Ezboard: Ez and Fast DMCA Resolution
By Jonathan Bailey • Sep 14th, 2006 • Category: Articles, DMCA, Heroes, Legal Issues, Personal ExperiencesI’ve handled at least a dozen cases of plagiarism involving ezboard . However, until recently, none of those cases involved any members of the ezboard staff. Instead, they dealt with message board owners, moderators and administrators that took the issue seriously and resolved it themselves.
However, there are times in which ezboard itself will be required to step in and help with content theft issues. Boards get abandoned and forgotten by their operators, even as posts continue to flow in, other boards contain old infringements only recently detected by search engines, sometimes forum administrators may be uncooperative, and finally, as in my case, the operator him or herself might also be the plagiarist.
That makes it good to note that ezboard, despite a rough customer service reputation in other areas, seems to be about spot on when it comes to matters of copyright infringement.
Filing a Complaint
Filing a copyright infringement complaint with ezboard, compared to other providers, is relatively easy. All you have to do is locate their “Legal Issue Request Form“, fill out the pertinent information and then paste in your full DMCA notice and submit it.
For me, resolution came within about seven hours. Once the work was removed and I received confirmation of that, I tried to close out the ticket that is automatically created by submitting a legal complaint. However, the system would not let me for some reason.
While the process of filing a complaint is not as easy as LiveJournal or other services that help with the writing of the DMCA notice, it is still vastly easier, more efficient and friendlier than the bulk of Web hosts.
One Minor Problem
With all of that being said, there is one minor hangup that I have about ezboard. However, it is a simple thing to fix.
To make a long story short, their information on file (PDF) with the U.S. Copyright Office appears to be out of date, turning four years old yesterday, and no longer produces a response.
Thought heir Legal Issue Request Form is easy to locate from their home page, many still rely on the USCO’s database to guide them. It would seem prudent for ezboard to update their DMCA information as soon as possible, if for no other reason than to ensure safe harbor status.
Conclusions
All in all, I consider ezboard to be a borderline hero. There are a few things it could do better, but it is far beyond most Web hosts in this matter.
Though ezboard has taken a great deal of flak for recent problems, including a hack on its servers last year that resulted in a significant amount of data loss, this seems to be an area it excels in.
My only hope is that it is able to keep up this level of support as it transitions its services into Yuku and adds more social networking features. It’s likely that its role will become much more important after those changes are completed and administrators no longer control the vast majority of content posted.
Tags: Content Theft, Copyright, Copyright Infringement, Copyright Law, DMCA, ezboard, livejournal, Plagiarism
 |
Protect Your Work. Subscribe to Plagiarism Today via Email or RSS. |
Jonathan Bailey is The Webmaster and author of Plagiarism Today, which he founded in 2005 as a way to help Webmasters going through content theft problems get accurate information and stay up to date on the rapidly-changing field. He is also a consultant to Webmasters and companies to help them devise practical content protection strategies and develop good copyright policies.
Email this author | All posts by Jonathan Bailey
Digg
Reddit
StumbleUpon
Propeller
Sphinn
Google
Del.icio.us
Facebook
Your comment that you consider ezboard to be a borderline hero is interesting: have you seen this?
http://wp.bluescrap.com/2006/08/23/copyright-violation-by-ezboard-inc/
The ezboard, Yuku and MySpace Terms of Use seem remarkably similar since ezboard, Inc. changed theirs. I wonder if they are by any chance related?
Your comment that you consider ezboard to be a borderline hero is interesting: have you seen this?
http://wp.bluescrap.com/2006/08/23/copyright-vi...
The ezboard, Yuku and MySpace Terms of Use seem remarkably similar since ezboard, Inc. changed theirs. I wonder if they are by any chance related?
As far as I have heard, ezboard and yuku share support staff, so the legal help you’ve received from ezboard will be the same as you will receive on yuku. I have also had times to contact ezboard about copywrite issues and I’ve always found them very quick to act.
Of interesting note, the amazon link you pointed to with the disparaging remarks about ezboard are users (some the same under various ids) belonging to the same anti-ezboard group and also belonging and/or owning the same sleazyboard url you linked to. Every negative remark written about ezboard comes back to r.h.morris and capatin blue (the same guy) do a domain search for sleazyboard and you’ll see who owns it. So take this man’s statements for what they are.
“So take this man’s statements for what they are.”
Indeed. The truth…
indeed. Raving lunatic. You’ve proved my point.
Ah yes, the debating style of the ezApologists we’ve all come to know and love.
If anyone cares to look at what I write - and let’s remember that ezboard, Inc. take a very close look at every post I make that concerns ezboard or Yuku - you will see that it is always backed up by quoted sources (except when ezboard, Inc. cover their tracks by deleting things). If that were not the case, do you honestly believe that ezboard, Inc. wouldn’t have sued before now? Especially as I always make sure people know that I am posting what I post - see for instance the link from my username here to my blog. I see that - as usual - the ezApologists or ezboard staff hide behind anonymity…
As far as I have heard, ezboard and yuku share support staff, so the legal help you’ve received from ezboard will be the same as you will receive on yuku. I have also had times to contact ezboard about copywrite issues and I’ve always found them very quick to act.
Of interesting note, the amazon link you pointed to with the disparaging remarks about ezboard are users (some the same under various ids) belonging to the same anti-ezboard group and also belonging and/or owning the same sleazyboard url you linked to. Every negative remark written about ezboard comes back to r.h.morris and capatin blue (the same guy) do a domain search for sleazyboard and you’ll see who owns it. So take this man’s statements for what they are.
“So take this man’s statements for what they are.”
Indeed. The truth…
indeed. Raving lunatic. You’ve proved my point.
Ah yes, the debating style of the ezApologists we’ve all come to know and love.
If anyone cares to look at what I write - and let’s remember that ezboard, Inc. take a very close look at every post I make that concerns ezboard or Yuku - you will see that it is always backed up by quoted sources (except when ezboard, Inc. cover their tracks by deleting things). If that were not the case, do you honestly believe that ezboard, Inc. wouldn’t have sued before now? Especially as I always make sure people know that I am posting what I post - see for instance the link from my username here to my blog. I see that - as usual - the ezApologists or ezboard staff hide behind anonymity…