Copyright Infringement complaint from Vanity Fair/Condé Nast

Email

[Jim Robinson]

Subject: Copyright Infringement

Date: Tue, 23 Sep 2003 15:42:53 -0400

From: "Gigante, John D."

To: "'WEBMASTER@FREEREPUBLIC.COM'" WEBMASTER@FREEREPUBLIC.COM

September 23, 2003

VIA CERTIFIED MAIL RETURN RECEIPT REQUESTED, AND BY E-MAIL TO WEBMASTER@FREEREPUBLIC.COM Free Republic, LLC P.O. Box 9771 Fresno, CA 93794

Re: Copyright Infringement Dear Sir or Madam:

We represent The Conde Nast Publications, publisher of Vanity Fair. It has come to our attention that your website posted and continues to post without permission at least two copies of an article entitled "The Message in the Anthrax" written by Don Foster for the October 2003 issue of Vanity Fair.

Mr. Foster owns the copyright in this article and Vanity Fair paid for the exclusive right to publish the article for a limited period of time. As the copyright owner, Mr. Foster has the legally enforceable right to determine who, if anyone, may publish the article, and during the period of its exclusivity, Vanity Fair has the legally protectable right to be the only party publishing the article.

Your reproduction of this article on your site (even if it was posted by third parties) is an infringement by you of Mr. Foster's copyright rights and, since your infringement continues to occur during the period of Vanity Fair's exclusivity, it also violates Conde Nast's rights. The remedies available under the U.S. Copyright Act are severe, including injunctive relief, payment of statutorily-prescribed damages of up to $150,000 per infringement, and reimbursement of attorneys' fees.

We demand that you immediately remove from your website all materials from Vanity Fair and any other Conde Nast publication, and that you provide us with a written statement specifying all of the material removed, and that you agree not to use any Conde Nast material in the future unless you first obtain the copyright owner's written permission (which may be granted or withheld). If you do not agree, we will advise our client it must pursue more formal means to resolve this problem. We expect to hear from you within ten (10) days of your receipt of this letter.

Sincerely,

John Gigante, Esq. Sabin, Bermant & Gould LLP Four Times Square New York, N. Y. 10036-6526 Tel. 212-381-7066 Fax. 212-381-7227

CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This e-mail may contain information that is privileged, confidential or otherwise protected from disclosure. If you are not the intended recipient of this e-mail, please notify the sender immediately by return e-mail, purge it and do not disseminate or copy it.

[Godzilla]

I'd boycot them except I don't buy from then anyway.

[f.Christian]

dead link ...

http://www.aclu.org/library/aaguns.html

[Godzilla]

I'd boycott them, except that I don't buy their products anyway.

[Sir_Ed]

It's obvious that this is but the first few smatterings of what will surely be an avalance of MOST of the newpapers and magazines in America asking us to stop posting their articles.

This is really sad...if this can't somehow be fixed, through "Fair Use" then I'm afraid that within a couple of years we won't have anything but thousands of Freepers just posting their thoughts and opinions on everything, and no actual hard news.

Ed

[f.Christian]

So you believe the founding fathers created an atheistic empire you could pontificate about ?

[friendly]

You can expect more of these shyster love notes in the near future.

It is clear to me that some organized anti-free speech leftist vermin are monitoring Free Republic, and are sending nasty letters to the legal departments of all publications with FR unexcerpted articles. The hope is to get an preposterous over-reaction as seen from the rocket scientists at Conde Nast.

[kimmie7]

I think that's a great idea.

[arasina]

I promise to never type the words V----- F--- again unless it's a reference to a certain lingerie manufacturer. And if I see one of those magazines in a doctor's office or hair salon, I will put it in a nice hiding place so that it can't be seen.

What was the subject of the post that included material from that magazine? Perhaps they Googled and saw a reference to the post here?

[Phsstpok]

The last time I looked VF was 80% advertising(I'm estimating here),15% Hollywood and Beautiful People gossip,and 5% newsworthy articles.

I hate to say it, given their editorial bias, but that sounds like a SUCCESSUL business plan for a magazine!

[denydenydeny]

Vanity Fair does not post its articles online, so the only way that they get posted to FR is if someone goes through the trouble of typing them out or scanning them, as I've done in the past with a couple magnificent Christopher Hitchens columns from VF.

The point is, we can't link to VF articles because there is nothing to link to. In the future, we will just have to summarize briefly, I guess.

[steveegg]

How are we to bust these guys and make it stick if we don't archive their material?

'Tis exactly what they want.

[IncPen]

By costing you more time and money than you have or can possibly raise to fight them in court.

Obviously your logic trumps my cluelessness.

I wonder if any of those leftist organizations that had their undies in a bundle over "Powell Rules" at FCC would care to weigh in on our behalf on the 'fair use doctrine'...

[MineralMan]

"So you believe the founding fathers created an atheistic empire you could pontificate about ?
"

f.,

I'm sorry, but I have no idea what you are talking about. This thread involves copyright law and a request from a publisher to Jim Robinson regarding the use of copyright material on Free Republic.

Jim has said that we should not post material from Conde Nast publications. So, your comment doesn't seem to me to contain any content relating in any way to that situation.

If I'm wrong about that, perhaps you could expand on your sentence.

[MineralMan]

"Is there going to be a mineral man rule too ... special priveledges --- exemptions ?"

I'm sorry, but I don't understand what you're saying. Perhaps you could clarify it for me. I'm not seeking any privileges or exemptions, and I can't imagine what you're referring to. I'm confused, f. Perhaps you can explain further what you mean.

[f.Christian]

Bob Dole when he was the senate majority leader said ...

'' he was a far right winger because the republic was ditched by the left (( media )) '' ---

FR is trying to correct this ... intellectually and politically !

A media check w / o the media is impossible ... full text freedom of information --- fair - trade - use is necessay !

[stanz]

Nobody ever quoted me.

[HAL9000]

A lot of stuff here is from Wired.

This is complicated - Wired Magazine and Wired News are now owned separately.

If i understand correctly, the new restriction should not affect posts from the Wired News section of Wired.com, which is owned and published by Terra Lycos.

But Wired.com also hosts Conde Nast's Wired Magazine content that cannot be posted.

[texasbluebell]

Fair use allows you to quote a little bit, too

Fair use allows up to 10% of the article. So we can paraphrase the gist of it, but we can also quote 10% if we want, I believe. I think that's the allowable limit, unless it's changed recently.

[texasbluebell]

perhaps a good way to show the info-narcs that we don't appreciate their nonsense is for all FReepers who are buying any of the Conde trash to cancel their subscriptions along with a nice little note explaining why.

I'm going to do just that. I have subscribed to VF for years, for "the articles"--which I've always found well-written and informative. But this is it for me. I'm fed up. I'm cancelling.

[Jim Robinson]

To my knowledge, there is no specified percentage or word count in the fair use code:

Sec. 107. - Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use



Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include -

(1)

the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;

(2)

the nature of the copyrighted work;

(3)

the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and

(4)

the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.


The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors