[ANNC] A reminder...

Post by **STrRedWolf** » Sat Mar 02, 2002 6:43 pm

Right now, we are seeing folks that think their accounts here on KeenSpace are general purpose. Let us remind you that you agreed that we can remove your account for any reason (but we're reasonable folk). We will contact you if you are in violation.

So what will definetly kill your account? Kisai did a small review, to which I'll expand:

1. Using KeenSpace for personal storage of any kind. (MP3's, ZIP files, etc)

Simply put, if it's not related to your comic and does not have a link to it on your page, it shouldn't be in your KeenSpace account to begin with. Remember, you have a 50 Meg quota to start. If you're serious about your comic strip, you're going to need all 50 megs. When you hit the limit, a review will be needed by the Admins in order to lift it.

2. Violation of copyright/trademarks, if we recieve a legal threat or "cease and desist" notification.

YES, this has happened. Ask Teri. We don't want Cease and Desist orders, we don't want the legal fight. If you are using a third party's characters, it has to be a very explicit parody, or you have to get permission to use their characters.

3. Failure to display or interfering with the display of advertisements.

The ads need to be near the top of the web page so they can pay the bandwidth. We are working on other advertising opportunites that do not offend.

4. Using keenspace as any kind of frame, gateway or redirection for a third party webspace.

Your comic must be on our server. Isn't it obvious? We give you the space, the tools, and the community and you just shun us like this?!?

5. Spam-advertizing your comic on KeenSpace, or using KeenSpace to spam.

Not only does it mark you as spammers, it marks us as spam hosts unless we shoot on sight. And I am very "mallet happy."

(Thanks to Kisai for the info...)
_________________
Kelly "STrRedWolf" Price (aka WolfSkunk "STriker" RedWolf)
Administrator, KeenSpace and Writer/Artist, <A HREF="http://stalag99.keenspace.com/" TARGET=_blank>Stalag '99</a>
WARNING: Swings a mean wooden mallet with the letters L, A, R, T.

[ This Message was edited by: STrRedWolf on 2002-03-02 18:44 ]

[ This Message was edited by: STrRedWolf on 2002-03-02 22:05 ]

Post by **STrRedWolf** » Sat Mar 02, 2002 7:03 pm

Now, if I can switch hats for a moment... from admin to Lumber Cartel (tinlc) member...

You're probably confused as to what consitutes spamming or spam-advertising. Here's some guidelines.

I myself do not consider these spamming/spamvetizing:

Putting your comic URL in your .signature in e-mail or Usenet posts, or the signature in many web-baised Bulliten Board Systems.
Telling your friends by mouth you have a comic, one at a time, slowly.
Setting up a Yahoo! Groups mailing list and inviting (not just force-subscribing) folks to join it on your list.
Creating an ad banner or link-button for cross-linking (ether by you via a paid ad banner provider, or by a viewer because your comic is cool in their eyes)
Paying to sponsor a third-party e-mail list (like This Is True)

What I do consider spamming is:

Sending out of the wazoo any advertizement to any remote party who didn't ask for it in the first place.
Plastering any advertizement all over Usenet like it was going out of style.
Wallpapering a URL on a webboard, where it's not allowed.
Doing anything in which KeenSpace gets slapped into the SPEWS or Spamhaus DNS Block Lists, and not our upstream provider. (If it's our upstream provider, then me, Nate, Gav, Chris, and Teri are going to... well, I won't say, it's up to the courts in Cali to decide).

If we get a spam report here, or if I myself hear about it on Usenet's news.admin.net-abuse.email, I'm going to remove it and hang a nice little sign saying "Removed for Spamming."

Now, if that sobers you up, I've done my job.

Smbc · Post by **Smbc** » Sat Mar 02, 2002 8:04 pm

Hey, my site is down right now, but I don't believe I'm guilty of any of the above. Is this a maintenance issue, or did I do something I shouldn't have?

Kevin Wolf · Post by **Kevin Wolf** » Sat Mar 02, 2002 8:41 pm

On 2002-03-02 20:04, smbc wrote:
Hey, my site is down right now, but I don't believe I'm guilty of any of the above. Is this a maintenance issue, or did I do something I shouldn't have?

All of the sites appear to be down at the moment (again), so you can relax.

Smbc · Post by **Smbc** » Sat Mar 02, 2002 9:39 pm

Any word on when they'll be back up?

Post by **STrRedWolf** » Sat Mar 02, 2002 10:04 pm

We're working on it.

Post by **Kisai** » Sat Mar 02, 2002 11:46 pm

I had more on the initial message but changed my mind because it seemed to rantish.

There are two kinds of comics that are of questionable "copyright infringement"

1. "Sprite-rip" , any comic that uses illegal copies of image data from a commercial game. This also extends to "cut and paste" comics where the original image(s) may be of copyrighted origin.
2. Sites that feature characters or "likeness" of copyrighted/trademark characters, locations, or items.

Outright all sprite-rip comics are in violation of copyrights. There are comics of a "diliberate zoom pixel" style which are not "sprite-rips" as the image data is original. However technically usage of any game graphical data is "illegally copied" when used outside the hardware or game-engine it was for.(ROM/DISC -> Emulator/game-engine -> Video buffer -> screen capture.)

The second problem, which can arguably be called a parody, but is in fact not, is using copyrighted/trademarked characters/locations/objects in your comic. If you made a comic about the star of a certain video game, this is no longer a parody, but in fact trademark violation. If you "spoof" an element from the game that features said character, and the character doesn't show up all the time, then it's a parody/cameo.

In other words, if you have a comic about Mario, Sonic, MegaMan, Any of the Final Fantasy characters, etc and you use their names, you are in fact violating a trademark.
However, having a comic called "adventures of being stuck in a video game" and had the lead characters run into any of these characters once, you are in the parody/cameo area. However doing anything that would devalue the trademarked/copyrighted character could also be looked upon as copyright infringement or trademark violation.

What usually brings this to our attention is a "cease and desist order" or any other "legal" threat.

So, if you can get permission, all the better (state that you have permission on the webpage too.) Lying about the origin of the material (not giving credit where credit is due) is likely to get you in hot water a lot faster.

And as we have all seen, popularity on the internet kills. Wouldn't you hate to have a popular comic at the peak of popularity only to have a lawyer order us to shut it down?

I will note that "plugging" something in a webcomic can be a double-edged sword. You either get a positive situation, where something "good" happens. Or you get the negative problem where you manage to draw attention to yourself and whatever you "plugged" causes a legal stir.

_________________
Kisai
KeenSpace Sortable Comic Index ( http://cerror.keenspace.com/keendex/index.html )

[ This Message was edited by: Kisai on 2002-03-02 23:50 ]

Kevin Wolf · Post by **Kevin Wolf** » Sun Mar 03, 2002 9:56 am

Am I the only one who finds this finger-shaking excercise a bit ill-timed? I mean, you can't infringe trademark when your site is inaccessible, can you?

Just some food for thought. Imagine getting harrassed by a traffic cop while you're walking to work because your car is in the shop.

Post by **Kisai** » Sun Mar 03, 2002 11:36 am

*.keenspace.com is down except for phpbb and www

Shoe · Post by **Shoe** » Sun Mar 03, 2002 1:38 pm

I may be wrong, but earlier when trying to connect to *.keenspace.com (minus phbbb and www), it gave you a globe thing at the bottom of the screen, whilst now it says Opening Page. Do I detect progress?

Shepherd · Post by **Shepherd** » Sun Mar 03, 2002 3:33 pm

Okay, I should get something cleared up, then.

Occasionally (four times so far) I feature historical/famous characters in Man-Man. Off the top of my head, Beethoven, Louis Pasteur, Jacques Derrida (a contemporary French philosopher) and the Pope have appeared. Generally it's their greyscale heads on a cartoon body.

I suppose I could say "hey! It's a parody!" but I'm just doing it because my higly idiosyncratic sense of humour finds it really funny to throw these famous serious people in a very silly comic.

I'm not worried about the dead people, but would the use of the still-kicking Derrida and Pope constitute violation of the copyright policy?

I'm working off several very popular precedents using "real" people in the strip, but that doesn't neccessarily make it kosher. I seriously never thought it'd be a problem, though.

So...cease and desist, at least with the people who are still alive? Or does it matter? If you want to check a good example (Jacques Derrida), run through the "Scary Story Man" archives on the site.

Thanks for your sound advice,

Post by **STrRedWolf** » Sun Mar 03, 2002 5:04 pm

Not quite, Shepherd, if you limit your use of them to cameo's. Doing celebreties full-bore for the entire time is asking for trouble, unless you have permission from them to include them in your comic.

It doesn't hurt to ask, of course.

Some celebs may have a public policy allowing it. Check first.

Also, the estates (or relatives) of deceased relatives may send a "Ceise and Desist" to KeenSpace. *May*. If the person has recently died (within a few years, I would say), and you want to feature him/her in your strip as at least a reoccuring charcter, you'll need permission at the very least from the estate.

If you think you're in volation, ask here on the Help Forum. Seriously. If you're upfront on it, you get brownie points

Nick Sacco · Post by **Nick Sacco** » Sun Mar 03, 2002 7:29 pm

In my cameo I'm about to have Dimebag Darrel (heavy metal band Pantera guitarist) cameo for about 3-5 comics, and then he's gone. I think this is cutting it..

But does anyone know about http://www.webshots.com? I use real-life pics as backgrounds (I blur them first). I've been afraid since the beginning if this was legal or not. I dunno if it would be public domain or what; I tried to read their website but got no straight answer. Of course, some of the pics the photographers copyright. But others aren't... sooo.. I don't know.

Post by **Kisai** » Mon Mar 04, 2002 8:21 pm

Okay, regarding pictures of real places.

1. If you asked permission to take a picture of said place and they agreed, you are legally in the clear.

2. IF you asked permission to take a picture and they refused or wanted royalties, it's better off to not take a picture (especially in the case of royalties where keeping track of that image on a website is a PITA.) If you go ahead and take a picture they can sue you.

3. If you took a picture of any random location that is accesable to the public (parks, exterior of heritage buildings etc) you are usually safe unless the owner of the property has forbidden photography. If the building exterior has a trademark name in it (Like a mall's store name,) you might get in hot water. One of the reasons for blurring pictures is to eliminate any visible trademark names.

If you are using a camera with manual focus, you can actually adjust the focus so the picture is out-of-focus in the background. However say you took a picture of Wal-Mart, with the trademark color sheme and banner shapes, you might want to crop the picture so that it's not so obvious.

Oh BTW. Taking pictures INSIDE buildings is always a bad idea unless you ask the building owner/manager, and they almost always say no.

Yes this means that technically you can take pictures of anything, but you most likely can not use them for any commercial purpose.

Taking a picture of anything that is outside and visible to all is a lot more safe. Just realize that if you have to step on to someones property to take that picture, you need that property owners permission.

Yes this is a lot of hassle. If you want to avoid it, draw/paint/trace the background and leave out specific identifying parts.

There is also the concept of "other people" in the picture. If you manage to get a picture of someone else and that person ever finds your site and asks you to take it down, you have to comply (though figuring out if the person is the same person is hard. )

If you want to be completely safe, just don't use actual photos.

You know how news on TV has people, locations, and whatnot shown? Notice how when they ask people for an interview and they refuse they don't go any further. They don't go walking into someones house and then asking permission. Usually you see the outside of the person's house and the reporter knocking on the door.

If you aren't sure, ask. For the most part if "it could be anywhere" you probably don't have to worry about it coming back to haunt you. Like taking a picture of a park bench, pay phone, bus stop, random house in the suburbs, etc.