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neebee
Social climber
calif/texas
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Apr 19, 2019 - 07:32pm PT
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hey there, say, RJ... thank you kindly for sharing all this with folks, here, as to questions/answers... and future thoughts, etc...
thank you to chris...
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Apr 19, 2019 - 07:32pm PT
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The Forrest ruling is not relevant to this situation, so an attorney would have to be VERY pitiful indeed to try to leverage that. Even the so-called "server test" is a red-herring here.
SuperTopo is on the model of a YouTube or other site that allows users to post content. That is the safe harbor model, which is not applicable when a news organization chooses to directly publish the violating material themselves just because they found it on another site.
Under safe harbor, a content VENUE is responsible to copyright law only insofar as it diligently posts instructions about users not violating copyright law, AND it diligently removes any copyright-violating material it discovers or that is requested/demanded to be removed by the copyright owner. SuperTopo does everything required by law to fall neatly within the safe harbor provisions.
There is no apparent correlation with the Forrest ruling, and a competent attorney can make the relevant distinctions in the summary judgment motion.
Again, if such was not the case, giants like YouTube would disappear almost overnight! They would have already.
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JLP
Social climber
The internet
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Apr 19, 2019 - 07:36pm PT
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The Forrest ruling is not relevant to this situation I agree - but RJ seems to think it is and he's probably read the complaint.
And yeah - I also agree - this reeks of pitiful all around and in desperate need of an intervention.
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zBrown
Ice climber
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Apr 19, 2019 - 07:37pm PT
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Hey there say mad
You sound much better with fewer words
I know intellectual property attorneys who are verrry smart and accomplished
They would agree with your last two posts
Keep up the abbreviated, good work
Interestingly i just saw this tonight on an embedded video on another site
Privacy statement. This embed will serve content from facebook.com
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ron gomez
Trad climber
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Apr 19, 2019 - 07:51pm PT
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BJ......BOTH of those photos are credited to the apparent owner. I can’t read your mind....so i WAS referring to both/either photo to be clear. For gods sake.
I beg your pardoning for being so crass, I was purposely being vague since BOTH photos are given credit to, if you read and learn.
Funny how you feel I was singling you out since I didn’t mention your name....there are other that could fit, “some people want to argue for the sake of argument.” Your free to accept if you feel so inclined though.
Peace
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Apr 19, 2019 - 07:55pm PT
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You sound much better with fewer words
It's easier when the points to be made are not complicated, AND when the points being made agree with most people's opinions already.
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zBrown
Ice climber
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Apr 19, 2019 - 08:25pm PT
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^ looks like maybe he gotcha, eh?
Anyway you two, RJ and Chris, have endured a lot of flac unnecessarily IMO
As the inimitable locker once declared
"It's great free entertainment"
Thanks for providing the venue
Edit:
Ghost that was my underlying thought. I think they both realize that now.
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Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
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Apr 19, 2019 - 08:34pm PT
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Anyway you two RJ and Chris have endured a lot of flac unnecessarily
Some of that flak could have been avoided if the whole thing had been handled a little more openly, but yeah, most of it is unnecessary.
Anyway, for whatever it's worth, I've gone through the 1,700+ photos that I uploaded over the years and deleted every one (about 200) I thought might cross any of the lines laid down at the top of this thread.
Also for whatever it's worth, I hope that this forum can now settle down and continue to be a great place for climbers to hang out.
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BBA
Social climber
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Apr 19, 2019 - 08:36pm PT
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I put up a few pages here and there through the years, but I went through them and added a statement regarding copyright status so there could be no mistake. It wasn't so hard and a lot easier than ranting.
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Delhi Dog
climber
Good Question...
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Apr 19, 2019 - 09:39pm PT
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What amazes me is the diversity of posters actually agreeing on something-hah.
RJ + Chris, thanks for your attempt at transparency. A little late for sure, but how you deal with this now will make the difference in how this site goes forward.
Also, thanks for putting up with a bunch of folks for all these years.
It certainly is a sad thing to see some amazing content and contributors disappear.
I hope (butt am not holding my breath) that ST comes out better in the long run as a result.
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Hoser
climber
Vancouver,Rome
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Apr 19, 2019 - 10:01pm PT
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Also for whatever it's worth, I hope that this forum can now settle down and continue to be a great place for climbers to hang out.
Yup, saw this go down before elsewhere...lots pf people leave, new people show up...life goes on.
The site is indeed changed forever, forums in general are starting to fade anyways - just link to your blog if you are that keen for people to read your stories.
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Avery
climber
New Zealand
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Apr 19, 2019 - 10:26pm PT
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HOW DO YOU DELETE AN ENTIRE THREAD AND NOT JUST THE FIRST PAGE?
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fragglerockjoe
Trad climber
space-man from outer space
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Apr 19, 2019 - 10:41pm PT
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Jus let Werner choot em with his Santa Clause Hat on fer stalking me wit their camera.
Oh! Elizabeth, I think it's the big one.
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Apr 19, 2019 - 10:47pm PT
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RJ, you said:
BJ:
You seem to think I expressed an opinion on that [Donini] group photo.
I did not.
I didn't see that you did either: so what is your opinion/ruling on that group photo?
Is it supposed to be obvious? Were you thinking Jim was just messing with you so you didn't bother to answer? It looks to me like Jim cited tacit or implied consent to his use of the photo from the owner of the photo, at best. And I'm not even sure he knows himself who the owner of the photo actually is, technically speaking, yet he was there when it was taken.
Are we to presume he has the rights to the photograph because he asked someone else to take it for him? Or because they offered to take the photograph for him?
I swear, thinking about some of this stuff makes me feel like I have a skull about 4 feet thick.
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Winemaker
Sport climber
Yakima, WA
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Apr 19, 2019 - 10:54pm PT
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Interesting point Roy. I've taken quite a few pictures for hiking type persons with their cameras for holiday/travel photos. Do I own those pictures since I took them? They certainly never asked me for permission to view or use them.....they owned the cameras.
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Apr 19, 2019 - 11:08pm PT
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This is perhaps the most encouraging thing I've read from you, RJ:
The reality, more obvious to Chris and I now that it was a month ago, is that SuperTopo is simply not set up to be a good caretaker of this kind of important, valuable, climbing history content. Had we had the foresight to realize that years ago, we would have been pro-active in advocating that Steve Grossman, Fritz, Marlow, and others who have created amazing climbing history contributions here on SuperTopo post them instead on a site like Wikipedia that is set up for that kind of thing. I know Chris has been talking about figuring out a way to relocate posts of climbing historic value to the North American Climbing History [Archive] that Steve Grossman is involved with, and I hope we can help make that happen.
I know Chris very much wants to figure out a way to get climbing history information that is on SuperTopo today relocated to a proper, sustainable, and long-term home elsewhere.
And this:
There are a lot of ideas on the table, and one that I know Chris is seriously contemplating is the possibility of separating the web side of SuperTopo, including the forum and user-contributions to route beta, topo updates, trip reports, etc, that today live on the website, from the print and PDF guidebook business. In that scenario there is the potential to convert the web site of SuperTopo into a 501c3 non-profit with a mission to serve the climbing community, and goals of providing information/education etc. Chris has been funding the forum for a long time. Converting it to a non-profit could give it a separate life that does not create on-going liability risk for the guidebook business, and might open the door to potential re-vitalization and much overdue modernization of the site functionality fueled by member-support. It is quite possible that a non-profit SuperTopo.com (or .org), could unleash a new, better, and more broadly impactful era for the site. There is a lot of potential to crowd-source content in a way that is purely focused on benefiting the climbing community that could make a future 501c3 version of SuperTopo much more impactful that it is today. A non-profit might also be able to do things like displaying hot-linked images, under the broader fair-use protection afforded a 501c3 non-profit that has an informational/education mission; whereas that same approach seems prohibitively risky for a commercial organization like today's SuperTopo LLC.
You see, many of us have known for some time that this forum has become the de facto oral history repository of a giga-ton of valuable personal and interactive recollection and reflection. And we've been equally aware that having it here on this forum has been a liability, whether due to content deletions by you and CMAC, or by the eventual demise of the forum altogether. (And yet it has to be recognized and acknowledged that it was the very freewheeling format of this forum that encouraged the expression and collection of this incredibly valuable compilation.)
I truly hope you guys have some good (extensive) backups that can be accessed wherein you can transfer the entire contents of the forum to NACHA, even if just for cold storage so readers, writers, researchers, and historians can access the sum total of it in a focused search. And of course we'd like to see, we'd need to have that reflective of the state of the forum prior to the disabling of the [img] expression.
And specifically, as a writer and an interested party in the history of the era in which I arose, I would absolutely love to know whether or not you can go back to the point prior to having deleted all of Kevin Worrall's posts. We need a snapshot of the forum which includes his posts. Frankly, it would be advantageous to have a snapshot of the forum inclusive of, or restored with ALL deleted content.
Is that doable, RJ? Or potentially doable?
Apologies for another lengthy post. It's a real bitch being me, don't you know! (And reading me, I'm sure.) But it's how I roll.
– Roy
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ß Î Ø T Ç H
Boulder climber
ne'er–do–well
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Apr 20, 2019 - 12:47am PT
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado & Nepal
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Apr 20, 2019 - 03:12am PT
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RJ, thanks for taking the time to explain the whole mess to us. I only wish we had known the general outline of it sooner. I do hope ST and the climbing community can establish a non profit archive for all the history on this site. I have duly gone through my photos and eliminated all that I do not have permission to publish.
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Don Paul
Social climber
Washington DC
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Apr 20, 2019 - 04:59am PT
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Setting up a nonprofit is a good idea. I've set up many of them. The downside is that its another company that has to file tax returns, plus you have to keep proving the non profit status, ie that its financed by public support. But really not very hard to do. In the current situation, if people are publishing copyrighted material, and the owner(s) of the forum is deriving ad income from it, or using it to sell books or topos, it seems like there would be more liability.
I'm not a copyright attorney but I like the idea of a creative commons, or a wikipedia type format, which allows embedding images. I dont think you'll find copyrighted images on wikipedia - maybe someone can prove me wrong. On the other hand, nearly all the memes I see on facebook have some copyrighted image in them. Or "sharing" a news story with a copyrighted image. How does facebook have the right to do that? I have no idea.
JLP there is no such thing as an off the record conversation with opposing counsel. If you dont have a lawyer and talk to the other side, they will use it to try to screw you. "JLP admitted he had no evidence of ...." In fact, those kinds of communications are much more dangerous than what's filed in court, where you are protected by procedural rules and have time to respond in writing.
Anyway I'm glad to see the environment calming down and hopefully an even better platform will be designed. Maybe one like wikipedia where anyone can just edit it. Although, only the OP should be able to edit the story itself, the rest are just comments.
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ontheedgeandscaredtodeath
Social climber
Wilds of New Mexico
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Apr 20, 2019 - 05:49am PT
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Madbolter's faith in a motion for summary judgment is highly misplaced. By the time you get to the MSJ stage in federal court you are at least six figures in the hole. That money doesn't come back even if you win. In many ways you "lose" when the complaint is filed regardless of the out one of the litigation. Awnsering the complaint costs four to five figures, easy.
With respect to the substantive law, I have an office next to an IP lawyer so I must know something! ST seems to be taking the position that it will not knowingly host copyrighted images, which
seems consistent with the law.
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