Lil Red Posted October 25, 2007 Share Posted October 25, 2007 [quote name='Aloysius' post='1408778' date='Oct 24 2007, 05:40 PM']it's not our job to police the site for all potential violations of copyright law or bandwidth theft. if anyone is concerned with copyright problems they should contact the owner of the material. if the owner of the material asks us to remove the post, then we will. the user agreement, as I recall, makes it clear that phatmass is not responsible for copyright problems of this nature. it is up to individual posters to not infringe copyrights. generally, posting articles from other sites, even in toto, on forums without copyright permission is not a big deal, no one attempts to enforce any laws on that regard, unless it's an article that can only be accessed by payment. "bandwidth theft" also happens all the time, and is not really enforced, sites can make it so that their images don't appear on other sites if they wish. it is up to the owner of the copyright to let dUSt (or us representing dUSt) know if they have a copyright claim against something someone has posted on the forum, and then we will remove it.[/quote] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dUSt Posted October 25, 2007 Share Posted October 25, 2007 Websites can easily prevent hotlinking by changing a simple setting on their server. I don't care if people hotlink phatmass images because it drives up my traffic which in turn helps my search rankings. I choose NOT to prevent hotlinking of phatmass images. If websites don't want their images hotlinked, then they should change their server settings to prevent it. Seems simple enough to me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rosamundi Posted October 25, 2007 Author Share Posted October 25, 2007 [quote name='dUSt' post='1408812' date='Oct 25 2007, 03:01 AM']Websites can easily prevent hotlinking by changing a simple setting on their server. I don't care if people hotlink phatmass images because it drives up my traffic which in turn helps my search rankings. I choose NOT to prevent hotlinking of phatmass images. If websites don't want their images hotlinked, then they should change their server settings to prevent it. Seems simple enough to me.[/quote] Well, I confess myself amazed that a website which claims to be devoted to Jesus, the Catholic Church and fostering vocations takes such a slapdash attitude to the law. Actively encouraging people to steal is, in itself, a sin. Just because “everyone else does it,” doesn’t mean that we should - surely we should let our light shine before men, and act as an example of faithful Christian living, rather than dragging round in the mire with everyone else? It actually is your job to actively police the site, that’s why you are moderators. You are responsible for everything that is said and done on this website, regardless of what the user agreement says - incidentally, hands up all those who have re-read that since they registered? I think it is unreasonable to expect, for instance, cloistered Religious, who may not know anything about HTML beyond what it takes to get a website up, to start messing about in their server settings in order to prevent image theft by what claims to be a Christian site. And the other thing is that your average Religious, or even your average person may not know how to mess with server settings, and indeed may not have access to their server settings. I mean, I have a blog, and a website, and I wouldn’t know how for the life of me to do that sort of thing. Or even that I could! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rosamundi Posted October 25, 2007 Author Share Posted October 25, 2007 (edited) [quote name='rosamundi' post='1409020' date='Oct 25 2007, 11:20 AM']It actually is your job to actively police the site, that’s why you are moderators. You are responsible for everything that is said and done on this website, regardless of what the user agreement says - incidentally, hands up all those who have re-read that since they registered?[/quote] Vulgar as it is to reply to one's own post, I've just gone back and checked the Phorum terms, where it says [quote]You agree, through your use of this phorum, that you will not use this phorum to post any material which is knowingly false and/or defamatory, inaccurate, abusive, vulgar, hateful, harassing, obscene, profane, sexually oriented, threatening, invasive of a person's privacy, or otherwise [b]violative of any law[/b].[/quote] Posts which are breaking of the law of copyright are in breach of the section of the terms that I have highlighted in bold. Edited October 25, 2007 by rosamundi Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lil Red Posted October 25, 2007 Share Posted October 25, 2007 [quote name='rosamundi' post='1409020' date='Oct 25 2007, 03:20 AM']It actually is your job to actively police the site, that’s why you are moderators. You are responsible for everything that is said and done on this website, regardless of what the user agreement says[/quote] dUSt is the owner, actually. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aloysius Posted October 25, 2007 Share Posted October 25, 2007 [quote name='rosamundi' post='1409020' date='Oct 25 2007, 06:20 AM']It actually is your job to actively police the site, that’s why you are moderators. You are responsible for everything that is said and done on this website, regardless of what the user agreement says - incidentally, hands up all those who have re-read that since they registered?[/quote] Not true. "Please remember that [b]we are not responsible for any messages posted. [/b]We do not vouch for or warrant the accuracy, completeness or usefulness of any message, and are not responsible for the contents of any message. The messages express the views of the author of the message, not necessarily the views of this phorum or the Catholic church. Any user who feels that a posted message is objectionable is encouraged to click the "Report" button so that the moderators can be made aware of the post. You agree, through your use of this phorum, that you will not use this phorum to post any material which is knowingly false and/or defamatory, inaccurate, abusive, vulgar, hateful, harassing, obscene, profane, sexually oriented, threatening, invasive of a person's privacy, or otherwise violative of any law." Every individual poster agrees to these terms when they join the site. It is up to the individual poster not to break the law, they are responsible for the contents of their post; it is not up to phatmass to actively make sure that they do not break the law. What would you have us do, investigate every artical and image posted everywhere at everytime and contact every owner of copyrighted material to ask them whether the poster has their permission? No, that's not our job, our moderator job as defined by the site owner is to, very loosely and as non-invasibly as possible, make sure a semblance of order and charity is maintained throughout the phorums by applying the phorum guidelines. Again, if we receive a complaint from a copyright owner, we will remove a post. We will not actively seek out any and all violations of copyright laws, and will only take complaints about copyrighted material if they come from the owner of said copyrighted material. This is the moderator position. Our position is not open for debate; we have given you the recourse to get the material removed: contact the copyright owner and inform them that their material is on this site and if they wish to have it removed they can contact one of the moderators or dUSt himself. This thread is closed. Now that we have a clear position, further public posts crticizing this position will be considered a violation of the phorum guidelines: "Public Criticism of Moderators All criticism of moderators or administrators should be handled in private via e-mail or private messages. Any public posts will be deleted and a warning issued." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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