SuperGu Attempting to Copyright Pligg Code, Sends C&D

[Simpatico]

Have the Pligg developers heard of Chilling Effects? It's basically a website about online rights and is a joint project of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Harvard, Stanford, Berkeley, University of San Francisco, University of Maine, George Washington School of Law, and Santa Clara University School of Law clinics.

They are building a database of Cease and Desist notices (submit here). They don't provide individual legal advice, but "can ... help present the issues as lawyers think about them and answer general questions: Does the law really say that? What is the scope of copyright, trademark, or defamation law? What defenses exist for a given claim?".

Check it out.

[Olney]

What's the use of one starting all this if they have to shut down all of their own sites?
All of his sites are down

sortby.us
supergu.com
inboxnews.com

[abcdefgary]

I'm not very familiar with the basics of legal issues because of my age, but wouldn't it be correct to say that Pligg would be the innocent side of the battle?

And if in the end, Pligg would still be the winners? And for causing all this trouble, is it correct to say that Phelps would then need to pay Pligg for causing so much trouble?

Just wondering.

[noyp]

.
.
Reminder for everyone, the internet is the "record keeper" of the truth as well as lies.

"What you do online is carved in stone for all to see" until the internet shuts down or maybe if Google ever goes bankrupt -- until then it matters.

One other aspect of Web 2.0 is called reputation


Hey Pliggers, looking forward to the next version.... =)

[PliggWizard]

You saw http://www.supergu.com/ and http://supergu.com/ are password protected.

Did you try http://pligg.supergu.com/ ?
It shows James Phelps own site. Sames goes for sortby.us http://pligg.sortby.us/



NB: LOL, all his sub domains are forwarded to his own site

[dollars5]

On Mar 21, 2007

Thank you for your inquiry addressed to the U.S. Copyright Office. If appropriate, we will normally respond within 5 working days. Please note that we answer questions regarding the mission and responsibilities of the Copyright Office but are prohibited from giving specific legal advice or offering a legal opinion. In addition, we are unable to answer effectively questions by email that raise complex issues and require a dialogue. In such situations, we may encourage you to contact us by telephone.

IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT FEES: The U.S. Copyright Office is considering adoption of new fees, which have been submitted to Congress for approval. The new, proposed fees will apply to applications for basic registrations and recordations filed on or after July 1, 2006, as well as to other special services requested after that date. Please check "Proposed New Fees" in the "What's New" section of our homepage for updates.

"The mission of the Copyright Office is to promote creativity by administering and sustaining an effective national copyright system."

Your question:

Hello Sir,

I need information on how to file an opposition to a copyright application that has been filed with your office. The issue is that a company/entity under the name "SuperGu" has filed an copyright application for a work/software that is licensed under AFFERO GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE (http://www.affero.org/oagpl.html) as an Open Source Software named "Pligg" (http://www.pligg.com)

The SuperGu has decided sue Pligg project contributors as a first step have sent a Ceise and Desist notice to them. The details can be found here http://www.pligg.com/5023/

I would personally be interested to file an opposition to their work, so kindly let me know the procedures to stop SuperGu from stealing a prior work and falsifying the details.

If you can look into this issue and prevent SuperGu from copyrighting an OSS project code that would really be kind of you.

Thanks.

Regards

Question submitted at 06:16 on 3/21/07.

Please note: This is an automatically generated message to which you cannot reply.

On Mar 22, 2007

There is no procedure for filing an opposition to a work submitted for copyright registration. The information provided on an application is taken on its face: if a person is misrepresenting (or has misunderstood) the facts of authorship or ownership on the application, a registration would be issued but the claim to copyright would only be as good as the facts behind it.

If your original work has been submitted to the Copyright Office without your consent, or the facts misrepresented on the application, then you should submit an application that reflects the facts as you understand them. To register original software, you would use the Form TX and you would follow the instructions provided here: http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ61.html .Simply submit the work as if the other registration had not been submitted (i.e. don't make any reference on the application to the previous registration).

We would put both claims to copyright on record. If there is a dispute as to the facts between you and the other party, it would then be up to a court of law to decide which of these "adverse claims" is the legitimate one. But you would have at least established a public record about the facts of authorship and ownership as you understand them.






**************IMPORTANT NOTE**************
As of July 1, 2006, most filing fees are $45 per application.
For other fees, please see:
http://www.copyright.gov/docs/fees.html


**********************************
Copyright Office
Library of Congress
101 Independence Ave SE
Washington DC 20559
(202) 707-3000
www.copyright.gov
**********************************

I replied on mar 22, 2007

Hello Sir,

Kindly be informed that the work I am referring to is in Public domain under the AFFERO GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE ( http://www.affero.org/oagpl.html) as an Open Source Software and any one is free to use it. If I claim copyright again - it is again a violation of the original license of the software. All I want is to make the "SuperGu" copyright application to become invalid or their claims rejected as all information are falsified and is claiming copyright for a work that he is not a original owner. The original owner to the project are hundreds of people who contributed to the coding of Pligg.

Please give me a clear solution to the current situation.

Regards

They replied on Mar 27, 2007

If the person filed a copyright application providing false information on it, then the registration they received would ultimately be worthless in a court of law. Nevertheless, there is no procedure to remove a registration that has been filed. We are an office of public record: if a person chooses to misrepresent facts or provide mistatements on certificates of registrations, they will be placed on record as part of the certificate and the person will have to ultimately answer for the facts they put on it. If you read the fine print at the bottom of the application form, it indicates that a person can be fined for providing false information on it, along without whatever judgement a court rules for criminal copyright infringement.

**************IMPORTANT NOTE**************
As of July 1, 2006, most filing fees are $45 per application.
For other fees, please see:
http://www.copyright.gov/docs/fees.html


**********************************
Copyright Office
Library of Congress
101 Independence Ave SE
Washington DC 20559
(202) 707-3000
www.copyright.gov
**********************************

Me on Mar 28, 2007

Thanks for the reply,

I am contacting you again for a clear clarification on this issue - will USCO mark the copyright as invalid or just file our reports together with it. And in case of any legal prosecutions, how would it help and what would be the role of USCO?

Thanks for your time.

Regards.

They replied on Mar 28, 2007

Quoting from our previous mail, We are an office of public record: if a person chooses to misrepresent facts or provide mistatements on certificates of registrations, they will be placed on record as part of the certificate and the person will have to ultimately answer for the facts they put on it. If you read the fine print at the bottom of the application form, it indicates that a person can be fined for providing false information on it, along without whatever judgement a court rules for criminal copyright infringement. Your report has been recorded on the registration that you mentioned.

Any legal actions may require our office to provide details on file related to the record: this again will make the reports on the record to also be produced before law that a person can be fined for providing false information on it.

**************IMPORTANT NOTE**************
As of July 1, 2006, most filing fees are $45 per application.
For other fees, please see:
http://www.copyright.gov/docs/fees.html


**********************************
Copyright Office
Library of Congress
101 Independence Ave SE
Washington DC 20559
(202) 707-3000
www.copyright.gov
**********************************

This makes Mr. James Phelps a mere loser before law. Pligg - if you decide to make any legal proceedings on Mr. James Phelps and his SuperGu company - sure that there is win and Pligg can claim for the emotional disturbances that were faced, make James Phelps a criminal and get fined for such mis-appropriation and put his professional into a miserable one as it would make him lose his license with the DRE in California as a Realtor - this has put him at the worst ever situation he would have ever dreamt of.....

EDIT:
It is very unfortunate that the Copyright registration with USCO cannot be made invalid, but only file complaints that will make the registration certificates a mere paper. I personally think that USCO needs an overhaul to allow invalidating of such false registrations. Again seems like many Pliggers and Diggers have also sent their complaints to USCO, EFF, FSF to get a notice - thanks to all.

[Azselendor]

I was chatting about this whole debacle with some friends this morning when I realized something.

Phelps is committing Fraud to the Federal Government by falsifying documents submitted to the Federal Government.

And I'm now wondering if that would consititue a violation under RICO
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rackete...anizations_Act

food for thought.

[Blinkk]

Originally Posted by tapiwa

The supergu are very dodgy.

and although they deny any affiliation, they were forwarding to blinkk.org for a while.

The blinkk folk had a "make a donation @ $50 per hour" to our project for us to release the code.

I have the emails from them if anyone is keen. And yes, they do admit that the "Blinkk Engine" as they call it, is open source.

Blinkk is not in any way connected in fact their forwarding was a DOS attack on Blinkk and us in an effort to kill us using digg. And I ask that you don't mention us in the same breath it really ticks me off. Grrr....ok now possibly something more peaceful. =)

Hi Tapiwa! Please don't connect us with those folks thats not very nice. I tried to warn you and the others. I also tried to warn the Pligg folks who run pligg here as well. No-one was listening to me.

We had our problems with them as well at our Blinkk site, just like Pligg did here, but before pligg did. They forwarded to us, after stirring up digg in an effort to try and kill our site, by posting us to digg a bunch of times badness about us.

However our hosting kungfu was strong. And it made us popular.

Blinkk never had a "make a donation @ $50 per hour" to our project, for us to release the code. We did however ask for professional services from people who requested changes to the code, not in our timeline.

BTW: You could have gotten the code you needed from us(Blinkk) for free, had you returned any one of my emails even once, specifically built for your application.

Note: You instead chose to ignore my emails, and believe the people that you now call dodgy, by participating in their forum, instead of believing us when you were warned, you heavily participated in their forum before coming here, and now you are spreading untrue rumors about Blinkk, based on what they said, even though you know now it's not true. That's not very nice. I ask is that you stop doing that.

-C

Blinkk

P.S. We actually have some very nice software. It's well liked. And we aren't in competition with pligg, nor connected to any folks you mention. An apology would be nice, now that you know the truth.

[beatniak]

Originally Posted by Blinkk

And I ask that you don't mention us in the same breath it really ticks me off. [...] Hi Tapiwa! Please don't connect us with those folks thats not very nice. I tried to warn you and the others. I also tried to warn the Pligg folks who run pligg here as well. No-one was listening to me.

Originally Posted by Blinkk

BTW: You could have gotten the code you needed from us(Blinkk) for free, had you returned any one of my emails even once [...] You instead chose to ignore my emails [...] instead of believing us when you were warned [...] and now you are spreading untrue rumors about Blinkk, based on what they said, even though you know now it's not true. That's not very nice. I ask is that you stop doing that.

Originally Posted by Blinkk

An apology would be nice, now that you know the truth.

I don't know what's going on here, but could you please calm your tone? (and do not doublepost?). I guess there was a misunderstanding somewhere. Could you please wait for a reaction before requesting an apology?

/my 2 cents

[dollars5]

I was expecting this thread to be dead and never ever comeback to life. A clam tone in public forums is good for all.

I guess this recent issue is a result of misunderstanding of posts.

Also as a side note that user tapiwa has not visited the forums for atleast more than a month. Also this was his only post. Actually SuperGu is the one to be blamed and it would be better to close this topic as it has already served its purpose and we donot want to get it dirty again. Hope admins will consider.