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It's pretty long winded too; something to do with me having a video on my site that was made by another company, however the other company used copyrighted footage from another company to make the video.
I'm being threatened for allowing it to be downloaded off of my site even though I didn't make the video!
The letter I got, (PDF letter, although they say they're posting it to me,) is quite 'official' and such and it's coming from a solicitors too!
Oh the fun! I doubt anything will come of this though as the video is being hosted at millions of other places, I think it's just a random letter to try and scare me into taking the video off.
Just to make things even better, the company is in New Zealand!
Wooooooooo!
The file is hosted in loads of other places though, Lycos are hosting it in their viral section and I remember it being aired on Channel 4 several years back on Dotcomedy.
"The nature of the market for such material is such that “fresh” material has a higher value than that already broadcast. Your use or authorisation of the use has therefore diminished the value of the asset which our client owns."
They've got a good point, but there's far too many people to challenge everyone individually, plus as far as everyone is concerned the company that made the second video (look down) hold the full copyright to the clip. I thought that too at first but I was obviously wrong. Can they still press charges even if the other company had claimed to own copyright to the clip and had fooled everyone? It's the same as me claiming to own SR and selling you all shares in the company, and then SR sueing you lot because I lied to you...
[URL]http://media.hamncheez.com/videos/Stupid%20Animals%20-%20Drunk%20Penguin.MPE[/URL]
That's the original clip, unedited, and not not hosted by me! This next clip is the one that's been edited and has caused the biggest problem.
[URL]http://www.clickhere.gr/content/fun/penguin.mpg[/URL]
Just been looking around the net though, seems as if this will be a big case if it goes through as the clip was created for an American TV show...
I had a similar issue a couple of weeks ago where a client of mine was threatened with legal action for using similar Javascript to validate a form to his previous firms website. Although it's obviously open source and cannot be copyrighted (especially as you can only validate forms so many ways with JS) they were going for infringement of coyright based on the whitespace in the code.
Now I would have quite happily stood in court and called them a bunch of obnoxious tards they were being, but at the end of the day, it's very easy to get a site shut down just by dropping the host a small threatening letter froma good solicitor about copyright enfringement.
So personally, I'd follow the request and remove it.
If it was a cease-and-desist letter, I do suggest you comply though. You may think it's funny, but it WILL end badly if you don't end it now.
"Boy Sentenced to 20 Years in Kiwi Prison for Making the World a Happier Place"
*cries*