What happens when two birthing blogs go head to head which leads to a lawsuit? Sounds like a movie premise doesn't it? Well surprisingly, it isn't a movie premise, it's real. Even Judge Stearns from the United States District Court, District of Massachusetts says, "The choice of birthing techniques is not the most obvious subject for a war of polemics. But the wisdom of midwifery triggered a ferocious battle of the blogs culminating in [the following] lawsuit."
In Tuteur v. Crosley-Corcoran, Tuteur, a former physician who is a "scathing critic of home birthing", and Crosley-Corcoran, a doula who believes in "natural birth", get into a spat. Crosley-Corcoran subsequently uploads a photo of herself in a graphic pose which Tuteur copied and posted on her own blog without Crosley-Corocoran's permission. Crosley-Corocoran hired an attorney who sent a cease-and-desist notice by email to Tuteur and also to BlueHost, Tuteur's web server a takedown notice. BlueHost subsequently warned Tuteur to eliminate or disable the infringing material or her site could be suspended. While Tuteur initially took down the photo, she reuploaded it, in which BlueHost told both parties that they were no longer going to take part in the suit. Tuteur subsequently moved to a new server called DaringHost. DaringHost informed Tuteur of the takedown notice that Crosley-Corcoran's attorney sent and Tuteur removed the photo.
Tuteur enlisted the help of her husband and Crosley-Corcoran's attorney offered a truce. Crosley-Corcoran would not pursue further action if Tuteur removed the image and abstained from referencing each other in their blogs. Tuteur refused and counter-sued.
The court found that 17 U.S.C. §512 of the DMCA expressly limits the liability of an ISP so long as the ISP complied with the takedown notice. In addition, the court held that a copyright owner need not exhaust "an alleged infringer's possible defenses prior to acting, only that she affirm a good faith belief that the copyrighted material is being used without her or her agent's permission," so the takedown notice was proper.
Moral of the story: Don't let your spite over a dispute on the internet cloud your judgment in copyrights and should you ever receive a takedown notice, either comply with the notice or tread lightly.
OK, you got the gist of this ugly spat. But you left out that, for some reason, that Hollywood saw fit to put its figurative nose in; did you get the link about the MPAA amicus brief? In items like this -- he-saids/she-saids -- think about reading your post aloud. When does your mind wander and you start to feel, ugh, is this TMI about two people fighting? See my earlier comment, too, about sentence structure and subordination with clauses. Yes, your sentences are clear and simple. But they may not vary sufficiently so the prose feels sing-songy (it's the way a youngster would tell on a sibling: Joey did this. I did that. He did this. I did that.) N'est pas?
ReplyDelete