A few months ago, I was asked by the webmaster at the hospital I practice in if I could move my pages because of the traffic it received. "No problem" I said, because I knew that I could stick them on Compuserve's new web site that was created for members (of which I have been for 8 years). So I did, and it has been a frustrating process to say the least.
A few days after I uploaded all the pages, I received a message from their webmaster telling me that I was not allowed to have anything that may be copyrighted, period. They were mostly concerned about the images. They gave me 10 days to move the "offending material" off of their server. They then suspended my page. I talked with the webmaster back at the hospital, and we came to an agreement where I could stick the pictures on his site, but the text and all other things would be on Compuserves site.
So I deleted everything off of Cserve and uploaded the html text with *links* to the pictures on the hospitals site, but on the 10th day of my probation, I got another message from them stating:
"As stated in the previous email, once you send assurances that you have sufficient rights to upload the questioned material, (Images of Beavis &Butthead) then your Home Page will not be suspended. You have NOT assured us that you have sufficient rights. Once you have assured us that you have obtained sufficient rights, your Home Page will remain available on CompuServe's Our World Domain."
I wasn't sure what they meant, since no images were on their site anymore, just links to images! They also stated in their message " Your Home Page may be re-uploaded at time, minus the suspected material." I thought I had done this. I did it again, and wrote back asking what was wrong. This was Tuesday.
Everything was fine until today, when I got yet another message telling me that my home page was suspended again, with this reason attached:
"Any image that you did not personally create or produce, is a copyrighted image. If you had taken the picture yourself, (ie. of a celebrity) you would have "ownership" of that image, unless it is easily recognizable (ie. from Star Trek). In order to publish copyrighted content, you need to obtain permission from whoever owns the original material. A good "rule of thumb" is: If in doubt, leave it out."
Now I am totally confused. I still haven't gotten a reason why my home page was suspended, just semi-legal garbage. I read their FAQ, and in no place does it state that you cannot link to other sites with images on them. And what the hell does "If you had taken the picture yourself, (ie. of a celebrity) you would have "ownership" of that image, unless it is easily recognizable (ie. from Star Trek)" mean? Does that mean if I was at a Star Trek convention and I took a picture of the cast or some of the props, I couldn't post it on their web server!? What about if I took a picture of Cindy Crawford? She's pretty recognizable. Jeez...
I have written to MTV asking for persmission to use the images, which I am pessimistic I will get (if I even get an answer). I'll try Viacom next, after which I will give up and start looking for another ISP. Anyway, I am writing this to let you know that if you get a "Page Currently Unavailable" or some of the links don't work when you try to access my site, this is the reason. Lawyers!!
Chris