CBR: HTMLComics Proprieter Used "Library" Defense

[CBR News]

With last week's announcement of the U.S. Department of Justice filing a lawsuit against Gregory Hart over his HTMLComics website, CBR News looks at the recent developments and legal arguments involved in the case.


Full article here.

[Kolymar]

I see a world of hurt in his future. I never used his site but I wouldn't mind its availability. Even better, that of a complete online library. Sigh... money sucks.

[Mark_Parnell]

How does it work though with libraries if a book is donated? I often donate hardcovers to my local library which they in turn lend out. How would it be different if users were uploading comics to the server?

[Nick Soapdish]

How does it work though with libraries if a book is donated? I often donate hardcovers to my local library which they in turn lend out. How would it be different if users were uploading comics to the server?

If someone is uploading a comic to the server, they aren't surrendering their own copy. It's like you're going to Kinko's to make a copy of your book and donating that to the library. Plus, the article claims that you don't have the right to make an electronic copy anyway.

I thought that most donated books were re-sold by the library friends' group anyway.

[egghead79]

Libraries only have a limited amount of a certain work to lend out at a time.

[Tom B]

I'm not sure of the etiquette, but maybe CBR should just give
the IP addresses of it's members to Marvel and D.C. as a
comparative to help track some of these downloaders down?
There might be a privacy violation type of uproar (from the guilty),
but overall I think it would only help sales?

[howyadoin]

I'm not sure of the etiquette, but maybe CBR should just give
the IP addresses of it's members to Marvel and D.C. as a
comparative to help track some of these downloaders down?

Oh yeah, that's bound to be a good idea. Nothing could possibly go wrong.

[Whitster]

I'm not sure of the etiquette, but maybe CBR should just give
the IP addresses of it's members to Marvel and D.C. as a
comparative to help track some of these downloaders down?
There might be a privacy violation type of uproar (from the guilty),
but overall I think it would only help sales?

If your looking for a way to alienate all your users in one feel move, you've found it.

[Nick Soapdish]

I'm not sure of the etiquette, but maybe CBR should just give
the IP addresses of it's members to Marvel and D.C. as a
comparative to help track some of these downloaders down?
There might be a privacy violation type of uproar (from the guilty),
but overall I think it would only help sales?

It's not just the guilty that care about their privacy.

[Ray R.]

I'm not sure of the etiquette, but maybe CBR should just give
the IP addresses of it's members to Marvel and D.C. as a
comparative to help track some of these downloaders down?
There might be a privacy violation type of uproar (from the guilty),
but overall I think it would only help sales?

I've never downloaded a comic in my life, but that type of 3rd party discovery shouldn't be provided without a subpoena to CBR, and more importantly without material facts necessary to provide cause for potentially checking the hard drives of people with ostensibly zero association with the HTMLComics site. CBR has no relation to HTMLComics whatsoever. I don't like piracy as much as anyone else, but no need to go ridiculously overboard.

It IS a privacy violation, and a useless, stupid one to boot.

[passer-by]

I'm not sure of the etiquette, but maybe CBR should just give
the IP addresses of it's members to Marvel and D.C. as a
comparative to help track some of these downloaders down?
There might be a privacy violation type of uproar (from the guilty),
but overall I think it would only help sales?

As you probably know, online piracy hasn't started with HTMLComics - they even mention Demonoid in the OP link, and there are dozens such trackers, both in the US and abroad.
Not sure illegal downloading of comics from some people (from all over the world, at that) is reason enough for CBR and other such sites to provide a customer database to comic books publishers.

I get enough advertising e-mails from Amazon, Bookdepository and AbeBooks. I'd rather avoid that from Marvel, DC and the other publishers, thank you very much.

[Joe Acro]

Like a library, he said, the site provides reading material to the public for free but does not allow people to keep the books, because the site is set up not to allow users to download the materials (although numerous people have stated that in fact they did so).

Libraries don't provide material to the public for free. Their upkeep is included in taxes and various fines. Fines include things like late fees, something that seems unused within HTMLComics.

[Tadhg]

I'm not sure of the etiquette, but maybe CBR should just give
the IP addresses of it's members to Marvel and D.C. as a
comparative to help track some of these downloaders down?
There might be a privacy violation type of uproar (from the guilty),
but overall I think it would only help sales?

Even putting aside all the privacy concerns and legal ramifications, this makes absolutely zero sense. It'd take time(and billable hours) and wouldn't provide any significant usable information. Let's say there's an IP match, between a user of CBR and a user of htmlcomics. What information is obtained? A username for CBR and possibly an e-mail address that upon even more time investigating(and more billable hours) could either dead-end or eventually lead to the identity of the pirate. This also ignores that large blocks of IP Addresses are shared between many people as their service providers dynamically assign them a public IP address.

Why in the hell would Marvel and DC go through that? If they have the addresses of people using htmlcomics, they can go directly to the Internet Service Provider where they'd be much more likely to gain usable information.

[CYOTI]

With last week's announcement of the U.S. Department of Justice filing a lawsuit against Gregory Hart over his HTMLComics website, CBR News looks at the recent developments and legal arguments involved in the case.


Full article here.

This has been his argument since day one, unless he wants to be some chump's butt monkey in jail, he needs to come up with a better one

[StoneGold]

I had never been to HTMLcomics. For anyone in the know, did they host files themselves, or were they providing links to filehosting sites?