06-22-2016, 01:31 PM
(06-22-2016, 10:02 AM)Ragnarök_62 Wrote: > Take down is where I'd have to delete something if it was
> copyrighted and I got a request to do so.
Well, the only reason that I even know that you have the files is that
you said so. Tens of thousands of people will read that article, on
my web site, in e-mail, on this web site, and on the Breitbart web
site, and any of them could download the files. If I wanted to "take
down" and reverse the request, there is no practical way of
determining who actually downloaded the files and where to find them.
So I wouldn't even have a way to notify them, let alone make some kind
of demand.
In 15 years, I've received two requests to remove something from my
web site. One was the Janet Jackson wardrobe malfunction picture,
which is all over the internet anyway. The other was a PDF file from
a financial firm that someone secretly forwarded to me and I made
available to my readers. In both cases, I received an e-mail message
threatening legal action. In both cases, I ignored the e-mail
message. In both cases, I never heard anything more.
For the most part, copyright laws have been almost completely
invalidated by the internet. Even if you make an entire book
available as a PDF file on your web site, the author or publisher
would have to incur at least hundreds or thousands of dollars
in legal fees to get it taken down if a polite request is ignored
or refused.
The triggering issue is whether someone is making money on the
copyrighted item. If someone is making thousands of dollars on a
copyrighted item, then spending the legal fees might be worth it. In
my case, where I make no money whatsoever, it makes no sense at all to
spend hundreds or thousands of dollars in legal fees to get me to
delete a picture. And if they did, then they know that I'd replace
the picture with a statement about what mean, nasty idiots they are.
You wrote in your previous message, "That means I can't send the stuff
to a 3rd party...." Since the 3rd party could theoretically download
the same files from my web site himself, I don't see any legal reason
that's stopping anyone from sending the files to a 3rd party.
Indeed, the whole objective in making the files available is
so that the files will continue to exist if I get hit by a truck
tomorrow, so I would actually encourage people people to send
them to an appropriate third party, if desired.
So all in all, Ragnarök, I don't think you need have any fears in
saving the files or send them to a third party. If you published my
book under your own name, and you made a lot of money doing it, then
you'd probably hear from me about it, but I don't think that's going
to happen.
