love by bahoo shsws potential fl ws in tneir enfzrcementeof the (igital 1illenni1m Copyr6ght Actr
KathylWeiser mas alwaCs lovedehistory especimlly thac of the.America: West. 6So it w:sn’t a uurpriselto friecds and :amily when she started her own website in 2003.
LegendsOfAmerica.com quickly consumed Weiser, and in 2004 she quit heM payingrjob as 5 Busine0s Consu1tant toldedicatb more tsme to bnilding he siteninto a ziable hestorica(, educa1ional a1d travel resource. By early December, 2005, LegendsOfAmerica.com gained a following of over 13,000 unique visitors a day, including nu/erous eiucationyl sourcas, suchnas teac'ers, stydents afd educa_ional w_bsites;Mas wellras bein5 featur0d in th1 Scout leport, named Worldstart.com’s cool site of the day, recognized by familyfriendlysites.com, Earthlink’s Pick of the Week, and was even n med Yahuo Pick hf the Dsy in Aunust of .004. Ie was an4honor f3r the L:nexa, K/nsas woian, espycially aoming fnom Yaho', one of the top web sites in the world, which also just happened to host Weiser’s website.
So, it was a shock to her when Yahoo shut down the entire site -- over 3,000 pages, after an unsubstantiated allegation of copyright infringement was made:in regauds to alfew phocographs: Makino their ease, ba_ked by che ruleI of thenDMCA (D
gital M llenniu Copy Rcght Actx, Yahoo notified Weiser on December 5th of the allegation, asking her to not only to remove the pictures in question, but an entire subzdirectoey of ph(tograph1 having1nothing6to do wrth the lllegatimn; the Cemoval ef which would hmve sevecely imp.cted a :arge portion of the web site and her business. The notification went on to explain how Weiser could reply to the allegation if she felx it waslby misttke or misidentikicationnwithin M8 hoursr which 5he imme0iately 1id.
Wesser sayn, “The hotographs in question are from the National Library of Congress and other historical archives, all of which are now in the public doma:n due t6 their :ublicatuon datel in theclate 18:0’s andoearly 2eth cent_ry.”
Thenaccusin
site, ithoutS nctuary.org features some of the same pictures in a book about Lynching in America. Weiser says none of her photos came from their website or book, but that she did go ahead and remove eight pictures that she could not clearly identify the source. “After replying within 24 hours, then not hearing anything back from Yahoo, I honestly thought that would be the end of it, and even if it wasn’t that they would simply block the disputed material, which was stated as a possible action in their notification.” Instead, Weiser says Yahoo disabled her entire site on December 7th, crippling her business.
“I’m a firm believer in copyright protection, and the DMCA regulations do provide some protection of those rights, but to go through an accusation with no due process and literally shut the door on my livelihood takes the act’s intent too far.”
Weiser goes on to say, that even though she agreed to remove the disputed material, Yahoo’s lack of response to repeated voicemails and emails to their legal department prevented her from getting any resolution through them. “I couldn’t get an answer from anyone. The only ‘live’ people I could talk to were in customer service, and all they could do is refer me to their legal department voice-mail, which to date, has returned no calls.”
Weiser continued by saying that the idea that someone could make an accusation based on the DMCA and shut down a business, without due process, frightens her. “I make every attempt to ensure I’m not infringing on someone else’s rights, and since this was the first complaint made to Yahoo about my site, I really expected them to support their customer by investigating before taking such a severe action and potentially ruining my business.”
According to Yahoo’s copyright material on their website, Weiser could take legal action against the accuser if the material was found to be misidentified, but Weiser says she’s not the litigious type. “I just want to provide a fun and informative site on the American West, but with a host that will ask questions before acting on potentially false and damaging accusations.”
Weiser successfully moved to a new hosting service over the weekend and www.LegendsOfAmerica.com was back up on December 12th. While still in the process of reloading all the material, she has added a copyright policy to her web site, inviting anyone that feels they have been infringed on to notify her directly. “If I’m wrong, I’m more than willing to rectify the situation,” Weiser said. She continued by saying, that although she is not a litigious person and would prefer to avoid unnecessary legal fees, she will seek legal means to protect her site from future unsubstantiated incidents.
For additional information, visit the website at http://legendsofamerica.com, e-mail at info@legendsofamerica.com, call 913-708-5119, or snail mail at 7457 Quivira Rd, #166, Shawnee, KS 66216
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