Request for LEGAL ADVICE / AID in defense of a LART

[karlthepagan.livejournal.com]

Hail Eris!

The lart began when I saw several friends complain about wiccans_unite. The maintainer of the new comm had copied the user info, icons, and interests straight out of wiccan, where the wiccans_unite maintainer had a falling out over various new Wiccan topics which are familiar to several of us.

Thus wiccans_untie was born. Days later blackthornglade was libeled, and indicated to be the creator (since they had joined, while I had not). I quickly corrected the mistake, but found an abuse complaint of copyright infringement against me. Fortunately the claim was fraudulent, as the content in wiccans_untie's info originally appeared in wiccan and silvertree has (if I interpret "Np." correctly) granted her permission for the use of that text in wiccans_untie (she was in fact notified as soon as I created the lart.)

Unfortunately the Digital Millennium Copyright Act requires that I submit to a legally stringent commitment. The abuse team has advised me to seek legal representation, so here I am!

FYI I am in the 9th Federal Legislative District(?) Eastern Washington U.S. Court District (easy, 30 minute drive for me).

Comments

[stollman.livejournal.com]

http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Terrorism/form-letter.html

[karlthepagan.livejournal.com]

Thanks, it sounds like they did not have to provide an affadavit in the first place, so I can at least ask to see the abuse complaint resolved on technical terms.

[karlthepagan.livejournal.com]

Here is what they had to agree with on the abuse form:

What is your full legal name?

Where on our servers does this material reside? Please include full links (URLs) to entries, not simply a link to an entire journal.

What is the original URL of the material being infringed upon? Please include full links if possible.

(repeat the following oaths)
"I do affirm that in good faith, I believe that this material is not authorized for this use."

"I hereby state, under penalty of perjury in a United States court, that the material given here is accurate and I am authorized to act on behalf of the copyright holder."

Do you understand that the user who is allegedly violating your copyright has the right to file a statement that he or she believes that no violation has taken place, at which point LiveJournal is no longer obligated to act in the situation and you will need to pursue private legal action?

Do you agree, under penalty of perjury, to all of the statements above?

[stollman.livejournal.com]

So your response should be to submit the form letter I pointed to, with certain sections removed before sending the form letter. In particular it looks like the lj abuse form process ensures that the complaint follows the correct procedures, so you can knock out the whole section related to "...does not follow the prescribed form for notification...".

[stollman.livejournal.com]

By the way, it's totally ok to send your counter-notification letter via email, but I would send a paper copy as well and inform them that you are doing so.