lampietheclown
New Member
I ran an adult website from 1999 to 2004. The content was shot by me, and the images were all watermarked with ©nameofthesite.com and the year they were posted. In the end, I failed to pay the hosting company, and the site was taken down.
About a year later, the time ran out on the domain name, and it was purchased by one of those companies that holds thousands of names, and no sites. Forward about 3 years, to last November, and the domain was up for auction. The guy who won the bidding is now claiming ownership of all the content, because the images and video were marked with the domain name instead of my name. He claims he bought the content along with the domain name, from the company who held it for three years. I think he got it from an ex-employee of mine, but who can say?
Now he has sent the content in to be registered, something I failed to do when the site was up, and saw no need for after it closed.
My thoughts are:
A) I was the sole owner and the website name was a dba. Just because someone else takes up the name after I go out of business, does not give them rights to my inventory.
B) The content was all derivative works, photoshopped, cropped, and edited. None of the raw images or video was posted. If I still hold the rights to the original work, I also hold the rights to the derivative work, especially since I created the derivitives.
C) I hold the models releases.
Anybody want to find the holes in my thinking? I'm not looking for "nice", I'm looking for honest. Now is the time for me to find the weak spots, or strengths I hadn't noticed, should there be any.
I'm curently organizing the raw images to send in, even though he has quite a jump on me time wise. Can anybody tell me how the Copyright Office has handled such situations in the past?
Thanks,
Lampie
About a year later, the time ran out on the domain name, and it was purchased by one of those companies that holds thousands of names, and no sites. Forward about 3 years, to last November, and the domain was up for auction. The guy who won the bidding is now claiming ownership of all the content, because the images and video were marked with the domain name instead of my name. He claims he bought the content along with the domain name, from the company who held it for three years. I think he got it from an ex-employee of mine, but who can say?
Now he has sent the content in to be registered, something I failed to do when the site was up, and saw no need for after it closed.
My thoughts are:
A) I was the sole owner and the website name was a dba. Just because someone else takes up the name after I go out of business, does not give them rights to my inventory.
B) The content was all derivative works, photoshopped, cropped, and edited. None of the raw images or video was posted. If I still hold the rights to the original work, I also hold the rights to the derivative work, especially since I created the derivitives.
C) I hold the models releases.
Anybody want to find the holes in my thinking? I'm not looking for "nice", I'm looking for honest. Now is the time for me to find the weak spots, or strengths I hadn't noticed, should there be any.
I'm curently organizing the raw images to send in, even though he has quite a jump on me time wise. Can anybody tell me how the Copyright Office has handled such situations in the past?
Thanks,
Lampie