So someone did a CopyPasta instead of a Link?

Copypasta = fail, write and link, people!

Heres my opinion on the copyright thing, It if was a piece of journalism, I'd totally get it. But it's a list, it's not an article or essay pointing out why gamers do X. Again, I see where he'd not want his stuff on another site, but come on. Seriously?

As you probably noticed we experienced some unexpected downtime this afternoon from 7pm-8pm CST due to three reasons that, when combined, caused a meltdown: (a) someone filed a copyright violation against a cblogger (see below) for copy/pasting the entirety of their content and (b) our hosting company is migrating to a new software that isn't sending out email notices for trouble tickets and (c) didn't have my new address, so I found out that they were trying to reach me after our load balancing hardware was unplugged. Super!

It took us an hour to pull the blog post, contact their lawyer, point our site to a backup, get the legal stuff worked out, have them plug the server back in, switch our stuff back, yadda yadda. Moral of the story: please be very careful about attribution. Its fine to copy/paste a fraction of someone's content but taking entire stories off of another site is frowned upon. What a mission. At least we're back up and Colette ordered chicken wings. (sigh)

--

To Whom It May Concern,

I am writing to you to avail myself of my rights under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). This letter is a Notice of Infringement as authorized in 512(c) of the U.S. Copyright Law. I wish to report what I feel in good faith is an instance of Copyright Infringement. The infringing material appears on the service for which you are the designated agent.

The DMCA clearly speficies on Section 202(c) that a service provider will also become liable unless upon notification of claimed infringement as described in paragraph (3), responds expeditiously to remove, or disable access to, the material that is claimed to be infringing or to be the subject of infringing activity.

1. The material which I contend belongs to me, and appears illegally on the Service is the following:

18 Undiscovered Websites Every Gamer Should Know

2. The original material appears on my website at this address:

http://www.dailybits.com/18-undiscovered-websites-every-gamer-should-know/

3. The infringing material appears at the website address:

http://www.destructoid.com/blogs/chief+blaze/not-1-not-2-but-18-undiscovered-websites-every-gamer-should-know--66488.phtml

4. My contact information is as follows:

(removed)


5. I have a good faith belief that the use of the material that appears on the service is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or by operation of law.

6. The information in this notice is accurate, and I am either the copyright owner or I am authorize to act on behalf of the copyright owner.

I declare under the perjury laws of the United States of America that this notification is true and correct.




DONT SUE ME NIERO! i only pasted it because i thought it was really good!

That's kinda lame.

Holy fucking shit. When I read it was because of copying my heart almost stopped. I had a blog this morning about the new warhawk patch, and it was almost entirely copypasta. So I'm glad It's not me.

@Sadie G@
Plagiarism aka Academic Dishonesty.

Tisk.

Lets stop the bullshit and say it like it is, it's a list. I can make a list, my MOM can make a list. I totally see where he's comming from, but this isn't something to call someone out, it's called picking your battles (I claim ownership of this phrase >:D)

lol, owned to the 10th degree.

@jdub
Thats my second favorite episode

Yeah, unfortunately US copyright laws are unintuitive. It doesn't matter if you cite your sources -- if you copy all or even just the most important parts of an article, you might be violating copyright law.

Might. There's plenty of wiggle room within fair use, but if I were Niero, I wouldn't want to take a lot of chances with that stuff. This can't possibly be one of the first takedown notices Dtoid has received, can it?

@jdub28: God, I love that show.

Well, look...“simple copypasta” or not, someone put the time and effort into finding those 18 websites, getting screenshots, and writing the list up in his own words. If he chooses not to make it freely reproducible (GFDL or, as Niero said, Creative Commons), that’s unfortunate — but it’s entirely his decision and his right to do so.

Moral of the story: copypasta of a news story is generally okay, because CNN or the Associated Press are not likely to come after you with a DMCA complaint. But don’t copy stuff from any “smaller” sources, unless they explicitly allow it (like Wikipedia, for example).

so what if blaze would have put this in the forums? would it have still violated copyright laws? because neogaf is barely anything besides regugatation(sp?) of headlines and other peoples "work"

@MaxVest: Well, that’s definitely true. Fair use is very...nebulous. I just meant that posting news copypasta in the c-blogs isn’t likely to get noticed.

ANOTHER FAILCAST TOPIC GET

Talk about making mountains out of ant hills. We still love you Blaze.

Listen to MaxVest, he's actually a lawyer.

@Samit Sarkar: I agree with you, I just don't want to give people a false sense of security. Especially because Fair Use is a defense against copyright infringement (used in a lawsuit), not a bar to copyright infringement (keeps you from getting to court in the first place).

In general, giving a brief excerpt, or giving a summary in your own words, is allowable. Providing a link is a good way to keep the copyright holder from getting irritated, but it doesn't really have any particular legal magic. It just reassures the court that you're not trying to financially harm the copyright holder, which is one part of a fair use defense. Which again, if you're asserting Fair Use, means you got sued.

Good grief. Fuck this lawyer and fuck whoever wrote this who was credited and STILL acted like an asshole. Who goes around looking for the off chance that someone may have shared something they thought was cool and gave full credit to them.

Fuck you asshole.

Pretty ridiculous if you ask me.

Grow the fuck up, it was just a stupid list of websites.

@Butmac: Although I support your desire to fuck lawyers, this looks like a form email notice that anyone could send. You could even send your own version of it to someone who copypastaed your Amazon deals.

wow someone had sand in their vagina

@Butmac: edit -- not the deals themselves, but your accompanying droll and witty prose.

Although the copypasta was bad - why do people even think that their work will be used properly when it's posted on the internets? Who cares that much to have a fucking lawyer?

It seems like Chief Blaze copypastas a lot of his blogs...luckily this is the only time someone else has gotten disgruntled.