet.com the final IP I get is 222.73.227.221. I can't get a full resolution on that IP address, but it appears to be somewhere in China from the following report: nns.sta.net.cn. (an authoritative nameserver for 73.222.in-addr.arpa., which is in charge of the reverse DNS for 222.73.227.221) says that there are no PTR records for 222.73.227.221. The hop prior to the final hop is to a server in Shanghai, China, so it looks like the route does end up in China. Google are notoriously slow to act on complaints, but maybe PN is big enough to have some influence, though it's not like we have the traffic of a slashdot or msn. It's worth a try. I doubt that DMCA complaints to China will have much effect since it's a US Copyright Law, plus China isn't exactly well know for upholding international copyright law anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sattler123 Posted February 9, 2008 Share Posted February 9, 2008 Just got this back from GoDaddy: "Dear Juergen Sattler, Thank you for contacting the GoDaddy.com Spam and Abuse Department. In order to ensure that your claims are dealt with in the most efficient manner possible, you will need to send your claim to CopyrightClaims@GoDaddy.com. Please submit your copyright claim in accordance with all steps as outlined in our Copyright and Trademark Policy located at http://www.godaddy.com/gdshop/legal_agreements/show_doc.asp?se=%2B&pageid=TRADMARK%5FCOPY. If all the policy conditions are met, and if we can verify that the material in question is indeed a registered and copyrighted work, then we will re-direct the site per the terms of this policy. Regards, Spam and Abuse Department GoDaddy.com ARID1003" In other words, they will only act on this if the pictures in question have been officially registered and copy-marked, which is not the case for my photographs. Sounds like they think it is OK to copy pictures from one site to the other, unless you registered them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt Laur Posted February 9, 2008 Share Posted February 9, 2008 Juergen: If you follow the <a href="http://www.godaddy.com/gdshop/legal_agreements/show_doc.asp?se=%2B&pageid=TRADMARK%5FCOPY" target="_blank"><b>link that was provided above</b></a> in an earlier comment, you'll see some very specific instructions on how to submit a proper copyright-related request. It's simple, and does NOT mention registered (vs. non-registered) copyrighted works. It simply requires you to make good-faith assertions that you are the copyright holder or are authorized to speak on that person's behalf. <br><br> Bob: DNS for that domain may indeed by in China, as is their main web site, but the "pic.playcomet.com" server - which is a different web presence, on different servers - IS hosted by GoDaddy in the U.S. It's very common for a given domain to sport servers in multiple environments. The IP address I mentioned earlier is domestic... tracert a route to that specific host name, not just the parent domain name (which will indirectly resolve, sometimes, to the mail server on the domain). Note that the "www" hostname (www.playcomet.com) ALSO resolves to the Arizona-based IP address. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michaelkh Posted February 9, 2008 Share Posted February 9, 2008 All good investigative stuff. It seems to me that photo.net needs a dedicated discussion forum for this stuff, because it happens often enough. PN may not be able to afford to pay a lawyer to do this kind of work, but there are standard request mechanisms in many countries, there is a strong enough sense of right and wrong and collective effort here, and at least having somewhere that the various avenues of investigation could be archived would provide some value. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jim craig Posted February 9, 2008 Share Posted February 9, 2008 Coincidence maybe, but every photographer's name I check on the Play Comet site is a Photonet member. I searched Play Comet's site for several names of regular posters to a couple of other sites I subscribe to and their names or photos don't show up. Is this site just drawing from Photonet? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt Laur Posted February 9, 2008 Share Posted February 9, 2008 Jim: they could indeed have written a special screen-scraping bot that's been trained to understand how to crawl and fetch images and names from photo.net's particular way of hosting and serving that content. Obviously there isn't some guy in China sitting there ooh-ing and aah-ing at the images from this site and choosing which ones to put there. It's driven by easily found links into portfolios, and a robot is doing the work. If you look at the file names for the larger JPGs, you'll see that they're date-based. All of my images were scraped on the same day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
reprint Posted February 9, 2008 Share Posted February 9, 2008 Juergen, Matt is right. The information provided at the link is required to be in their policy by the DMCA. Those steps are a DMCA filing exactly - no registration of photos needed. Godaddy is the place to start and if they determine that they are not the host, they will say so in response to the filings. The only part i am unsure of is the anonymous registration i.e. domainbyproxy. I am not sure if they are required to reveal the registrants details. If it does turn out to be hosted in china, then Bob is right. There is often little that can be done. Google adsense would be the fall back position though it can take time. If enough people file though it might catch their attention. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kelly_flanigan1 Posted February 9, 2008 Share Posted February 9, 2008 Maybe next years 2009 calendars being printed in China this summer will contain many of these free web images? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joshroot Posted February 9, 2008 Share Posted February 9, 2008 <I>"PN may not be able to afford to pay a lawyer to do this kind of work"</i> <p> As I have said more than once in this thread, we have a lawyer. She is a very good lawyer. The issue is more with sites like this being hosted in foreign countries. If they are, there is little to nothing we can do about it. If multi-billion dollar companies can't get chinese companies to stop making counterfeit merchandise, we don't have much of a chance of getting a website to pull down images. <p> That having been said, if the site is based in the US or is using US based services like Adsense, then there is a better chance of using legal threats to make a difference. <p> Do keep in mind that even if we are successful at cutting off their US based host, the chances are very good that this website will simply re-appear on foreign hosted servers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jmichael Posted February 9, 2008 Share Posted February 9, 2008 While I will do whatever I can do to have all of our images removed, I also took Walter's advice and posted the following message in the comments section of each of my photographs: "This unauthorized low-resolution copywritten image in available for purchase at www.lifeonthe45th.com". At least as we fight, we can use it to hopefully sell something or drive people to our websites. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobatkins Posted February 9, 2008 Share Posted February 9, 2008 If you click on the Google Ads text that reads "Ads by Google", you get to a page which invites comments. Click on the link that says " Send Google your thoughts on the site or the ads you just saw" and let Google know. As you check the various boxes, more boxes will open up and eventually you'll be given an area in which you can type your comments. WARNING - If you click on the ad part of the ad, you will be giving the site money! Click only on the text at the lower right corner of the ad which reads "Ads by Google" (sometimes it may also read "Ads by Gooooogle"). If might be especially effective if you do this from a page which is displaying one of YOUR stolen images, since the page URL is sent back to Google along with your comments. Don't expect any direct response back from Google or any immediate action, but if they get enough complaints about the site they may look more closely at it<div></div> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WJT Posted February 9, 2008 Share Posted February 9, 2008 Thanks Bob, that is some good advice! I think that this fight is not going to be won unless we have the cooperation of as many of our members as possible. To that end, I strongly suggest that a notice is emailed or, even better, posted prominently in the Forums, concerning this situation. In addition to an explanation that PhotoNet is working to resolve the problem, a request for members to individually contact Google, GoDaddy and whoever else is involved should be included, with suggestions as to what we should say. Regards. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lorilafs Posted February 9, 2008 Share Posted February 9, 2008 "Strength in numbers"... I think that's a fantastic idea, Walter! I'm on board! Everyone else?! Admins--can we do this? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joshroot Posted February 9, 2008 Share Posted February 9, 2008 I have made this thread "sticky" at the top of the Feedback forum and will make a post in the Casual Conversations forum pointing people here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobatkins Posted February 9, 2008 Share Posted February 9, 2008 Just to clear up any confusion about the IP addresses etc., playcomet.com does resolve to a server in China, but pic.playcomet.com seems to resolve to a server in Scottsdale Arizona. The last server in a tracert resolves to a company Wild West Domains, Inc., 14455 N Hayden Rd #219, Scottsdale, Arizona 85260, however the IP suggests that Godaddy is involved, but maybe just as the registeration agent? BTW, adding a copyright watermark doesn't seem to stop them using the images! See http://pic.playcomet.com/show-72015.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leicaglow Posted February 9, 2008 Share Posted February 9, 2008 These guys are unscrupulous. They even rip off software. I see a title on there I just paid $49 for. He claims it is free, but it's not. Also others have prices, so I'm not sure who you have to pay to use the software. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
petemillis Posted February 9, 2008 Share Posted February 9, 2008 Am I missing something? They have one of my pictures, but it has my name with it. Does that mean they have referenced it and so it is not a copyright violation? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
reprint Posted February 9, 2008 Share Posted February 9, 2008 Pete, No. If they used your photo without your permission, then its a copyright violation. There are a few exceptions but none of them apply here Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
reprint Posted February 9, 2008 Share Posted February 9, 2008 Bob, GoDaddy's business address is 14455 N. Hayden Rd.Suite 219 Scottsdale, AZ 85260 Domains by proxy is 15111 N Hayden Rd, Scottsdale, AZ ( a block away) Wild west domains address is 14455 N Hayden Rd # 219, Scottsdale, AZ The place to start is definitely GoDaddy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kiro Posted February 9, 2008 Share Posted February 9, 2008 damn... found one of mine... i've filed my grievances - I'd also make a suggestion - when you file with google and godaddy, give them the link back to this thread as well, so that they can see that you're not alone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shots worth sharing Posted February 9, 2008 Share Posted February 9, 2008 Son-of-a-gun! they took three of mine! Not only are they pirates--they have no taste! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kiro Posted February 9, 2008 Share Posted February 9, 2008 Taking advantage of the no login requirement on the comments, I posted the following comment below my photo: <br><br> <i>PlayComet.com are thieves! <br><br> pic.playcomet.com is illegally infringing on photographers' copyrights. I am the photographer who took this photo and I have NEVER authorized them to use this photo. If you would like to see this photo and others I've taken on my website where of course they were intended to be seen, go to: http://www.kierselinsky.com <br><br> To read more about other photographers that are having their copyrights infringed by PlayComet.com, go to: http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg? msg_id=00OLRb</i> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hanna_cowpe Posted February 9, 2008 Share Posted February 9, 2008 More stolen images here http://www.vojvodinacafe.com/forum/umetnost/1712-fotografija-dana-105.html Does anyone read this language (Russian possibly?) and can they give an idea of what this website is about? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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