SCIFI.radio works diligently to ensure that the creative rights of others are not infringed, but accidents, on rare occasion, do happen. If you believe that some of your work appears on the pages of SCIFI.radio’s web site and it does not fall under the Fair Use doctrine (pro-tip, nearly everything on this web site does, because it’s a NEWS SITE), you may not just arbitrarily send us a bill without any proof of copyright or chain of possession and demand money. That’s not how any of this works.

The Digital Millenium Copyright Act

The United States Digital Millenium Copyright Act protects the rights of content creators with respect to unauthorized usage of copyright materials. Krypton Media Group accepts content from a variety of contributors, and while we do our best to ensure that intellectual property rights are being properly managed, we present a remedy in the event that you find anything of yours on our web site that shouldn’t be here.

If you discover that material has been inadvertantly used on the pages of the SCIFI.radio web site, you may file a claim of infringement. The law requires that the claim include the following information:

(i) identification of the copyrighted work;

(ii) identification of the alleged infringing material;

(iii) full contact information of the person making the claim;

(iv) a statement that the claim is made in with a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner described is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law;

(v) a statement, made under penalty of perjury, that the claim is accurate and that the person making the claim is the copyright holder, or is the legal and authorized representative of the copyright holder;

(vi) a signature of the person making the claim.

To this we add

(vII) Proof that you actually hold the copyright of the work in question.

We want to see the copyright. To date, no copyright troll has ever been able to provide this.

You must send three copies (see below). We aren’t kidding about this. Failure to send three copies will result in a non-response.

The signature on the claim must be an actual, handwritten signature of the person who owns the copyright against which the claim is being made. If you are a “rights representative” of any sort and not the actual holder of the copyright, send copies of all written agreements between you and the actual copyright holder with proper handwritten original signatures, because we won’t waste our time talking to you if you can’t provide this.

If your chain of possession extends only to being able to collect billing on behalf of your client or try to sue somebody to collect money for them, you’re not high enough up the food chain to make a claim, and without having gone through the legal proceedings of successfully showing to everyone’s satisfaction that there was a willful infraction of copyright not covered by Fair Use, you may not just arbitrarily send us a bill. That’s not how the law works.

The signature on the DMCA takedown request must also be in actual ink and not a photocopy. We do not accept an “electronic signature”, because anybody can type anything and call it an “electronic signature”.

You must send the DMCA takedown request in triplicate (that means every page) – one for our files, one for our attorney, and one to file with the court as an exhibit should things go that far.

This information must be submitted via conventional mail. You may transmit this information to our business address:

Krypton Media Group
Copyright Compliance
13636 Ventura Blvd. #336
Sherman Oaks, CA 19423

When submitting a DMCA takedown request, you must adhere to our submission format to the letter. If you don’t, we legally don’t even have to talk to you.

The material in question will then be removed in accordance with the requirements of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, and you will be notified of its removal.

If we feel that the identified material has been improperly identified or that you lack standing to claim the material as your own, we reserve the right to challenge the claim. If you cannot provide satisfactory evidence of ownership or copyright, the materials in question may be restored at our discretion after 14 days. Your only option after that, if you still think we’re in the wrong, is to file a copyright suit. A typical copyright lawsuit costs upwards of $120,000 to wage, so weigh that against your chances of winning – and considering that we’re a news outlet and that practically everything we do is solidly covered by the Fair Use carve-outs in the Digital Millenium Copyright Act afforded to news agencies, your chances won’t be good.

Why are we this nuts about DMCA requests? Because any jackwagon can file one, and the more frivolous jackwagons can do it at very high speed to a very large number of copyright trolling victims. This is our way of making sure that you are in earnest. If we receive a DMCA following these instructions, we know that it’s likely a legitimate request from the actual copyright holder.

Contributors to this site with a history of posting problematic content with respect to copyright ownership may be sanctioned and removed from membership in the SCIFI.radio web site.

Publishers Need to be Registered for Safe Harbor Protection

It’s a bit surprising, but publishers need to be registered with the United States Copyright Office to ensure eligibility for what’s called Safe Harbor protection. In a nutshell, it means that if one of our authors accidentally uses something they shouldn’t, we have the right to exercise the DMCA takedown process in cooperation with complaintants on their behalf. Our registration number is DMCA-1028908, if you care to cross check it.

Before You File a DMCA

We find it remarkable that in this day and age, we still have to point this out, but news services such as ours are, by in large, immune to copyright claims when material is included as part of a news article (almost our entire web site is news articles, unless it pertains to information about our radio service or the shows that appear on it, and technically that’s news too).

Here’s why: the United States Government’s own documentation on what is and is not copyright infringement clearly states the following:

107. Limitations on Exclusive Rights: Fair use

Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright.

This means, in essence, that if the photograph or image relates to the article in which it appears in terms of subject matter, IT IS FAIR USE, and not an infringement. Out of deference for artists and photographers, even those in other countries, we may opt to honor a DMCA takedown request anyway (and we have done so in the past), because most of us are artists ourselves and we know what it’s like, having been on the other end of this equation — but we are not required to do this if your copyright is not directly filed with the United States Copyright Office, nor are there any legal or monetary consequences whatsover if we don’t.

However, if you do happen to have an actual copyright in hand, failing to follow our DMCA takedown procedure to the letter and then making subsequent demands will get you pretty much nowhere.

In particular, if you’re a copyright or trademark troll (and you know who you are) we won’t bother with demand letters unless you first file that DMCA as shown above. Arbitrary demand letters or invoices with arbitrary figures for payment to which we have not previously agreed in writing will be summarily ignored. If we discover you scanning our web site, consuming our resources for the purposes of “monitoring” our content without our written permission to do so, you will be summarily blocked with no warning. We’ve already blocked three copyright trolls because of this. Don’t be the fourth.

The Big Recap

Here’s the TL;DR version:

• If the photo or illustration appears in a news article and pertains to the topic of news article, it’s Fair Use and there’s nothing you can do about it.
• You cannot just walk up and arbitrarily hand us a bill for some stupid amount of money for a Fair Use publication of your material. You can especially not do this if you are simply an invoicing representative and do not actually own the material in question.
• If you want your material taken down, we’ll probably just be nice about it and do it anyway, but you must follow our DMCA procedure. This protects both us and you.
• If you repeatedly scan our web site and waste our resources to serve your bot for any purpose, this is forbidden usage under our usage agreement, and we reserve the right to block you.