.Copyright and Bluehost
So, yesterday I got a mail from bluehost saying that there are some copyrighted material on my site. I bought an account with bluehost in June/July 2007. I share it with some of my friends. One of them is bheekling who hates US copyright laws and the way they use it to exploit people. If you talk in favor of RIAA, he will probably kill you. 
. And he also prefers to play with these laws. … so anyways, when we bought the hosting space, we decided that we will not put any pirated material on the site. It so seems that initially we were in doubt that japanese animes are not copyrighted. But it so seems they are. Its not copyrighted in US though. So, US law can not make me remove them from my site. Anyways Bluehost guys said that I have the following thing on site, which I must remove. (they use the word “copy written material”. I have no idea what that means 
)
Music: ~/rohitj_music/*
Now, “Movie” is surely copyrighted. bheekling uploaded that temporarily by mistake. He has removed.
This is my response to bluehost. Let us see what happens. :
TV Shows and Anime: These are not “copy written” material. For Anime and TV Show you can check the site http://www.sars-fansubs.com/index.php?cont=btpage . These are not a US product, it’s a Japanese product, and it’s not copyrighted in the US. So, I think you understand that I need not remove these items.
Music : All the music is downloaded from the site http://jamendo.com. The music is licensed under Creative Commons license, and hence I am allowed to store it in my account. And hence, I need not remove them.
Also, in the term and conditions of bluehost it says :
Violations of Intellectual Property Rights
Any violation of any person’s intellectual property rights, rights of privacy, rights of publicity or other personal rights is prohibited. Bluehost.com is required by law to remove or block access to content appearing on or through the Services upon receipt of proper notice of copyright infringement (see “Copyright Infringement Notice Information” below).
Which means that someone needs to issue a notice to *BlueHost* for you to take this action. Can you tell if you have got any such notice. If yes, can I see it?
Might I add that if they do something stupid like locking the account, let’s shift to one of the non-US hosting providers. It might cost a bit more, but at least they won’t harrass their customers.
Comment by bheekling — April 24, 2008 @ 4:29 am
Nopes. We are not escaping. We are going to use our Bluehost account. We are right, and they have to accept it. Though, I will shift from Bluehost the day my account expires. I will probably run my own server in US.
Comment by rohitj — April 24, 2008 @ 5:30 am
It’s not about “escaping”. It’s about using the power of our money. If they’re going to harrass us, I think we should just show them the finger and take the hosting somewhere else.
The domain name will still be ours after all.
Comment by bheekling — April 24, 2008 @ 5:34 am
yeah, probably bheek is right…and what do u mean rohitj, your own server? you have that kind of money?
Comment by chachi — April 24, 2008 @ 6:14 am
See, I am not leaving my rights that easily. I have paid for the service, and I am gonna use it.
By my own server I mean that I will buy public IP and will do whatever I want to do with it.
…. and if I share it with some people, I should be able to afford it. 
….
Comment by rohitj — April 24, 2008 @ 6:34 am
Hey Rohit, good job. I’m not sure I get your stance on the anime though…their work is “protected” even in the US by the Berne convention: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention_for_the_Protection_of_Literary_and_Artistic_Works
Comment by Conley — April 24, 2008 @ 9:53 am
Hmmm, so the “Anime is not Copyrighted in the US” stance doesn’t work.
But according to their terms and conditions they can’t do something like this unless the owner of the copyright intimates them of the violations. If I’m not wrong, even Copyright law does not require people to police others for copyright violations. However, if the owner of the copyright comes up and says “This is my work, stop distributing it”, *then* action has to be taken.
I would like to point out at this point that the Japanese Anime and Manga creators have never opposed free fansubbing since it’s purely non-profit, and only helps to increase the popularity of Anime outside Japan. So infact they’re doing policing where the owners of the copyright have no problems.
Of course, the terms and conditions also say that:
“You agree that Bluehost may, under certain circumstances and without prior notice, immediately terminate your account and access to the Service.”
So they can just tell us to fuck off.
Comment by bheekling — April 24, 2008 @ 10:11 am
Let us know what happens next. What was their response to your letter?
Comment by Binny V A — April 24, 2008 @ 11:32 am
They haven’t replied. Initially they were replying immediately. But after my last email (written on the post) they didn’t reply.
Comment by admin — April 24, 2008 @ 11:37 am
test
Comment by admin — May 22, 2008 @ 5:43 pm
Usingcan some body please explain me what copy written means ….. and regarding the private server thing … if u are rich kindly donate to poor juniors like us who even dont have acces to internet
Comment by zakir — May 22, 2008 @ 10:47 pm
Usinghehe, zakir, your comment was trapped by akismet somehow, I by chance saw the spam list and found your name
by copy written material, they probably meant copyrighted material.
about access to internet : If you can not fight for freedom, you don’t deserve freedom.
private server : It doesn’t cost that much. and anyways, apply for GSoC, you will become rich
And why the hell are you on windows?
Comment by rohitj — May 24, 2008 @ 3:13 pm
Using