#dcma

Today tumblr terminated my blog design-is-fine, some of you might know the site and the claim "Imagine a time with no computer". Over 10 years I was loyal to this platform, 180.000 followers did like the educational content, around 17.000 posts over the years ... but

Obviously I cannot keep an eye on all the pictures if somebody has a copyright issue. In the past all this kind of problems had been solved, I just deleted the post, no prob. But now with the Digital Millenium Act after I had 3 "strikes" (wow ... like war) in an 18 month period (during hundreds of posts) tumblr has deleted my blog, my passion, a kind of life's work.

Most important: It was a non-profit, educational blog in the frame of fair use! Therefore it would be a matter of judgment. Oh well.

To make matters worse: design-is-fine was a secondary blog, on my main site ideageneration, there I had around 12 private blogs I did with my students, made over years, now all the work, our coop history is gone. This is even more devastating.

All the correspondence I had with the tumblr support until now is based on templates or AI, at least my impression. Nobody actually reads or understands what my problem is.

At least they cannot delete the url, so I will start again. So if you were a follower on tumbrl then maybe you bookmark design-is-fine.org and visit me in some days, my world of design history will be back again.

Dear @sifix​, @strangestorytellersims, @the-regal-sim, @newen092, @plazasims

As someone who loves your creations, I have to talk to you about @elfdor.

Elfdor proffering off your fantastic free content behind perma-paywalls at Patreon. 

@elfdor is clearly, and grossly, violating your terms and conditions. 

Yet Elfdor continues to lock recolors of your free content behind Patreon exclusive paywalls. By holding your content hostage, Elfdor is hurting our community’s creativity by encouraging theft and elitism.  This is unacceptable. This needs to stop now. My lovely friend, @mack3030 gave some advice in this post when I told her about what Elfdor was doing: https://mack3030.tumblr.com/post/649903943123615744/submitted-post-43021-2

“This is one of those cases where it’s probably best for those creators who have an issue with this to take a few steps: 1) Reach out to Elfdor with a strongly worded warning about the use of their content. Something along the lines of: “”It has come to my attention that you are using my content as a base for your recolors that you are putting behind a paywall. (TSR/Simsdom/Patreon) In my terms, I expressly forbid this use of my content if it is being put behind a paywall/adwall. You may either release all of your content that is a recolor of my meshes for FREE with zero ads or paywalls, (either through SFS or patreon) or I will be forced to file a DMCA.”” 2) If Elfdor doesn’t respond and try to work something out, file a DMCA with all parties that host the work in question. (An easy way to do this is use this FORM here: https://www.dmca.com/Takedowns/DIY.aspx?r=m) In this case, the DMCA would be filed with simsdom, TSR, and possibly the hosting service for their own site (my research indicates it would be google/godaddy). Just note that filing a DMCA includes putting in your real first and last name and an email address. I warn about this because paywall creators have shown time and time again they do not mind doxing people. 3) Although some may not like having to do this, make a statement post about the recolors and how they are not authorized because of the violation of terms. It is important that the simblr/sims cc community be made aware that this person is violating a creator’s terms of use. I know some may not be a fan of this, but it’s not starting drama or throwing shade. It’s making the community aware of someone who is violating the rights of others.”

From this article on TechCrunch

It astounds me how ignorant the general population is when it comes to IPs, copyright law, and attempting to monetize transformative fiction.

It seems like the only people aware of the dangers of monetizing fanfiction are 1) fandom olds who remember the early days of lawsuits and C&D orders, and 2) the owners of the IPs themselves. The average Joe who is not in fandom--and the brand new generations of fans--have no idea. And it’s that ignorance which is going to create a veritable shitstorm for the rest of us fans, and threaten Tumblr’s very existence. (Yeah, we all know Tumblr isn’t the best, but right now it’s probably the only tolerable social platform I personally can stand and I don’t want it to die, especially with no comparable option in sight.)

The way I see this panning out:

User puts fan content (fic, gifs, etc) behind paywall

IP holder finds out and hits Tumblr with DCMA/C&D

In typical hamfisted Tumblr fashion, staff will delete user’s blog instead of dealing with this on a case-by-case basis because a) a precedented knee-jerk reaction like when the app got removed from the Apple store, and b) who has time for that anyway? Pffft

Mass deletion of monetized blogs. Remaining monetized blogs either become victims of harassment or make no money at all because solid gold nobody wants to see Post+ happen

Negative net profit for Tumblr

Tumblr finally shuts down

And what is Tumblr going to do in order to prevent users from monetizing fanart and fanfiction? Hire a team of living breathing humans to examine every single paywall to make sure the content is 100% original? How would someone who is not the IP holder be able to tell if the artist ripped off a character? What if the character was traced but slightly altered? What if it’s an original character but from an existing franchise like Star Wars or Marvel?

Would a regular person be able to make these judgement calls? I don’t think so. And Tumblr certainly isn’t going to bother hiring people to do that. (Which they could and should have done in 2018 instead of throwing thousands of artists under the bus and doing fuckall about the bot problem. Which is still a problem, nearly 3 years later. Good job, guys.)

@staff​ you need to be aware of the absolute deluge of litigation that implementing Post+ will bring down on your heads. People will try to monetize fanfiction, regardless of whether or not they know it’s illegal.

I was basically wondering if you (or anyone else) has been experiencing the same problems, or if maybe it's a regional restriction thing (I'm from western europe). I don't get anything except errors though.

(aside from that, maybe I should get a subscription on your ask box too. lmao I feel like I'm in here every week.. have a nice day!)

Hi hi! I was about to report on this for this weeks Friday update.

I don't know the particulars but it looks like at least 3 of the major BL suppliers on Daily Motion got their accounts stripped. Since they all know each other, some of the others might be a bit gun shy for a while. 

My understanding is that DM works very like YouTube, which is to say if you upload too many proprietary IPs over too long you will eventually get filed with a DMCA takedown notice. If you get too many of those, you get your account taken away.

DM serves a MUCH smaller audience than YT so it tends to be lower down the list of priorities for IP holders, but eventually it comes around. In other words, they fry bigger fish first until DM does something to catch their attention.

My guess is it's the higher traffic accounts that had higher subs and were serving up Light on Me or other Korean stuff that was just a little bit too popular.

You'll have to haunt the My Drama Listings comments threads, Drama Cool, and a few of the less savory grey sites for a while. I'll keep posting links in the Friday update, if I find them.

Another thing you can do is try to figure out the airing time. If you know that, jump on YT for a six hour window after the airtime. There are a few accounts there who upload for just a limited time, then take the IP down themselves before the vanity alerts catch them. This only happens with a few shows tho.

Of course, I hope it goes without saying that if you can afford to get it legally in your country via a subscription service or other platform, you should try to do that. If content providers aren't paid for their content, we will stop getting it. But I understand finances and territory restrictions can make that difficult if not impossible.