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dj_sniffy · 06-10-2003, 08:48 PM

Originally posted by freeadultcontent
Few questions after reading all of this tech talk.

If your program is making copies of content, even if said content will be deleted after review, and your company is a profit venture, are you not then profiting off of said content and thus infringing on ones copyright of said content?

this is a great question for content providers since websites that sniffy visits, are downloading images that were licensed to the website, but the copyright belonging to the copyright holder. so it would be the copyright holder that would pose this question.

i don't believe there is any precedent either for or against my opinion, that copyright owners do have copyright protection to the image and its use and display of the image, but copyright does not extend to the binary level, whereas the image is copyright for its visual presentation, who representation is done through 1's and 0's.

this to me would be a great debate, because it touches upon new areas of IP in the digital age. it's kind like the story that the RIAA is saying that when you buy a CD, you are purchasing the license to the music, not buying the music or the CD. so therefore, if the CD breaks, they don't have to be responsible to pay for it, because you licensed the music. while a cd can be riipped to MP3, the format has changed, but the work of art is still the same being the same way the artist intended on the creation as music to listen. by hashing or doing acoustic fingerprinting, etc on the mp3, does not, IMHO, constitute copyright infringement, because the artist and the IP holder can't extend dominion to the medium that goes beyond the artist creation.

One could say then how did you obtain this copyright material. it was downloaded from a website much like any other web surfer. some websites could have a disclaimer that acceptable use of the site is for non-commercial, personal use/viewing only. or, that since the image was retrieved legally, by visiting the website, that the subsequent processing of the image and extraction of the data does not constitute copyright infringement.

an interesting question that only a court of law will determine, rather than just a lawyer's opinion.

Will it stop at the free areas or will it also sniff inside of a pay area? You did mention AVS etc.

we are focusing on the free areas. to get inside a site requires membership...either meaning we joined or was given consent. if CP exists behind closed doors, then some how, or some way surfers had to be attracted to the site to sign up, so that kind of marketing is done in the free areas.

You are making a road map of each webmasters entire network of sites. Listing which ones should be reviewed, had flags, etc. You are also dealing with CP and the now underfire adult internet, specially with the upgraded 2257 rules. What is to stop the Government from subpoenaing your database and thus putting many of us in even more risk? We are in an age of proactive politics, i.e. attack before attacked, porn causes cp, etc. So why would they not just love to get their hands on this database, the FBI will know about it afterall?

i am not sure what the government's interest would be in a database schema that includes file type attributes like md5, filename, filesize, H, W, etc. we are not looking for CP, that's what ASACP does and thus the close relationship. should we find CP, we turn it over to the sponsor who in turn turns it in to ASACP.

if we are subpenaed, we have to comply. but that's no reason to deter having a business model because of a potential gov;t seizure of data. Potential seizure of property due to CP related items is certainly a liability, so that's why we work under ASACP, and are not out on our own, potentially putting ourselves personally under criminal liability. no amount of money in the world is worth such a position.

Privacy laws will be violated unless each sponsor sends out a hardcopy letter to each affiliate informing them of the information that would be, could be, or may be shared with your company etc. There has been a whole slew of new privacy data sharing laws that went into effect, you are aware of them I presume, well are you?

is it a privacy issue that a sponsor cannot disclose to a third party the URL of their affiliates? i have not read an affiliate contract in an while, but i would assume there is no such thing. we aren't asking the sponsor for how much payouts to the affiliates, personal contacts, etc... we are asking for just the URL

Sniffy visits affiliate site A. Affiliate site A has blocked the hell out of sniffy. Sniffy then reports to sponsor that they could not sniff such site. Sponsor terms affiliate because sniffy could not sniff site A, affiliate looses all traffic income from sponsor. Since sponsor is busy and does not have time to check the hundred or possibly thousands of possible flags that sniffy reports. Maybe sponsor or sniffy have tired and or overworked employees, or maybe sponsor does not wish to hire more people to check flags. Well then did sniffy just cause affiliate finacal harm because affiliate was protecting bandwidth?

in your scenario, sniffy did not cause the direct harm. because a site blocked the searching, the sponsor made their own determination on what they wanted to do about it. I would think that sponsors would not just ban the affiliate without first verifying. i would expect a sponsor to do their own diligence. the value of sniffy is to do the laborious tasks, so the sponsor can focus on the problem areas.

if a website wanted to ban sniffy, then they need to explain that to the sponsor. it's no different than if someone make a report that X website had CP on it. would ASACP immediately contact the FBI and turn them in? No, they validate the lead first, ensure that it is indeed a problem, then they take action. Would the website blame the person who submited the lead as to their downfall? No, they would blame ASACP and the FBI, but should blame themselves for their actions.

Sniffy hits a TGP, TGP has trade script. Sniffy is checking every single link. Gets TGP banned from other trades because of bots. Sniffy just cost TGP money did it not?

Sniffy hits another TGP. TGP has banners for sponsor. Submitter fucked with TGP and altered an image or something. Will TGP get flagged? Then if so, say the reviewer goes to TGP but its been a few days. The images or text is no longer there since it was rotated out or fixed. Does sniffy report to the sponsor but say image and or text has been removed since crawl?

in this scenario and with any scenario where a yellow flag goes up by a reviewer, additional people will then focus on the suspected site to validate what sniffy and reviewer has found. given another snapshot/viewing, and finding confirmation, it becomes a red flag. this kind of check and balance is the same with the previous comment that a spoonsor is not going to just take our word about the red flag.

Affiliate runs toplist. Pain in the ass webmasters change text on toplist to something not allowed on wed.. Affiliate updates toplist and checks for rule violations every tuesday. Sniffy visits toplist on thur. it gets reviewed on friday. Sponsor is sent a violation letter, and affiliate is screwed even though affiliate would have removed it on tuesday. How does sniffy handle such instances?

answered above.

Webmaster has some enemies. Enemies hack webmasters site and place some not so kosher content and keywords on webmasters server. Webmaster is now in heap of trouble thanks to sniffy, webmaster looses all sponsors, and now has no income. Latter prooves it was a hack after long legal battle etc. Would not sniffy be open to a civil suit?

no, because of first the additional levels of internal verification, then there would another level of the sponsor doing the verification. if everyone sees the same thing, and then sponsor cans the affiliate, they deserved to do so. should they be wronging canned, for whatever reason, it is between the affiliate and the sponsor. in all of the examples you have given, there is no direct connection with sniffy's action and having a website being wrongly accused. wrongful accusations happen when there is no measure for verification, much like hearsay and accusation. anyone can hack or accuse someone, a throw back to the salem witch trials. this is not the modern day mcCarthy times. Sniffy is not big brother, and does not cause harm to webmasters.

if a webmaster is doing some thing illegal, then they should get busted. if they do, its because ASACP or the sponsor pushed it forward. Sniffy is then the informer.. so maybe a rat if you will, but the only people that should be fearing sniffy's actions are really those that might get caught.

-dj

06-10-2003, 08:48 PM
dj_sniffy Registered User Join Date: Jun 2003 Posts: 47	Originally posted by freeadultcontent Few questions after reading all of this tech talk. If your program is making copies of content, even if said content will be deleted after review, and your company is a profit venture, are you not then profiting off of said content and thus infringing on ones copyright of said content? this is a great question for content providers since websites that sniffy visits, are downloading images that were licensed to the website, but the copyright belonging to the copyright holder. so it would be the copyright holder that would pose this question. i don't believe there is any precedent either for or against my opinion, that copyright owners do have copyright protection to the image and its use and display of the image, but copyright does not extend to the binary level, whereas the image is copyright for its visual presentation, who representation is done through 1's and 0's. this to me would be a great debate, because it touches upon new areas of IP in the digital age. it's kind like the story that the RIAA is saying that when you buy a CD, you are purchasing the license to the music, not buying the music or the CD. so therefore, if the CD breaks, they don't have to be responsible to pay for it, because you licensed the music. while a cd can be riipped to MP3, the format has changed, but the work of art is still the same being the same way the artist intended on the creation as music to listen. by hashing or doing acoustic fingerprinting, etc on the mp3, does not, IMHO, constitute copyright infringement, because the artist and the IP holder can't extend dominion to the medium that goes beyond the artist creation. One could say then how did you obtain this copyright material. it was downloaded from a website much like any other web surfer. some websites could have a disclaimer that acceptable use of the site is for non-commercial, personal use/viewing only. or, that since the image was retrieved legally, by visiting the website, that the subsequent processing of the image and extraction of the data does not constitute copyright infringement. an interesting question that only a court of law will determine, rather than just a lawyer's opinion. Will it stop at the free areas or will it also sniff inside of a pay area? You did mention AVS etc. we are focusing on the free areas. to get inside a site requires membership...either meaning we joined or was given consent. if CP exists behind closed doors, then some how, or some way surfers had to be attracted to the site to sign up, so that kind of marketing is done in the free areas. You are making a road map of each webmasters entire network of sites. Listing which ones should be reviewed, had flags, etc. You are also dealing with CP and the now underfire adult internet, specially with the upgraded 2257 rules. What is to stop the Government from subpoenaing your database and thus putting many of us in even more risk? We are in an age of proactive politics, i.e. attack before attacked, porn causes cp, etc. So why would they not just love to get their hands on this database, the FBI will know about it afterall? i am not sure what the government's interest would be in a database schema that includes file type attributes like md5, filename, filesize, H, W, etc. we are not looking for CP, that's what ASACP does and thus the close relationship. should we find CP, we turn it over to the sponsor who in turn turns it in to ASACP. if we are subpenaed, we have to comply. but that's no reason to deter having a business model because of a potential gov;t seizure of data. Potential seizure of property due to CP related items is certainly a liability, so that's why we work under ASACP, and are not out on our own, potentially putting ourselves personally under criminal liability. no amount of money in the world is worth such a position. Privacy laws will be violated unless each sponsor sends out a hardcopy letter to each affiliate informing them of the information that would be, could be, or may be shared with your company etc. There has been a whole slew of new privacy data sharing laws that went into effect, you are aware of them I presume, well are you? is it a privacy issue that a sponsor cannot disclose to a third party the URL of their affiliates? i have not read an affiliate contract in an while, but i would assume there is no such thing. we aren't asking the sponsor for how much payouts to the affiliates, personal contacts, etc... we are asking for just the URL Sniffy visits affiliate site A. Affiliate site A has blocked the hell out of sniffy. Sniffy then reports to sponsor that they could not sniff such site. Sponsor terms affiliate because sniffy could not sniff site A, affiliate looses all traffic income from sponsor. Since sponsor is busy and does not have time to check the hundred or possibly thousands of possible flags that sniffy reports. Maybe sponsor or sniffy have tired and or overworked employees, or maybe sponsor does not wish to hire more people to check flags. Well then did sniffy just cause affiliate finacal harm because affiliate was protecting bandwidth? in your scenario, sniffy did not cause the direct harm. because a site blocked the searching, the sponsor made their own determination on what they wanted to do about it. I would think that sponsors would not just ban the affiliate without first verifying. i would expect a sponsor to do their own diligence. the value of sniffy is to do the laborious tasks, so the sponsor can focus on the problem areas. if a website wanted to ban sniffy, then they need to explain that to the sponsor. it's no different than if someone make a report that X website had CP on it. would ASACP immediately contact the FBI and turn them in? No, they validate the lead first, ensure that it is indeed a problem, then they take action. Would the website blame the person who submited the lead as to their downfall? No, they would blame ASACP and the FBI, but should blame themselves for their actions. Sniffy hits a TGP, TGP has trade script. Sniffy is checking every single link. Gets TGP banned from other trades because of bots. Sniffy just cost TGP money did it not? Sniffy hits another TGP. TGP has banners for sponsor. Submitter fucked with TGP and altered an image or something. Will TGP get flagged? Then if so, say the reviewer goes to TGP but its been a few days. The images or text is no longer there since it was rotated out or fixed. Does sniffy report to the sponsor but say image and or text has been removed since crawl? in this scenario and with any scenario where a yellow flag goes up by a reviewer, additional people will then focus on the suspected site to validate what sniffy and reviewer has found. given another snapshot/viewing, and finding confirmation, it becomes a red flag. this kind of check and balance is the same with the previous comment that a spoonsor is not going to just take our word about the red flag. Affiliate runs toplist. Pain in the ass webmasters change text on toplist to something not allowed on wed.. Affiliate updates toplist and checks for rule violations every tuesday. Sniffy visits toplist on thur. it gets reviewed on friday. Sponsor is sent a violation letter, and affiliate is screwed even though affiliate would have removed it on tuesday. How does sniffy handle such instances? answered above. Webmaster has some enemies. Enemies hack webmasters site and place some not so kosher content and keywords on webmasters server. Webmaster is now in heap of trouble thanks to sniffy, webmaster looses all sponsors, and now has no income. Latter prooves it was a hack after long legal battle etc. Would not sniffy be open to a civil suit? no, because of first the additional levels of internal verification, then there would another level of the sponsor doing the verification. if everyone sees the same thing, and then sponsor cans the affiliate, they deserved to do so. should they be wronging canned, for whatever reason, it is between the affiliate and the sponsor. in all of the examples you have given, there is no direct connection with sniffy's action and having a website being wrongly accused. wrongful accusations happen when there is no measure for verification, much like hearsay and accusation. anyone can hack or accuse someone, a throw back to the salem witch trials. this is not the modern day mcCarthy times. Sniffy is not big brother, and does not cause harm to webmasters. if a webmaster is doing some thing illegal, then they should get busted. if they do, its because ASACP or the sponsor pushed it forward. Sniffy is then the informer.. so maybe a rat if you will, but the only people that should be fearing sniffy's actions are really those that might get caught. -dj __________________ i can type, but i can't spel.