whew I am glad it wasn't me. I am still in business. But I'll never look up a word and copy it. I'll say "per Webster" blog means ............

right?

Melissa~

Splog is not good I agree, I know in everyday reading of RSS and other internet material not every url is identified before copied. I think people have to catch up to the blog rules and internet rules. Blog has been new in the last years and people were use to board forums and chat rooms which have more freedom but then the room administrator tells them when they do a no no. Here I guess we learn from the comments. Some strike a nerve in me too and I rant just like you. We all have that subject we feel passionate about. I just want the same respect with my rant that others seem to get. Some of the regulars have blogs that are controversial and not everyone agreed. But always kept it friendly like when you fight with a sibling. I don't know this family that well so I have to analyze how certain people react to certain subjects. It does not make me unhappy, and want to leave. Like Phil said a good debate is always welcome.

Melissa~

Here's an interesting article written by Dylan Rivera and published in "The Oregonian" on July 7, 2007:

DOWNTOWN IS GROWING UP!

The building boom that's produced Portland's bumper crop of high-rises could spread, changing the look of the city skyline as Stumptown sprouts and soars Sunday, July 01, 2007

So, you think Portland's downtown is almost filled up?....

Read more about it here:  

http://www.oregonlive.com/business/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/business/1183235113180910.xml&coll=7

OK, so it's not that interesting.  I'm just showing an example of how to put info from other sources in a blog and cite the author.

Yes I got it, I have so many things to get....

Melissa

Sorry to hear of the problems with Mr. Blog Stealer but happy to hear he's no longer on line.  Now off to read the details.  

Melissa,

I love your feistiness. I love the way you stay with position. I would like to have you on my negotiating team anytime.

Jay is the professor, when it comes to real estate blogs. I would suggest you take a look at http://www.epronar.com . I have taken the course and many others here have as well. The three amigos have formed a relationship here with Point2 and have been on the internet since Al Gore created it. Well almost that long LOL.

Keep Blogging.

Congrats Jay,

I knew it wouldn't take you long! I was amazed at how fast you did it though. I was expecting an update in a week, not less than 24 hours.

http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ66.html

The above link is the correct way to copyright your web site.  You have to submit your work and then pay a fee and wait for approval.  I know many people think if you put a website up it is automaticaly protected but this is just not the case.  If you want to protect your work then submit the correct documents and fees to the Copyright office.  

I am speaking from many years of experience with the law in this area.  Hope that helps.

gee, who was that masked person with so many years of experience with law in this area?  could it have been (voldemort)?

Please make this harder for me....lol...

The link you posted was for general works and did not specifically address on line work.  The link I posted was the info that was specific to on line work.

The difference is very simple.  The internet is a different medium that a publised work.  The internet is considered a more open and more free medium than anything else.  That is one reason why it is not as regulated as other forms of expression.

The link that I have given above in a previous post was specific to online work.  This had to be added because the internet was seen as an open target for unsubstantiated lawsuits.

Google or use Nexius to find copyright lawsuits filed about websites.  You will find only a few and they were thrown out or you will find lawsuits that were filed based on other issues not related to copyright laws.

If I am wrong and you can find more than 6 that were filed and won then I will buy you dinner at the restaurant of your choice.

After discovering that a Point2Agent VA had illegally posted a dozen of my site designs on her own site as if they were her own work, I found that the Safe Harbor provision of the DMCA copyright law make it relatively easy to block access to the stolen material. For more about the process, see my blog on Active Rain:

http://activerain.com/blogsview/129161/How-to-Avoid-Being

Unfortunately, since Point2Agent sites are hosted in Canada, the law is probably not of much benefit to us if Point2Agent site owners are using stolen material.

By the way, I'm sure Maryland REALTOR(R) Lenn Harley would welcome anyone who believes copyright law goes easy on web sites to steal her maps from her site. She has made a cottage industry of filing suit against agents who have stolen her maps from her site. As she says on AR, "...copyright protection conveys upon the creation of the image, article, writing, photograph, etc.  There is no necessity to have the copyright notice on the material." Lenn has successfully sued and settled  with 5 local agents who have used her maps. In an undated AR blog, she says, "To date, I have collected approx. $104,000 in damages from copyright violators."

For more info:

http://activerain.com/blogsview/Copyright-and-Real-Estate-Web-Sites-My-Experience?3941

http://activerain.com/blogsview/18754/IS-THERE-REALLY-COPYRIGHT

What's more, both Lenn and the copyright office site say that protection (in the statutory sense) begins from the time they receive the application, not many months later.

Yikes, I wish there were a way to edit comments on this blog!!!

My attorney Ivan Hoffman is a foremost authority on intellectual property law as it applies to Web sites. He has dozens of highly informative articles on his own Web site (NO, I didn't design it!!!!). There is an article specifically about blogging which may be of particular interest to anyone reading this blog.

http://ivanhoffman.com/blogging.html

Again folks Google or Nexus the names above and you will find that what claimed is not true.  

You can not compare apples to oranges especially in law.  I have known Lenn Harley for many many years.  For those who do not know her she owns Homefinders.com A very well done web site I might add.

Lenns lawsuits were based upon two things.  One, all of her work is copyrighted.  People were stealing here images that she copyrighted.  Just because a person does not have the copyright symbol on their work does not mean they do not have it copyrighted.  Lenn has her work copyrighted and that is why she is succesful in her lawsuits.  If you all remember from my blogs I mentioned this very fact.  To sue you must have your material copyrighted.

Now Lenn also sued because people were stealing her maps and the technology behind it.  You can not do that.  She developed it and owned it. So that is a crime.

But again if you do not copyright your work you can not sue over it.

There is a lawsuit right now by a leading internet provider of stock photos.  They have a TOS that states you can use their copyrighted photos on a website. But what they are suing over is that web designers are taking these photos and combining them to make new images and then copyrighting that material.  You can not do that except in some very rare instaances...ie....you do a charcoal drawing of an already copyright picture or you take a copyrighted book that is written in Russian and you translate it over to English.

best advice I can give you is to talk to a lawyer who specializes in copyright law.

I want to make one last point before I move on.  You will find lawsuits people have filed  over web sites but these were lawsuits filed based on infringement of the copyright laws.  The suits were filed over someone stealing copyrighted material.

Lawsuits filed over web site work that was not copyrighted have yet to have any major wins.  If it is not copyrighted then it will be almost impossible to win in a court of law in the USA.  Copyright your work.

Ok I am now off for a week of r and r with my 11 grandchildren and a big mouse named Mickey.  God bless.

Mr. Sticky, you're arguing a mute point. The reason people don't win lawsuits concerning web sites that have not been registered is simply that you MUST register before filing suit. You can't win for an unregistered site because you can't sue until after it has been registered and you have to wait the full time period for the registration to be completed. (I believe one of my attorneys told me, however, that you can pay $1500 for a rush registration.)

And while it is true that copyright must be filed with the U.S. Copyright Office before filing suit, copyright also applies from the instant a work is created. In other words, if someone steals one of my images, I can file with the copyright office, then file suit. I don't have to register my copyright before my image was stolen; I only have to register it before filing suit.

However, a key benefit of registering copyright BEFORE something is stolen is that I can then sue for statutory damages, which means that I don't have to prove actual financial damages. In addition, the court will only award attorney's fees to me as the plaintiff if I have registered my copyright before the theft occurred.

The article below explains the benefits of registration quite thoroughly, but it also states clearly at the outset, "United States copyright law does not require that the creator of a work register the work with the U.S. Copyright Office.  U.S. law provides that when a work is created, the work is protected automatically by U.S. copyright law without the need to register the work or display a copyright notice."

http://www.keytlaw.com/Copyrights/benefits.htm

I often take a screenshot of major changes to my websites, print them out, mail them to myself, keep them sealed, and use our Federal Postal Service as my witness of when I had added the information on my site. I know this is not at all like copyrighting a website but it does put a 'legal' date of when the information appeared on the net. I have used this in an Ethics complaint on our local board level and had the Committee Chairman open the sealed and dated envelope in front of everyone. (I had informed the committee ahead of time that I would be submitting 'sealed', dated proof at the hearing and that I would like to have it included as evidence)

Sue you are wrong and you should try rereading this entire thread.  My point has always been that a person will not win a lawsuit over work that is not copyrighted.  There is not been any major lawsuits ever won over this.  EVER.

You keep directing people to url's of lawyers who have an opinion on copyright law but none of them have evr won a law suit based on a suit filed over work that is not copyrighted.  Any lawyer can win a suit over copyrighted material but not over work that does not carry a copyright.  Tht has always been my point.

The copyright does apply when filed and approved.  It can apply for certain works but not for material found on the internet.  There has been a whole new section added to the copyright laws because of the explosion of the internet.  As always I point back to the U.S. Governents web site on this very issues.  It is written in plain english

Again, show me one lawsuit ever filed over work that was not copyrighted and won. You will never find one.

The orignal thread was started because someone had their blog stolen and reposted as someone else's work, when it was not.  People need to copyright their work or they have no recourse as it applys to the internet and web design.

So Sue you can keep trying to use circular logic but it does not work when you do not address the original arguement.  

Jay,

Your swift action and this blog may keep others from scraping sites and blog content.  Having been a victim of site scraping, I feel your pain.  Not all agents realize the consequences of copyright infringement.