Costas Recursos’ Blog

Last Friday, Barry Schwartz posted his most popular photos from Flickr according to his Flickr Stats, and requested that other people with Pro accounts do the same… so here goes.

Most Popular by Impressions

1. Carolyn’s Turquoise Toes: 570 views

(more…)

I finally pulled myself away from a couple of the projects I was feverishly working on over xmas break and noticed I’d left the blog in a state of woeful neglect. I have several started posts, but possess neither the energy nor the brain capacity to finish any of them at the moment. So in the interest of quelling rumors of my untimely demise, I wanted to put up a quick post about what I’m doing and what I plan to be doing for the next few weeks to a month.

What I’m doing and planning…

• The biggest thing I’ve been working on is rebuilding Lafayette Online one section at a time. As much as it looks like I’ve been ignoring cshel.com, I assure you, I’ve ignored Lafayette Online 8 million times worse and it’s time I fixed it up and started taking care of it.
• We’ve finally soft launched the new site at work. (Yay!) So with luck, there will be less frustration and much more getting stuff accomplished in my near future. (For the record, I’m still mad at the consultants.)
• I’m learning schloads about WordPress, and I daresay I’m getting pretty good with customizing themes and what not.
• We’re gearing up to get back into recording SEO 101 Podcasts on a regular schedule.
  • Regarding the SEO 101 Podcast… if you’d like to ask a question and have us answer it on the podcast, please feel free to leave your question on the podcast’s website or on the WebProWorld SEO 101 Forum.
• I’m putting together my 2008 search conference schedule for the office so they know when I’ll be gone (and where I’ll be in case there’s an emergency — and when isn’t there an emergency?)
  • If anyone is interested, I’m currently looking at attending SMX West, SES NY, SMX Adv, SES SJ, SMX East, and PubCon; however, the list is subject to change and won’t be even semi-final until late next week.

Anyhoo, if you still don’t feel you’re getting frequent enough updates about my day to day life via the blog, please feel free to follow me on Twitter.

Someone using the nick “light” popped into the WMR chatroom the other day and asked if he could sue a forum owner for violating his copyright by refusing to remove a post containing his work. After playing a game of 50 questions to ascertain exactly what the issue is and is not, the answer to light’s question is a pretty firm “No”.

The Sitch…

Light voluntarily joined a forum and, by doing so, agreed to the Terms of Service of that site. Then he voluntarily wrote a post and put it up on the forum. Now for some reason, that post is causing him some level of grief (for reasons he refused to share), and he wants the post removed from the forum. He contacted the forum owner and requested to have the post deleted and the forum owner declined. Light then drafted his own Cease and Desist letter and emailed it to the forum owner. The forum owner then banned him. So now, Light is planning to sue the forum owner for copyright infringement.

The Analysis…

There is no copyright infringement here. Read the Terms of Service or Terms of Use on most forums or services where users contribute content and you’ll see that the forum owners tend to like to have the right to re-use, edit, re-purpose, etc. things that gets posted to their site. “But I have automatic copyright protection!” Yes, but only until you agree to give up some of your rights by clicking on the “I have read and agree to the terms….” button. This is why it’s important to READ things before agreeing to them or signing anything.

Example Terms Of Service from a Forum

From WebProWorld’s Legal Notice…
User Submissions Not Privileged
Any material, information or other communication you transmit or post to this website (”Submissions”) will be considered non-confidential and non proprietary. iEntry shall have no obligations with respect to your Submissions. iEntry and its designees will be free to copy, disclose, distribute, incorporate and otherwise use your Submissions and all data, images, sounds, text and other things embodied therein for any and all commercial or non-commercial purposes. You are prohibited from posting or transmitting to or from this website any unlawful, threatening, libelous, defamatory, obscene, pornographic or other material that would violate any applicable law.

I suspect the homemade Cease & Desist Demand didn’t win Light any points with the forum owner either. In general, you don’t email C&D letters. Additionally, (unless you are a lawyer or you’re using a professionally written boilerplate) you don’t write your own C&D letters. A poorly written C&D may as well be scrawled in cheap wax crayon on the back of a sheet torn from a spiral notebook and signed, “Rabid, Litigation-Happy Nut Who Is Too Cheap To Pay An Attorney”.

Remember, C&Ds generally don’t have any teeth anyway. Unless they look and feel like they came from a large, serious company with the means and desire to actually follow through with threats of legal action, Cease & Desist letters aren’t worth the paper upon which they are written. If they’re sent solely electronically they are worth even less.

Finally, Light’s situation should serve as a reminder to everyone to not post things online that they might regret later. On the Internets, things have a way of not ever going away.