Why is he bothering with gif artists when, based on the short video alone, he could make a very credible case against French Stewart? Incoming transmission from the Big Giant Head indeed.
This is a long line of bullshit from tumblr, and I wonder if theyâre ever going to have any pressure put on them to shape up.
Peak âtumblr staffâ, to me, was deleting the post of a woman showing the abusive messages she was getting from a user to tell her to go kill herself or get raped - but not in any way stopping or punishing the person sending those messages. Men are allowed to send you graphic, violently abusive messages, but youâre not allowed to warn others about those men!
Hi, Iâm the GIF artist that posted the message on Tumblr to get this going. Sorry I missed this 2 days ago, big thanks to Mr. Doctorow for posting to Boing Boing.
To clarify the situation, I only post original content to my tumblr blog,( at this point somewhere between 600 to 700 GIFs.) For unknown reasons, Bashar claims to authored one of them from last September. Aliens, what are you gonna do?
I probably wouldnât have been so annoyed if it wasnât for 1 - Tumblrâs ridiculously wrong explanation of how they handled it and 2 - I emailed some of the other GIF artists, and and became concerned when a few mentioned they wouldnât file a counter-claim because they donât want to get involved in legal matters. Google âchilling effectâ for more info.
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right, I do have my own site, but the social media sites have built in audiences. no one would ever have seen my gifs besides my family and friends if i just posted to a personal site.
@pahool i spent a lot of time trying to figure out the advantage Bashir seeks to gain from this other than PR, which I have now given him a lot of. Although itâs some pretty bad PR if you ask me.
@Boundegar @newliminted Iâm under the impression that space aliens donât have legal rights on Earth, and as such outer space aliens canât hold copyrights to anything.
I suppose I should be honored that an alien crossed though space and time just to delete my GIF from tumblr. Maybe now that his mission is complete, he can return to his home planet.
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@hexeosis Were you able to identify the offending gif? Iâm kind of curious which one it was.
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Yeah me too. I canât figure it out because all Tumblr sent me was the URL and unfortunately I donât name my posts, so the URL is just random numbers without a correlation to my personal archives. Itâs from last September.
Shoot, the waybackmachine doesnât have any snapshots of that page earlier than 2015-06-13, after the image got taken down.
I was hoping to cheat the DMCA out of its power.
Update: I sent an email to the Bashar folks and got the following reply:
Hi Pahool,
Thank you for your email. We have been in contact with Tublr to get the to fix this matter. What has happened is that some users have been taking artwork and gifs from others and sharing along with our copyrighted transcripts. We have been submitting DMCA notices for the transcripts, but Tumblr has mistakenly removed the images and left the transcripts. As I mentioned, we are working with Tumblr for them to correct their mistake. It was never our intention to remove any original artistic images.
Thank you for your patience while we work to resolve this. Perhaps you can explain this situation to the group that you linked to in your message?
Best,
Desiree
Customer Relations Manager
Bashar Communications
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Except that Basharâs takedown notice refers to a specific URL on my blog, which only had a GIF on it and nothing to do with a transcript. Their response is nonsensical.
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Interesting. Can you provide the text of the DMCA takedown notice to chillingeffects.com? Itâs a great way to publicly shame issuers of frivolous takedown notices, and it allows others to check out the history of a company/individual issuing these notices. Bashar Communications Inc. has quite a few takedown notices already, but it looks like theyâre mostly related to folks re-hosting his channeling videos. It would be good to document your case which is an obvious DMCA overreach.
Iâd certainly be interested in seeing the wording on their takedown notice. Iâm inclined to believe that they are honestly trying to correct this, mostly because I was impressed with the gentle tone of their response to my email, which was less than gentle (reproduced below):
Issuing takedown notices to artists without contacting the artists first is extremely bad form at best, and cowardly harrassment at worst. Especially when the artists involved have clearly never heard of you or your P.T. Barnum act. Bilk the yokels all you want (as much as your warped conscience allows), but stop harrassing artists who are clearly not infringing on any of your intellectual property. Or, at the very least, engage the artists first before you make some cowardly bullshit DMCA claim to their ISPs.
I am very familiar with your work. I listened to dozens of hours of channeling sessions of yours back in the 90âs and I am well aware of your ability to spin a situation however you want by couching it in bullshit new-ageisms. Spare me any such response. Just please consider the chilling effect that your bullshit takedown notices have on art and artists. Iâm not interested how you justify it in terms of your trans-dimensional ethics.
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Hi, yes I have a tab open now to chiingeffects.com and will submit the information. I also am going to contact eff.org and see if they have any advice. The DMCA says there are penalties for knowingly filing a fraudulent takedown notice. The problem is thereâs no enforcement mechanism. Tumblr will claim safe harbor and it will be up to me and the other GIF artists to pursue damages.
I like your letter, I donât know what to make of the Bashar response because this is what takedown notice they sent:
Tumblr Copyright Violation: Content Removed
Hi,
Weâve received a notification of alleged copyright infringement on one of your blogs. Here are the details of the content in question:
Copyright holder: Darryl Anka (Bashar Communications, Inc.)
Post URL(s): http://hexeosis.tumblr.com/post/97515717733
Description: Copyrighted Work: Bashar channeled by Darryl Anka. Copyright 1984-2015. All Rights Reserved. From multiple event productions presented by Darryl Anka on dates ranging from 1984-2014. The copyrighted works can be found at www.basharstore.com/.
The content has since been removed, in accordance with US law and Tumblrâs own copyright policies.
Itâs important for all creators that our users respect copyright, and so we ask that you take greater care when posting other peopleâs creations to your Tumblr blog. You can review Tumblrâs Terms of Service (https://www.tumblr.com/policy/terms-of-service) and Community Guidelines (https://www.tumblr.com/policy/community) for more information on our copyright policies.
Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we are legally required to terminate the accounts of repeat infringers. The notice we received counts as one strike against your account. If you receive three uncontested strikes within 18 months, your account will be terminated. You can contest this notification by following the instructions for a âDMCA Counter-Notificationâ found here: https://www.tumblr.com/policy/terms-of-service#dmca. A successful counter-notification will remove this strike against your account.
Please note that if your account is terminated for repeat copyright infringement, any new accounts you create will also be terminated.
This is a good opportunity to learn more about US copyright law (never a bad idea) and to make sure none of your other posts are infringing on someoneâs copyright. Here are a few free resources you might want to look over:
http://www.teachingcopyright.org/
http://copyright.gov/
Please let us know if you have any questions or concerns.
Best,
Tumblr Trust & Safety
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This is a lie. Nowhere in the DMCA does it require alleged repeat offenders to have services or accounts terminated. If it were true, then millions of US citizens would be without internet because thereâs only 1 ISP in most towns.
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