I feel icky

[elfs]

I've been concentrating this week more on the business of writing than I am actually working my way through a story. And today, I feel icky. Among all the laws that I don't think need to be on the books and can't imagine what use there is in people getting killed over, two are the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, and the 2257 Regulations.

Which is why I feel especially icky that this morning I sent out a DMCA Takedown Notice to someone who is violating the Journal Entries licensing agreement, and I used their 2257 compliance filing to track down the address to which to send the notice.

I need a shower now.

Comments

[elfs.livejournal.com]

They're using a few teaser paragraphs of the stories to convince people to join their porn-selling website. That's a big no-no according to my license: you're allowed to distribute the stories, but you have to include the whole episode, without financial barriers (ads are okay, as is age checking, but "credit card verification as age verification" is not), complete with the copyright and licensing notice, which includes a link back to Pendorwright.com.

"2257 compliance" is a legal term in the (visual) porn business, and refers to federal legal requirements (US Code 18, section 2257) for record-keeping to ensure that all models were over the age of 18.

Under the Bush administration, the Department of Justice has ruled that anyone who reproduces porn must be 2257-compliant, and have launched a couple of nasty attacks against porn aggregate sites-- not the people who took or produced the photos, but against secondary sites that copy/steal/resell the material. The idea was to drive porn off the Internet. Obviously, it hasn't worked.

But, since I don't have any "porn" on my site, I'm not all that concerned.

Since the site I found my stories being abused on was a "secondary pornography producer," they had a 2257 Compliance statement filed, and that's what I used to find the email address to complain to.