Intro Hey assholes!

I thought that would get your attention.

Just to let everyone know that the administrator of this forum is scraping Casinomeister.com's forum.

To the administrator: your site is being reported to all affiliate managers, and I reserve the right to file a civil lawsuit. You better take the site down now.

 

You're delusional. You've used the RSS feeds to feign postings that were made on Casinomeister to look like they were made on yours. You are passing off the content from Casinomeister as if it is your own.

I have members complaining telling me that they have never posted here, yet their postings are showing up. Last December, you have even tried recruiting (poaching) members from my forum to come post here to become a "Founding Member" of this forum.

So not only are you a copyright thief, you are a spammer as well.

Do everyone a favor and come up with an original idea for a website - don't use other peoples work and try to pass it off as your own.

My accusation stands, and I would suggest that you remove my content immediately.

What a colossal waste of time.

 

Ok - fine. Have a nice weekend. Cheers!

 

Well, that was interesting.

i

 

First time poster and I read this. Im a member of casinomeister too so it caught my eye.

.....I guess I will ask the stupidly obvious newbie question: Why does stealing posts or stuff that other people have written matter? Was their valuable or copywritten information in these posts?

What if I copied and paste the entire KING JAMES BIBLE into one of my posts, will this forum suddenly become a better place?

Also what is an RSS?

 

1. I think the source link always needs to be there. When I write papers for school, I always have to include the sources in my references.

2. Interesting strategy. Your working on the assumption that members are more likely to respond to threads than they are to start one themselves. The RSS is a timesaver because otherwise you would have to write start those threads yourself.

 

The admin is lying. He has been stealing copyrighted material from many forums since the site began in violation of international law and treaties. RSS is used for the convenience of users. It in no way, shape, or form allows copying unless the copyright holder explicitly states such. Look at the RSS feeds from any major site. They all state that copying from RSS feeds is not legal. The Berne Convention states that an item goes into the public domain ONLY by explicit statement. There is no such thing as releasing copyright implicitly as the admin claims. Further, the admin does not understand the word syndication. You can write a syndicated column. That means it is sold to many outlets. It does NOT mean that anyone can copy it.

The vast majority of posts on this site are stolen. Go to the original sites where actual discussion takes place. But beware, this site will steal your posts.

Further, I know of five sites whose members were spammed by this site.

 

1. Ah ok. I didn't know there were different rules regarding online statements. In school, I always just include my references or sources at the bottom of an article. But I guess that isn't a PUBLIC DOMAIN?

I always knew that copying or taking things like movies and music was stealing if I posted them without authorization, but when it came to written information content, I always just figured the same rules would apply as when one writes a school report or essay and all one needs to write down, is your sources at the bottom.


2. Whenever I do see a thread that interests me, I think I would just click on the source and reply in the forum where it was originally posted, so I know that the OP can see it. I assume if I reply here, the OP (from the source where the content was taken) cannot see my reply?

I think in most cases I wouldn't care if someone stole my post, but I guess I could conjure up hypothetical scenarios in which I would care!

..........

In anycase, this thread has been an enlightenment! Thanks for the info.

 

Copyright includes anything that is communicated in a recordable form. An example provided by the U.S. Copyright office is eating lunch with someone, writing something on a napkin, and handing the napkin to your lunch mate. As soon as you hand it to him, it is "published" and automatically copyrighted. This has been true since 1978. The Berne Convention, signed by 190-some countries, makes this international law - unless you live in one of the few non-signatories, like: Iran, North Korea, Somalia, Tibet, and Cambodia.

 

I can definitely see the "shady" side of things of what this portal did on a logical basis. The OP built something (a community) which allowed for the creation of tons and tons of useful content, which has a financial benefit for the OP.

This portal found a smart way to avoid creating the content itself and used a tool that allowed it to take the content generated by the OP's hard efforts and possibly use it for its own financial prospects.

On the purely legal side, even though it could be technically illegal (because it is copyrighted), I think there would be a challenge because you would have to make the argument that this case is different than say when someone writes an essay and included his sources but didn't get permission. Millions of people are doing this everyday, but I don't think you could get away with suing them!

A judge would look at this case and probably say "So why are you special?".............You would definitely need a backup answer I think besides the "It's copyrighted" response (and in my opinion you very well may have one).

Anyways, thats my two cents for whatever it's worth (probably nothing lol).

Cheers

 

Fair Use allows small snippets for purposes of criticism, review, reference. It does not allow you to just take content. Basically, simply taking content is what Pirate Bay did. And all the founders went to prison.

 

I guess "FAIR USE" would be this portals defense and your challenge would be that this portal didn't take just "snippetts" of content for the purposes of critisism or reference. The OP would probably also have to show that what this portal did has a negative financial impact on them too.

The Pirates Bay case sounds very similar to this one. There could be a one difference though for why the OP's case could fail (besides the fact that the music industry has very deep pockets to get the outcome they want).

In that case, the negative financial impact to the music industry as a result of the content those guys were (indirectly) taking was more obvious. The music industry stood to lose millions.

I think the OP will have to show that what this portal is doing is financially hurting them.

 

Only for damages. Copyright applies without financial incentive or damage.

 

Fair enough. I certainly agree that this is "shady"......However I feel like without any proof of a negative financial outcome to the OP, a judge still might come back and say "So why are you special?" if copyright infringement was the only legal excuse.

 

We, the victims of this site, are NOT special. We have intellectual property rights that are being violated. You don't have to be SPECIAL to have rights. Everyone has rights. The United Nations Declaration of Human Rights includes intellectual property rights. The U.S. Constitution includes intellectual property rights. The owner of this site was unable to create content on his own. So, he stole it.

 

Agreed we do. And if a poster has had their content taken from and advertised here and they complained, it would definitely add ammunition!

I think I will look on here to see if I can find any of my stuff because I have quite a few posts on CM.