Editorials
Get your tickets here!
By The (Copy)right Gnome
Jul 23, 2007, 18:06

The train is in the station, don't get left behind.  Or, you can jump on the bandwagon if you'd prefer that mode of transport.  Perhaps showing the flag is more your style.  Maybe lifting a glass is more to your taste.

However you'd like to express it, 68Caliber is very pleased to note the enormous amount of positive responses that it has received to its assertion of its rights.  Its copyrights to be precise.

We'd like to encourage all of the paintball media to join our little parade.  The line starts below with the media reps (and others) who have written to us to express their support.  By the way-permission to use their names (and their words if we so choose) was requested and received via email.  The originals remain on file at 68Caliber.com if anyone wants to check.

 Evan Money-MoneyPaintball & the Emoney Radio Show
 Dawn Allcot-Recon Magazine
 Carter Brown-MCarterBrown website
 Rich Struth-PBJunkie website

There has been a long and often acrimonious debate (if you can dignify the hate-mongering with such a word) within the paintball community over the entire concept of intellectual property (IP), such things as trademarks, trade dress, patents and copyrights. 

Those taking a position against IP seem to be bothered by the whole concept that an "idea" can be controlled by an individual or a company for economic gain. Or they are at least against paying a company money for such a thing.

Well, I got news for you sunshine.  This is not the Star Trek future where they've eliminated money and anything can be had for the asking by visiting the holodeck.  The economy still needs money to make the world go round and YOU still need money to shove a burger in your face when your stomach makes those funny noises.

A large cause of the discontent with intellectual property is a misunderstanding of exactly what it is and what it means.  An equal amount of discontent is caused by the seemingly never-ending threats and plethora of  court cases appearing in the press.  Adding enormously to this mix is the sad fact that the Federal offices responsible for overseeing IP are in a state of flux, trying to adjust to a new, electronic world, where things happen much faster than they did in the 1700s,
 
We can't solve those problems, but we WILL address one that is affecting us directly-copyright infringement.

Here's your tax dollars at work.  Freely available from the US Federal offices for Copyright, a definition of what it is: 

Copyright is a form of protection provided by the laws of the United States (title 17, U. S. Code) to the authors of "original works of authorship,” including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works. This protection is available to both published and unpublished works. Section 106 of the 1976 Copyright Act generally gives the owner of copyright the exclusive right to do and to authorize others to do the following:

To reproduce the work in copies or phonorecords;
To prepare derivative works based upon the work;
To distribute copies or phonorecords of the work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending;
To perform the work publicly, in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and motion pictures and other audiovisual works;
To display the work publicly, in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and pictorial, graphic, or sculptural works, including the individual images of a motion picture or other audiovisual work; and
In the case of sound recordings*, to perform the work publicly by means of a digital audio transmission.

Here's a short primer on copyrights for you, just to get everything straight:

In trying to explain this in normal-person terms, 68Caliber believes that it means the following:  Copyrights, like patents, are granted NOT for an idea but for a particular presentation of an idea.  As an example - this article you are reading right now could have been written by numerous people in many different ways.  If you want to write your own article about how intellectual property is viewed in the paintball industry, there is nothing I can do to stop you.  68Caliber does not "own" the "idea" of an article about copyrights.  In fact, under the "fair use" doctrine, you could even quote some of my sentences in your own article.  (Fair Use is what lets you copy a paragraph from the Encyclopedia for use in your homework, however proper citation of the source IS STILL REQUIRED.)

What 68Caliber does own and has copyrighted is this particular arrangement of words into these particular sentences and paragraphs that discuss the topic.  We own it in exactly the same way we own digital cameras, our server, whatever. If we want to smash it all with a ballpeen hammer, that’s our right.  If we want to give it away to a neighbor, we can do so.  If we want to try and sell it on Ebay for a million bucks, we can do that too.

If we want to make this story public domain-(give it away) we can.  If we want to give someone limited rights (let someone borrow it or license it), such as reprinting the lead paragraph, we can.  If we want to sell it-we can try.  If we want to hide it away in the attic and never-ever, ever let anyone see it (until a long time after we're gone), we can do that too.

The primary point is-we OWN it.  It is property.  Not anyone else's, and no one can tell us what, or how, or where or when we can or can't do anything with it.

According to our understanding of what we read on the US Copyright website, a Copyright is conferred the moment you put ink to paper or brush to canvas.  You no longer have to stick the notice on something in order to have those rights.  The mere act of creation gives them to you.  If you want additional protection, you can register the copyright with the Federal government.

It is our understanding that there is absolutely no difference between the theft of copyrighted material and the theft of a physical item, such as an Angel.  There are significant differences though.  If you steal an Angel, all you have is a single gun.  If you steal and distribute this article, there are now hundreds, if not thousands, of copies of it spread all over the internet.

"So what, you might say.  That's hundreds or thousands of people reading your drivel, you ought to be thankful."  No, its hundreds or thousands of people reading 'someone's drivel and someone else usually getting credit for it.  How would you like to go to work every day and have someone else be given your paycheck?  (Apologies to the married guys out there-we know this happens to you all the time, but you DID take the vow...).

"So what, you say again.  All you do is gather the news and the news is FREE!"  The information may be free but our presentation of it isn't.  We work very hard to find out what’s going on in your industry, protect everyone's interest, present things in a balanced way and try to keep it interesting.  If you get the scoop first-go have fun.  If we get the scoop first, we want and are entitled to everyone knowing that it was us-not someone else-who did so.

But here's where things really begin to rub us the wrong way.  Websites survive on their traffic, just as magazines survive on their circulation.  If you read a news story in the paper, are you going to purchase another paper to read the exact same story?  Unlikely.

When other websites steal-or allow their members to steal-our stories, they are actually stealing our traffic.  They're trying to make it look like they're the source, they’re the ones who are on the ball, they're the ones who know it all, no need to purchase another newspaper, you can read it all here. 

And some of them are being arrogant. They think they're familiar enough with the law to be above it.  They hide behind and use their members like a shield. 

So, TOOL, how does it feel?  Do you think the website you love and admire so much is going to pay your legal fees?  Are they going to accept responsibility – or are they just going to ban you and every post you try and place defending yourself?  Were you even aware that you were being used?

Once more you say "So what?  Its just a paintball website.  Everyone goes everywhere, they'll visit your site anyways."  No, they won't.  The other guys know full well that the paintball news cycle is 24 hours or less and here's why they're so arrogant:

A juicy, interesting, exciting story breaks on www.68caliber.com (that's almost always the case, we get the stories before anyone else almost ALL the time).  Some member of another site-who secretly visits www.68caliber.com because he knows that's where all the news really is-reads the story.  He copies it.  He opens a thread on another website and drops the story into it.  Sometimes he even uses our headline as the thread name.

Sometimes they mention where the story came from-but they don't provide a link.  Of course, a mere mention of where the story came from or who wrote it doesn't send traffic to 68caliber.com and is no shield from copyright infringement.

Sometimes they blank out where the story came from, which is even worse.  Its worse for them and its worse for us.  Worse for them because it demonstrates quite clearly that the hosting company is taking an active part in the infringement.  Worse for 68caliber because now, not only don’t we get the traffic, we also get no credit.

Once 68caliber becomes aware of the infringement, we send off yet another email to the hosting company, demanding that the story be taken down immediately.  The hosting company willingly complies BECAUSE THEY HAVE ALREADY ACHIEVED THEIR GOAL OF OBTAINING 68CALIBER'S TRAFFIC.  They can afford to cooperate, they already got what they wanted.  Within 24 hours, anyone who is going to want to read the story has already done so-on their site, not ours.

Of course we can go after the individual posters-the person(s) who initially copied and stole the story.  We don't, (or haven't yet) for a number of good (and not so good) reasons.  First and foremost, engaging in lawsuits in the paintball industry is considered to be a 'bad' thing-even when you're in the right.  We don't need the aggravation.  Secondly, while we would no doubt win most, if not all of such cases, the expense of doing so will most likely exceed anything we might gain.

Third-we want the instigators and enablers, not their lick-spittle cronies.

The enablers have even gone so far as to claim, publicly, that the DMCA-Digital Millennium Communications Act-shields them from being taken to task because 'they’re just the provider and can't be held responsible for the actions of their individual members'.

More news for ya sunshine:  we don't think the Act will shield you when you’re complicit and 'safe harbor' rules only apply to sites that are storing information-not actively disseminating it.  Furthermore, such websites have an obligation to enact policies that prevent the theft of other’s property and an equal obligation to ACTIVELY enforce those policies.

You can probably tell from the foregoing that none of those protections are in place for the aforementioned.  What 68caliber is going to do from this point on is between us and that fly on the wall.

What should you do?  We think any media organization serving paintball would be pretty smart if they did the following:

If a member of your site or you wants to re-print a story from 68caliber.com-ask us for permission AHEAD of time.

If you want to link to one of our stories-go ahead after receiving permission (just like much of the paintball media already does).  Run the headline or a paraphrase of it, that's legit.  Then provide a link to the story at our website, and follow it up with a notice of where the story came from.

(If you're really smart, you'll send us a story about you or your website also, so that we'll feature you, not just with a link, but with a whole story all about you!)

Make sure that you have a publicly-that's PUBLICLY-stated policy that makes it clear that you do not allow or tolerate the appearance of other's intellectual property on your site without permission from the rights holder.  Actively monitor your site (if the public is allowed to post information) and remove offending material as soon as you become aware of it.  After doing so, inform the rights holder of your action.  If they request information regarding the violation, comply with that request.

Be clear on your link statement regarding off-site materials. 

Join the party and get behind the protection and enforcement of all intellectual property rights that affect the paintball industry.

As a further example of how to do things the RIGHT way, here is some additional information that may help you understand these issues:

Over at the United States Patent Office (your government at work, everything in the public domain and freely available) there are definitions and explanations of the different kinds of intellectual property:   

http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/doc/general/whatis.htm
 http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.html

If you want to see WHY you can't hide behind your forum members as shields-go read this, all about the DMCA:

One attorney's review of the 9th circuit court's ruling:
http://www.fenwick.com/docstore/publications/IP/IP_Articles/Copyright_Alert.pdf

One final thought:  if you have any questions about this stuff, any at all, don't guess. Don't research it on the web.  Don't ask your bunker-buddy.  Get an attorney.