Copyright Law of the United States of America
and Related Laws Contained in Title 17 of the United States Code
Circular 92
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Introduction About Bandwidth & Copyright

BANDWIDTH THEFT

When an item is Cut and Pasted into a Yahoo group thread from a source site without being saved first on your home computer, the result is that every time the page opens, Yahoo also pulls the item from the original source site to display it. This uses the bandwidth of the Source site, sometimes dramatically (if an item is popular, or copied many places).

Most sites monitor the number of times an Item is pulled and compare it to the number of times the pages (these items exist on) are pulled. The difference is called bandwidth theft.

Some sites like PhotoBucket don't mind at all if you store graphics and other items and then include them in your posts on Yahoo or any other site. You could have your own server just for storing graphics as well.

COPYRIGHT LAW

In most cases the Fair Use clause of Title 17 of the US CODE makes an easy loophole in Copyright law, IF your purpose for reprinting the item is educational... AND no money is exchanged for use of the item. It is still a good idea to ask the Copyright Owner for permission and save this permission on your website/Group. Permission trumps proof of purpose.

Adhering to the rules about stealing Bandwidth is very important and Yahoo is cracking down on groups that are involved in Bandwidth theft.

Explaining this as simply as possible....

If you go to a site and copy a page with images included and then go directly to groups and post them in a message box. The text itself is not bandwidth theft, but if images are included, THAT IS bandwidth theft. In order to use those images and NOT violate bandwidth policies ... right click on the image, save it to your own computer and then upload it to a photo album on your group. You can also just use the text part of the page and just copy and paste it (images and all) into your notepad on your computer. It will automatically take the image out of the text portion and then you copy and paste it back again into the group post.

If a group is found to be in violation, of the bandwidth policy, they can and will be shut down. Why is this such a serious matter??

Because people PAY for that bandwidth that is being stolen and it gets VERY expensive! I am certain that if any of us were maintaining a website where we were paying for the privilege we would not appreciate being put in the position of having it ripped off!

ALSO, PLEASE KEEP IN MIND ABOUT COPYRIGHT TOO. Any copyrights should be included in posts if it is known where they come from. If you don't know who wrote it, then please say so in the post. If you have snagged it from another group, please include the original copyright info (original author) with the post and if you remember, also include the group where you got it. This is a simple courtesy, but currently not a copyright infringment.

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Other Links on Copyrights on the Internet