Friendster is no exception. The social networking site boasts some 30 million profiles offers the usual fare of profiles, blogs and galleries. Sadly, a few people have been drawn to the site in an attempt to abuse it including, recently, a few plagiarists.

However, Friendster’s site is poorly set up for handling matters of copyright infringement. In fact, the site itself has precious little to offer anyone wanting to report any kind of abuse. Despite that, once contact has been made, the staff is very helpful and cooperative. It’s an unusual case where reporting is difficult, but resolution is fast coming.

An Endless Maze

Finding someone to help you at Friendster can be a very weighty challenge. You won’t find Friendster in the U.S. Copyright Office list of registered agents, the site is not DMCA (PDF) complaint at this time and there is precious little contact information on the site itself.

Even though their terms of service strictly forbids posting copyrighted works, the TOS tells copyright holders that “If you believe that your work has been copied and Posted on the Website in a way that constitutes copyright infringement, please contact us.” However, the “contact us” link points to a generic contact page. The page offers email addresses for information on employment, advertising, press inquiries and even offerng suggestions. However, no email contact for abuse complaints and/or DMCA notices.

The only applicable link, “Help and Support“, takes you to an FAQ section. A search for “copyright” turns up no useful articles and a search for DMCA turns up nothing. Fortunately, a search for “abuse” turns up a Q&A about reporting users who spam. It provides a link to report abuse, however, it requires a Friendster account to use. The same result comes from clicking the “Ask a Question” link at the top of the FAQ.

In the end, it seems that only existing Friendster members can file abuse complaints of any variety on their site. This would, theoretically, include complaints about pornography, spam and other, more general, abuses.

Making Contact

From there one is left with few options. While registering for an account is a possibility, one can also do as I did and perform a whois search for the domain. That, in turn, spits out a valid email address for the site.

In my experience, sending a DMCA notice to that address resulted in a very swift and very effective response. Within a few hours, despite my sending the complaint on a Sunday evening, the work was removed and the account suspended.

The response was nothing short of breathtaking and came well before many sites that I knew well and trusted. Considering how difficult it was to file the report, it was a great relief to see it handled so efficiently.

Still, one has to wonder how an individual unfamiliar with whois lookups or other networking tools would be able to handle these situations. Apart from creating a Friendster account solely for the purpose, there is very little that one can do.

Conclusions

Despite the problems, I have a really hard time hating Friendster. Their response was swift, effective and, to go for the pun, friendly. The people in their customer service department are clearly top-notch.

However, the site does need to work on making the abuse reporting process easier, especially for non-members and to achieve DMCA safe harbor compliance. Both will go a long way toward keeping Friendster not only relatively free of plagiarism, but the other kinds of abuse that can ruin an otherwise good site.

In the end, I feel the need to give Friendster “Citizen” status on a probationary basis. I’m attempting to contact the staff at Friendster in an attempt to bring them at least into DMCA compliance and am optimistic that they will soon. If not, I may have to change the standing.

I will be updating the Host Report later this evening with information about Friendster for anyone interested in reporting a copyright infringement claim.

Technorati : Content Theft, Copyright Infingement, Friendster, Plagiarism, Spam, Web 20

If you don’t know how to properly handle Google when it comes to DMCA matters, you might be in for quite a shock as the methods that work at 99% of all hosts receive a cold reception from Google.

It’s a mistake anyone can make, including myself, but one that is easily avoided if you are aware of the differences between Google and other hosts.

It’s All About the Signature

Google does a decent job spelling out what it wants in a DMCA notice on it’s DMCA policy page and most of it seems pretty standard. Anyone familiar with the requirements of a DMCA notice will immediately recognize most steps listed on Google’s DMCA page. However, it’s in steps seven and eight that Google departs from the rest of the Web by requiring filers to "Sign the Paper" and then either fax or mail it in.

What’s unusual about this is that Google requires a handwritten signature on all DMCA notices. This is counter to every other site on the Web I’ve worked with which, at least in theory, accept typed signatures on emailed notices.

While this requirement seems innocent, it can add a great deal of burden to someone filing a complaint of copyright infringement. Instead of simply sending an email regarding the matter, one must either fax a copy of the notice or send it via the postal service. For international copyright holders, this is especially burdensome as they have to pay for international postage and/or international calling rates just to deliver a notice of copyright infringement.

Needless to say, the requirement of a paper DMCA notice will likely discourage or frustrate many from sending in DMCA notices to Google. This will have the biggest impact on small copyright holders who don’t have the legal assistance, the knowledge or, possibly, the resources to take the extra steps. This also slows down and complicates the processing of DMCA notices as mailed copies take longer to arrive and Google does not receive clickable links pointing them to the infringing material. (Note: Google does request that, if you are sending a large list of links to them, that you also forward them an electronic copy).

To most, it would seem that electronic notices are in the best interests of both hosts and copyright holders and that’s much of the reason why most Web sites accept them.

What Others Do

There is little doubt that Google’s DMCA strategy is unique. When you look at other hosts in similar positions, the difference is quite striking.

Microsoft: The software giant and operator of MSN Spaces and other hosting services takes the opposite approach of Google. Though you can submit faxed notices to them, the one time I tried that I was sent a polite request to please send all future notices via email. Though their responce to DMCA notices have, at times, been spotty (they are listed as a villain on this site), they clearly prefer and work best with email notices.

LiveJournal: LJ has one of the best DMCA reporting methods available. They take advantage of a form system that is both easy to use and easy to understand. It manages to fulfill the requirements of a DMCA notice without actually requiring the submitter to be able to create one themselves. At the very end of the form, LJ provides a text box for you to type your name in and it uses that as a signature.

Myspace: Accepts standard email DMCA notices, including those with only typed signatures. Responds very quickly to all DMCA complaints, including lengthy and complicated notices, and seems to have a solid grip on the situation.

Why is Google Different?

The honest answer is that I don’t know. When I asked Google about their policy, they pointed me to section 512 which states:

(i) A physical or electronic signature of a person authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.

As you can see in the line above, the law allows for both physical and electronic signatures. The Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act or 2000 ("E-sign") defines an electronic signature as "an electronic sound, symbol, or process, attached to or logically associated with a contract or other record and executed or adopted by a person with the intent to sign the record."

By those standards, one can easily sign their name by typing it at the bottom of an email so long as they intend it to be as such (Note: I end all of my DMCA notices with a clear "Signed" line).

When you look at all of the things you can do online without a handwritten signature, Google’s policy seems out of place.

Consider the following:

• You can "sign" a end use license agreement (EULA) for almost any application by just clicking a button to say that you agree.
• You can purchase products online, including at Google’s own store, with nothing more than a credit card number and a click on the "Agree & Continue" button.
• You can verify your age with nothing but a click at millions of adult sites, thus fulfilling the requirements of several acts of legislation.
• You can register register for a Paypal account and receive money from others with nothing more than a bank account.
• You can sell things on Ebay or countless other ecommerce sites without anyone ever seeing your handwritten signature.

However, despite all of this, the matter comes down to what Google and Google’s attorneys decide. I am not a lawyer and, though these things seem very odd to me and I know that they are alone, in my experience, with this requirement, Google has to make their own decision.

Thus, it’s important that Webmasters learn to work with Google rather than against them. After all, cooperation between hosts and copyright holders is essential to protecting works online and Google’s requirements, while frustrating, can be worked with.

Working With Google

With that in mind, the easiest way to fulfill Google’s requirements is to do as they say and either fax or mail the notice in. Take the regular DMCA notice you have, paste it into a word processor, fill out the applicable information, print it out, sign it and send it in. While this might slow down the process and require some extra time and a small amount of money, it does work well.

If this is not acceptable (You live overseas or otherwise can’t use fax or postal mail) there is a means of getting Google to accept emailed requests:

1. Create a digital version of your handwritten signature (either by scanning it in or drawing it directly into an image editor)
2. Paste your DMCA notice into your word processor (I highly recommend OpenOffice, it’s free and has native PDF support)
3. Place your signature image into the file
4. Export it as a PDF (or place another universal format)
5. Email it to Google’s DMCA Agent (PDF)

While this can be a great deal of hassle, especially if you don’t have the software or the signature ready in advance, it can be done and does work without having to fax or mail Google.

If nothing else, it provides an alternative to the paper-based ways that Google preaches.

Conclusions

While there’s little doubt that Google’s DMCA policy is unusual and requires extra steps, it can be worked with, but only after some extra effort.

Personally, I’ve been very lucky that only a few cases of mine have involved Google. Since I avoid reporting sites for removal from search engines (I can almost always get them removed at the host level) I’ve only had two or three cases that involved Google, both dealing with their Blogger service.

Bloggers, on the other hand, may not be so lucky. With the bulk of splogging still taking place on the Google’s Blogger service, a large percentage of the infirngement they encounter will likely take place on Google’s servers. I too, as more and more of my content moves into blog format, find myself wrestling with this issue.

With so much of the Internet passing through Google, it is important for everyone to be aware of Google’s requirements so they can protect their content on their server. While it would be nice to see Google join the rest of the Web in these matters, and perhaps help establish some kind of standard practice that can greatly simplify things for copyright holders, the decison will come down to what their attorneys and their policymakers say (Idea: Perhaps Google could establish an internal signature database that enables a complaintant to send a signature once and have it valid for their email address from then on, might be a useful way to bridge some of the gap.).

Still, I am eager to hear what others have to say on this issue. Also, if any lawyers reading this can provide insight into the legality of this practice, I would be very interested.

In the meantime though, cooperation, even in the midst of disagreement, is critical. In order to work together for a better tomorrow, we have to work together today.

That’s why I bear no ill will agianst Google and consider them as a "Citizen" in most respects (they do respond quickly and effectively to complaints that meet their creteria), but I  do have a lot of questions that, to date, have gone unanswered.

[tags]Plagiarism, Content Theft, Google, Copyright Infringement, DMCA[/tags]

Fortunately, my recent experiences with Myspace have been very positive, though not necessarily impressive. Myspace is definitely on the side of copyright holders when it comes to battling plagiarism, however, its cooperation is limited to the confines of the law.

A Ho-Hum Experience

It’s very difficult to write about my dealings with Myspace because there is very little distinctive one way or another. Myspace complies to the letter of the DMCA, including having its information registered at the U.S. Copyright Office (pdf), and seems to comply with it, no less, no more.

This means that, while they will remove works found to be infringing, they generally do not disable accounts or otherwise punish users, even those that engage in rampant copyright infringement.

Second, their response time, averaging two working days, is also about par for the course on these matters. Though not as quick as sites like Allpoetry, also not as painfully slow and woefully inadequate as sites on the Microsoft network.

Finally, even the feedback received is par for the course. Once the work(s) has been removed, Myspace sends a form letter rich with legalese that lets you know as such.  

All in all, there is nothing about Myspace’s handling of copyright infringement claims that is either wonderful for horrible. They seem to do a good job responding to notices of infringement and balance the rights of the copyright holder with the rights of their user.

A Citizen

In the end, I give Myspace a solid "Citizen" status in the plagiarism fight. Myspace does what’s required of it and has found a way to maintain both speed and accuracy as it has grown to nearly unimaginable size. I can only imagine the logistical challenges of this. 

Myspace does a solid job handling these matters and, barring turning over these functions to a moderating staff, the best that one can expect. It comforts me greatly to know that, even if the fight does shift more toward social networking sites, we will have a strong ally in the fight.

[tags]Plagiarism, Content Theft, DMCA, Copyright, Myspace, Social Networking[/tags]

Why Myspace if Vulnerable

First off, in fairness to Myspace, they do comply fully with the DMCA and they are not the only such site out there. I plan on doing a host report on Myspace and several other such sites soon and, from what I’ve seen, Myspace is actually very cooperative. The only reason that I am mentioning them by name is because they are by far the most popular.

On that note though, the nature of these sites can make them very difficult for copyright holders to work with. First, the sheer number of ways one can publish content produces a challenge in and of itself. One can post a blog, publish info in a profile, put up picture, embed audio/video, use custom HTML or post comments on other people’s profiles.

Second, one’s ability to contact the plagiarist varies wildly depending on the site and the person involved. Some members post all of their contact information, including IM names and Email addresses, while others post nothing but vague personal information. Though most social networking sites offer some kind of personal messaging system, one usually has to be a member to access it and the reliability of such a system for handling communication as important as a cease and desist is suspect and, since no paper trail is produced, 

Finally, content spreads like wildfire through these sites and confusion often arises as to who the original author is. Sometimes people get the wrong idea about what they can and can not do with a work. Worse still, any conflict that gets started on such sites can spread rapidly as well, making one’s life very difficult.

These variables make handling plagiarism cases on social networking sites both unpredictable and difficult. Where once, a cookie cutter approach worked 95% of the time, now each case has to be treated as a unique beast. What works in case A can bring a disaster about in case B.

What to Do?

If you find yourself dealing with a plagiarist at a social networking site, you need to first seriously consider getting an account at the site. Even if you don’t use the account or the site ever again, seeing areas that are hidden to the general public could be a great asset, either exposing more plagiarism or offering new avenues of contact. Besides, when dealing with these cases it’s usually important to have all of the information you can.

From there, you have to make a tough decision. Notifying the admins, either through an abuse complaint or a DMCA notice, will generally get results but several hosts have proved very uncooperative and, in other cases, such a method fails to address the root of the problem.

On the other hand, sometimes contacting the person directly is easy and effective. However, contact information the person might not be available and, even if it is, making such a post puts you at risk of an unneeded backlash or attack. While fear of a backlash should never prevent someone from effectively protecting their work, one certainly shouldn’t introduce unneeded drama into their lives.

Personally, whenever I approach one of these sites, I follow the following series of steps to determine how to handle it.

1. Examine the situation -  Take a look at how the work is being used, where it is being used and in what context. This is especially valuable if you allow some reuse of your work.
2. Learn About the Plagiarist – Social networking sites make it easy to learn about the people who own the site. Learn how old they are, where they are located in the world and how they prefer to be contacted. All of this information can be especially useful if you’re going to write them.
3. Study the Site – Read a little bit about the site itself, its terms of service and how it handles copyright infringement claims. Not only will this help you make a decision about how to proceed, but can offer you a direction if you do decide to contact the host.

From there, you can make one of the following decisions:

1. Contact the Host – If the plagiarism is severe enough (the volume of work taken is very great), and the host is cooperative, then contacting the host might be the best solution. This is also the way to go if a cease and desist letter didn’t work, there is no contact information available for the plagiarist or if the plagiarist has not been active on the site in some time. Also, consider this method if the plagiarist is from a nation with loose or unenforced copyright laws as the host will likely be on more familiar soil.
2. Contact the Plagiarist – If the infringement is relatively minor or could be a mistake, it’s probably best to contact the plagiarist first. The tone of the letter will depend on the situation itself, though most cases will still call for a full cease and desist letter. Regardless of the tone though, one should use caution when sending notices through on-site messenger services. Always request a copy of the letter for your own records and, if one isn’t available, make a backup yourself.
3. Post a Comment – One of the more interesting options is the ability to post a comment. This can be an effective but gentle way of handling cases where the person posting the work is more likely confused than malicious. This can breed cooperation and help promote your own site some. Also, many times the person who posted the works will inform you of another site, often times a malicious one, that is posting your work and muddling the issue.
4. Do Nothing – Sometimes, the best thing you can do is nothing at all. If the plagiarism is likely to cycle off after a few days and be very difficult to handle, it might be wise to walk away. An example of this would be a minor infringement in a comment on another person’s profile. In those situations, you would have to hassle an innocent bystander to get the works removed and contacting the admins would be an unneeded burden as the comment will likely cycle off in a few days. Walking away can be painful, but if you’re dealing with many instances of plagiarism, it frees you up to handle other cases.

Of course, even with these loose guidelines, there are always exceptions. With social networking sites, more than ever, it’s important to be flexible and look for inventive ways to solve problems. I resolved one stubborn case by notifying the heads of an online group he was a member of and another by informing admins of a variety of other rules the person was breaking.

By keeping your eyes open, looking for alternative solutions and working with both admins and other members, you can resolve cases on social networking sites with minimal time or drama. Still, though there’s never been a set way to handle plagiarism online, now there’s even more possibilities to consider.

Conclusions

In the end, though the shift to social networking sites changes the game, as any such shift does, it’s still very possible to get plagiarism issues resolved.

For the new tools that help both legitimate users and plagiarists alike can work both ways and help you track down/stop plagiarism. All that’s required is a little bit more flexibility and, sometimes, a bit of creativity.

Neither of which seem to be in short supply on the Web. 

[tags]Plagiarism, Copyright Infringement, Content Theft, Copyright, Myspace, Xanga[/tags]

However, during all of this, I began to notice a new trend in online plagiarism, It seems that the preferred avenue for plagiarists is shifting once again. Instead of blogs or personal home pages, plagiarists are following the rest of the Web and moving more into social networking sites, the king of which is Myspace.

This presents new challenges for plagiarism fighters and opens up both new possibilities to plagiarize and new possibilities to fight back.

A Brief History

Though plagiarism online is probably as old as the Internet, it hasn’t always been such a nightmare for content creators. At first, Web sites were difficult to create and only the most knowledgeable and best-positioned could create one and doing so took a great deal of work. The early sites were plain, tedious and usually only consisted of content deemed "worthy". Few, if any, would waste such effor to plagiarize others.

As the Web evolved, personal home pages became a reality. Anyone with a Tripod or Geocities account could set up a site and showcase it to the world. While this brought some plagiarism with it, the search engines were much simpler (thus eliminating the need to have lots of content) and the effort required was still fairly high. Though anyone could create a site, it was a time-consuming task only attempted by the more technically adept. So, though the Web was exploding, plagiarism wasn’t a major deal, save for artists that produced Web-page friendly graphics, which were often stolen for use these new Webmasters.

However, the rise of message boards and forums changed the game. Now anyone, with the click of a mouse, could publish content to the Web and have a built-in audience. This extension of the classic newsgroups brought on a wave of plagiarism felt strongly by poets and other short-piece writers.

This translated, somewhat slowly, into the idea of blogging. Blogging provided the same point-and-click functionality of forums but with the benefits of having your own site. Where forums were usually moderated, sometimes very strictly, blogging provided a kind of independence that that helped bring on a new wave of citizen journalists and, sadly, the scourge of splogging or spam blogging. Plagiarism, both written and visual, began to take off. Search engines compounded the problem by making content even more valuable and pushing the plagiarism problem to writers of longer works including articles and even lengthier stories.

Now, with social networking sites, the problem has reached a new level. These sites have blogs built into them, but also offer a chance to post photographs, audio clips and videos in the page itself. These sites, like blogs, are largely unmonitored and operate, in many regards, like traditional personal home pages in terms of enforcement.

Basically, that means if a problem isn’t reported, there’s no hope of it being stopped.

While this brings about a new age of personal expression, it brings with it headaches for authors and other content creators, even those that allow reuse of their work. Enforcing copyright and preventing plagiarism in the Myspace age is a very different proposal than even the blogging one.

The Shift

When I first started tracking plagiarists of my work, which is mostly poetry and short literature, about three years ago. Most incidents, around 75%, were on personal home pages and the rest were on message boards with a few full domain sites thrown into the mix.

Then, cease and desist letters worked very well. Most personal sites included contact information, including email addresses, and those cases that could not be resolved that way were handled by contacting abuse teams or notifying message board admins.

As of a few months ago, that same majority, once again about 75%, were owned by blogs and diary sites. Personal home pages, social networking sites and forums shared the rest with the usual sprinkling of domain sites on paid hosting. 

This changed the tactics considerably as many blog sites don’t publish contact information or even offer their users the chance to do so. Where once well over half of all cases were resolved with cease and desist letters, contacting admins, either via abuse reports or DMCA notices, became the most effective method.

However, within these past few days of searching, the percentage has shifted again. Now, approximately 40% of all plagiarism incidents I’ve noticed are on social networking sites, another 40% on blogs and the rest is occupied by a mix of personal Web sites, forums and domains.

This has caused my tactics to shift once again. Since social network sites offer more avenues of contact, cease and desist letters are becoming more common again. However, more than ever, each host and each case has to be taken on its own account No longer is there one dominant method of handling plagiarism, but a strange mixture of several methods ranging from filing a DMCA notice to simply posting a comment.

Because, if this latest evolution of the Web means anything to content creators, it’s going to mean that we have to be more flexible and more adaptable than ever. There is no longer a single solution that fits all cases.

This concludes part one of this series. The second part will be posted tomorrow.

[tags]Plagiarism, Copyright Infringement, Content Theft, Copyright, Myspace, Xanga, Social Networking, Web 2.0[/tags]

iPowerWeb is a Santa Monica, California- based full-service Web host with over 350,000 customers. They provide hosting, domain registration and marketing among other services.

Like most large Web hosts, such as ThePlanet, they have very strict requirements on how notices of copyright infringement are sent and they follow the DMCA to the letter of the law, perhaps more so than even Google. However, unlike most large hosts, their response time was quick and their communication was good. Though I was confused by some of their requirements, I was overall very pleased with how well they worked with me.

However, my concern with them has less to do with the speed of their response, but rather, the form that it came in. It seems that, for these guys, the only option is the nuclear one.

After sending in my DMCA notice to the address listed as the designated agent, I immediately received an automated reply with links to the information required in such a notice as well as other, more general, abuse information. A few hours later, I got a quick email from their general counsel saying that the matter was being looked into and would be handled in accordance with the DMCA. Within a day, the infringing works were down.

Unfortunately, so was the entire site.

Apparently, iPowerWeb can not disable access to infringing works without simply suspending the entire account. In the case of 57storylane.com, this meant that an entire site, complete with hundreds of pages of content from dozens of authors, was disabled due to one infringing author with two infringing works.

Granted, this site had a higher degree of responsibility since it accepted “submissions” from authors, reviewed them and posted them. This site was not simply a middle man like allpoetry.com or similar sites. Still most hosts are capable of disabling access to infringing works without terminating the entire site.

As someone who’s already uneasy enough about using DMCA notices, this kind of incident is pretty scary. Even though I know I’m not at fault for this (and the fact that the owners of the site have made no effort to restore access after 72 hours further proves that the owners are being negligent in their maintenance) but I still feel as if I should apologize to the other authors that might have been injured, even in a minor way.

I’m sorry that you had your works removed, but you need to seriously look into finding a better home for your material. There are plenty of places out there and there was just no reason to go with 57storylane anyway.

Regardless though, I view iPowerWeb as a solid citizen in the plagiarism war. They’re doing what’s required of them and taking the issue seriously.

Still, this raised a very interesting question regarding the effect of DMCA notices. For large hosts, is the nuclear option the only one? Not being very familiar with the network set up of such hosts, I’m seeking input in the matter. Is this something iPowerWeb is alone in or do other services have a similar problem.

Simply put, most of the domains I’ve dealt with, as few of them as there have been have been near-total losses with almost all of the content infringing. This is the first time I’ve seen a large volume of (apparently) legitimate content get removed with the infringing.

I’m seeking any input on this that is available.

[tags]Plagiarism, DMCA, Hosting, iPowerWeb, Content Theft, Copyright Law, Copyright[/tags]

With features such a blogs, profiles, image hosting, forums and music streaming, Myspace is a bastion of hope for artists of all kinds wanting to get their works out there in a community environment, but also a source of concern for those same artists who don’t want their works stolen.

Luckily, Myspace.com has a very good policy regarding copyright infringement. Though they require DMCA notices, they accept them via email and respond very quickly to them, usually within 24 hours and maintain good contact throughout the process. Plagiarized works are removed without any problems.

In the end, Myspace.com’s process for handling such complaints, though not perfect, is a potential model for other large sites and hopefully will continue. With luck, as I have more experiences with them, they’ll be upgraded to Hero.

Because the only thing really stopping them now is the lack of information available on them,