"CBS" Sends me a takedown notice. What to do?

[Kamakiri]

@Joey_P

It would be very easy for CBS to claim they haven’t released those movies in order to create a demand for them when they are ready to release them. That’s what Disney does with a lot of their movies.

No, I researched this particular film. CBS had no plans to do anything with it at all. Believe me – I even made a step towards buying the rights. I found out that with those kinds of movies – "Movie of the Week – were often just stacked in some dusty corner of a warehouse somewhere, never to see the light of day, because the process of putting them on DVD was just too expensive.

And I’ve been proved correct, as this movie – all you had to do was go to IMDB, BACK IN 1999!!! To see hordes of fans asking “Why is this not on DVD?” is STILL not on DVD.

CBS had plenty of time to put it on DVD, and trust me, when a corporation like that sees such a vast potential hit, do you REALLY think they are going to withhold it from the public so that it increases in popularity? Umm . . . corporations rarely have that kind of foresight. On the contrary, if they had been aware of its popularity, they would have RUSHED it into production. It’s just that no one noticed, and if they did notice, they couldn’t give a s#$t.

I gave a s^%t.

[Joey_P]

@Kamakiri

No, I researched this particular film. CBS had no plans to do anything with it at all. Believe me – I even made a step towards buying the rights. I found out that with those kinds of movies – "Movie of the Week – were often just stacked in some dusty corner of a warehouse somewhere, never to see the light of day, because the process of putting them on DVD was just too expensive.

And I’ve been proved correct, as this movie – all you had to do was go to IMDB, BACK IN 1999!!! To see hordes of fans asking “Why is this not on DVD?” is STILL not on DVD.

CBS had plenty of time to put it on DVD, and trust me, when a corporation like that sees such a vast potential hit, do you REALLY think they are going to withhold it from the public so that it increases in popularity? Umm . . . corporations rarely have that kind of foresight. On the contrary, if they had been aware of its popularity, they would have RUSHED it into production. It’s just that no one noticed, and if they did notice, they couldn’t give a s#$t.

I gave a s^%t.

That’s some messed up thinking.

First off all, if every single one of those ‘hoards of fans’ bought the DVD, they’s sell, what, 40 of them. That’s not going to turn a profit for them. They want to sell thousands. There weren’t thousands of people on the IMDB page asking.

Second, if you weren’t using your garage for a few years would you be okay if someone just came and ripped it down and build a house there to live in. That’s what you’re doing. You told CBS that you’re going to sell their product since they didn’t feel like selling it. They paid money to make it, but you’re telling them that since they choose to keep in in storage you get to profit from it. Hey, what if I broke into your house, stole those DVDs you made and sold them for 20 bucks a pop. Would that be okay? That’s almost literally what you’re doing.

Do you really not understand that you’re literally stealing from them?

[Kamakiri]

@Lasciel

ETA that I totally sympathize. I’m a librarian, and the same issue happens with us, frustratingly regularly - things go out of print, and people still expect the library to magically be able to get them a copy. It’s horrid.

I also have been a cult fan, and have done more than my fair share of taking old, out of print books and painstakingly copying them page by page on an old xerox or even transcribing them in wordperfect, just so I’d have a frigging hardcopy of the thing I loved.

I also understand the frustrations of spending time and effort on something that you and others feel passionate about, and wanting to get a bit of your investment back for all the time and energy spent.

I do get it. I sympathize.

None of that emotional and situational stuff makes the slightest bit of difference to how very very totally illegal all that activity is.

Well, you know, at heart I really am an upstanding citizen, and I don’t pirate music or movies because, being a former professional musician, I know that these people work long and hard and they deserve to get paid, even years after the fact, with residuals or what have you. But when companies/corporations/conglomerates stubbornly refuse to issue something – be it a book, DVD or anything else – one has two choices. One either buys it on the black market and hopes for the best in terms of quality – or one just does it oneself. I started off just doing it as a learning project on how to digitize analogue films. But when I was done, and after I had seen so many of the pleading posts for it on IMDB, I just said, hey, they want it, I have it, so I’ll offer it at a reasonable deal, and they were so incredibly grateful that I could fill twenty pages of happy emails.

And as I kept saying, when this officially comes out on DVD I will stop putting it out.

I always did, but to this date, it’s still not on DVD. CBS must be desperate to come after sardines like me. Aren’t there bigger fish to fry?

[Mangetout]

@Kamakiri

No. I do have scruples, believe it or not. The only reason I digitized those movies was because they were frustratingly unavailable. I even approached someone about buying the rights to one of them – it was a 1970 TV movie – but I was told that first I would have to pay a lawyer $3000 JUST TO SEE IF IT COULD BE DONE.

So . . . it was out of frustration that I searched the Internet (back in 1999) for a good copy of the film on VHS. It took hundreds of dollars and a couple of years, but I finally found a copy that was good enough to put on a DVD and not feel guilty.

I think I put a disclaimer on my website saying “Oh, and by the way, as soon as XXX decides to put this on a DVD, I am going to stop selling anything.” Which I did, for a movie called “Robinson Crusoe on Mars.” It was in such high demand, and people were almost screaming for it to be put on DVD (see IMDB forums) that I went out, bought a LaserDisc player, bought two LaserDisc versions of it, bought a special, $1,000 analog-to-digital converter, and made a DVD out of it, complete with subtitles copied from the LD and my own commentary throughout.

I did it for the people who were screaming for it, as well as for myself. I thought that perhaps I deserved a little compensation for my efforts. Whoever owned the rights was just sitting on it, and there was no light at the end of the tunnel, so thousands of fans were left, twiddling thumbs, waiting for the powers that were to put it on DVD. How many people have a LaserDisc player? I just filled in for the meantime, and as soon as it came out on DVD I stopped selling it. People even came to my website and paid for it, but I refunded their money and said “Go to Amazon – you’ll get a much better copy.”

Trust me on this: it was an altruistic decision. I never made any money off these things – it was just a hobby and basically all I wanted was some money back to cover time and expenses. Some people who bought a particular film were so grateful that it was available on DVD that they practically cried when they sent emails saying they had watched it. And I cursed the various rights owners and said to myself, Why the hell don’t they just put this out on DVD? There are SO MANY PEOPLE clamoring for it – it would be a slam dunk.

To my knowledge, CBS has STILL not put this enormously popular cult movie on DVD – yet they come after me anyway, even though it’s out there from dozens of other sources, and as I said, has been on YouTube in its entirety.

And as I said – if I had been doing it for the money, I would be very, very poor. “Well, why not just give it away – at least you wouldn’t be breaking any laws,” you say. Well, uh, I’m not THAT rich. And if hundreds, if not thousands of others were also disseminating the movie, which was extremely obscure and unlikely to ever be released on DVD – think a movie with Farrah Fawcett and Lee Majors broadcast in 1971 as a “Movie of the week” – then you’ll see that I wasn’t trying to offer “Inferno IIV” or anything like that.

People deserve to get paid for their efforts. But Bill Shatner, to whom I personally wrote for permission to digitize a movie, never wrote back. I realize he has no obligation to do so. But if in a drought, dozens of farmers are sitting on hoards of crops that are just rotting away in warehouses, refusing to sell anything to the “common folk,” well, if you had a vegetable patch, what would YOU do? I didn’t gouge anyone, just parted with the discs for what I thought was fair.

@Kamakiri

No, I researched this particular film. CBS had no plans to do anything with it at all. Believe me – I even made a step towards buying the rights. I found out that with those kinds of movies – "Movie of the Week – were often just stacked in some dusty corner of a warehouse somewhere, never to see the light of day, because the process of putting them on DVD was just too expensive.

And I’ve been proved correct, as this movie – all you had to do was go to IMDB, BACK IN 1999!!! To see hordes of fans asking “Why is this not on DVD?” is STILL not on DVD.

CBS had plenty of time to put it on DVD, and trust me, when a corporation like that sees such a vast potential hit, do you REALLY think they are going to withhold it from the public so that it increases in popularity? Umm . . . corporations rarely have that kind of foresight. On the contrary, if they had been aware of its popularity, they would have RUSHED it into production. It’s just that no one noticed, and if they did notice, they couldn’t give a s#$t.

I gave a s^%t.

None of this makes a jot of difference to the legal position you may be just about to find yourself in. Big corporations and their lawyers do not and will not care about the morality of your position.

[cmyk]

@Kamakiri

Well, you know, at heart I really am an upstanding citizen, and I don’t pirate music or movies because, being a former professional musician, I know that these people work long and hard and they deserve to get paid, even years after the fact, with residuals or what have you. But when companies/corporations/conglomerates stubbornly refuse to issue something – be it a book, DVD or anything else – one has two choices. One either buys it on the black market and hopes for the best in terms of quality – or one just does it oneself. I started off just doing it as a learning project on how to digitize analogue films. But when I was done, and after I had seen so many of the pleading posts for it on IMDB, I just said, hey, they want it, I have it, so I’ll offer it at a reasonable deal, and they were so incredibly grateful that I could fill twenty pages of happy emails.

And as I kept saying, when this officially comes out on DVD I will stop putting it out.

I always did, but to this date, it’s still not on DVD. CBS must be desperate to come after sardines like me. Aren’t there bigger fish to fry?

Nah. They’ve got lawyers on retainer like you have hobbies to burn. The first step in cases like yours is to issue a take-down notice. It’s their stuff, they can assert their right however they see fit.

[Schnitte]

@Kamakiri

People deserve to get paid for their efforts.

That’s exactly the reason why copyright law exists. You didn’t make that film; CBS (or people paid by CBS with CBS money) did. I find it, frankly, quite astonishing to see that you’re trying to justify your actions with twisted logic. What you did was wrong, both legally and ethically. The best thing, also in your own interest, would be to back down, ruefully promise CBs that it won’t happen again, and hope that the whole thing doesn’t end too badly for you. There’s absoluetly no doubt that it will end with your shop being shut down; the only question now is how much money it will cost you in legal fees and damages.

[Joey_P]

@Kamakiri

Well, you know, at heart I really am an upstanding citizen, and I don’t pirate music or movies because, being a former professional musician, I know that these people work long and hard and they deserve to get paid, even years after the fact, with residuals or what have you.

So you probably have some recordings, right, that are just sitting somewhere not doing anything.
You’re okay with me putting them on CD’s, selling them and keeping all the money for yourself, right?

And as I kept saying, when this officially comes out on DVD I will stop putting it out.

Maybe they’re not going to, since the people who want it just buy it from pirates like you.

Aren’t there bigger fish to fry?

Maybe, but you’re the easy catch. Send a cease and desist letter and you knock it off. Or you don’t knock it off and they take you to federal court and sue you for what they estimate their damages to be…$150,000 sounds about right. If you don’t show up, they win, if you do show up you’ll be at the mercy of the court since you’re in the wrong and you know it. Also, their lawyers are on retainer, this is what they do all day, it doesn’t cost any more for them to send a letter to you or show up for an extra court date.
You, on the other hand, are going to die on this hill.

[Acsenray]

@Kamakiri

And as I said – if I had been doing it for the money, I would be very, very poor. “Well, why not just give it away – at least you wouldn’t be breaking any laws,” you say. Well, uh, I’m not THAT rich. And if hundreds,

Nope, you would be breaking the same laws, whether or not you charged for it.

But Bill Shatner, to whom I personally wrote for permission to digitize a movie, never wrote back. I realize he has no obligation to do so.

What makes you think that Shatner holds rights in a TV movie?

But if in a drought, dozens of farmers are sitting on hoards of crops that are just rotting away in warehouses, refusing to sell anything to the “common folk,” well, if you had a vegetable patch, what would YOU do? .

I’d get some perspective and realize that my analogy was out of whack.

[Schnitte]

@Kamakiri

No. I do have scruples, believe it or not. The only reason I digitized those movies was because they were frustratingly unavailable. I even approached someone about buying the rights to one of them – it was a 1970 TV movie – but I was told that first I would have to pay a lawyer $3000 JUST TO SEE IF IT COULD BE DONE.

So . . . it was out of frustration that I searched the Internet (back in 1999) for a good copy of the film on VHS. It took hundreds of dollars and a couple of years, but I finally found a copy that was good enough to put on a DVD and not feel guilty.

I think I put a disclaimer on my website saying “Oh, and by the way, as soon as XXX decides to put this on a DVD, I am going to stop selling anything.” Which I did, for a movie called “Robinson Crusoe on Mars.” It was in such high demand, and people were almost screaming for it to be put on DVD (see IMDB forums) that I went out, bought a LaserDisc player, bought two LaserDisc versions of it, bought a special, $1,000 analog-to-digital converter, and made a DVD out of it, complete with subtitles copied from the LD and my own commentary throughout.

I did it for the people who were screaming for it, as well as for myself. I thought that perhaps I deserved a little compensation for my efforts. Whoever owned the rights was just sitting on it, and there was no light at the end of the tunnel, so thousands of fans were left, twiddling thumbs, waiting for the powers that were to put it on DVD. How many people have a LaserDisc player? I just filled in for the meantime, and as soon as it came out on DVD I stopped selling it. People even came to my website and paid for it, but I refunded their money and said “Go to Amazon – you’ll get a much better copy.”

Trust me on this: it was an altruistic decision. I never made any money off these things – it was just a hobby and basically all I wanted was some money back to cover time and expenses. Some people who bought a particular film were so grateful that it was available on DVD that they practically cried when they sent emails saying they had watched it. And I cursed the various rights owners and said to myself, Why the hell don’t they just put this out on DVD? There are SO MANY PEOPLE clamoring for it – it would be a slam dunk.

To my knowledge, CBS has STILL not put this enormously popular cult movie on DVD – yet they come after me anyway, even though it’s out there from dozens of other sources, and as I said, has been on YouTube in its entirety.

And as I said – if I had been doing it for the money, I would be very, very poor. “Well, why not just give it away – at least you wouldn’t be breaking any laws,” you say. Well, uh, I’m not THAT rich. And if hundreds, if not thousands of others were also disseminating the movie, which was extremely obscure and unlikely to ever be released on DVD – think a movie with Farrah Fawcett and Lee Majors broadcast in 1971 as a “Movie of the week” – then you’ll see that I wasn’t trying to offer “Inferno IIV” or anything like that.

People deserve to get paid for their efforts. But Bill Shatner, to whom I personally wrote for permission to digitize a movie, never wrote back. I realize he has no obligation to do so. But if in a drought, dozens of farmers are sitting on hoards of crops that are just rotting away in warehouses, refusing to sell anything to the “common folk,” well, if you had a vegetable patch, what would YOU do? I didn’t gouge anyone, just parted with the discs for what I thought was fair.

The story that you tell here sounds, in summary, like the following: Initially, all you wanted was that particular film on DVD, for your own purposes. It wasn’t anywhere. So you decided that you would make the DVD yourself - only for your own purposes, of course. So you spent hundreds of dollars on finding a DVD copy, or (in the case of another film which you also happened to want just for your own private den) spent money on an Laserdisc player, the Laserdic itself, and a four-digit amount on special equipment for digitalising the films. At the end of it, you blissfully held your DVD in your hands and enjoyed a few great movie nights. Then, suddenly, you realised that after spending all that money on making the DVDs, you could just as well recover parts of it by selling it to people just like you who were similarly craving for these unavailable films. Not to steal from CBS, of course, just to recover your time and expenses, and to help all these poor souls whose life would be in ruins without these DVDs.
(I exaggerate here, of course, but in essence this is what your story sounds like to me.)

This story doesn’t sound convincing at all to me. It sounds much more like you were planning to become a semiprofessional pirate to begin with. Of course there’s no need for you to care about what I think of it, but there’s a risk that a judge might have a similar impression, and if that’s the case then the story is bound to end very badly for you unless you placate CBS to a point where they don’t take you to court.

[chappachula]

@Kamakiri

No. I do have scruples,- but I was told that first I would have to pay a lawyer $3000 JUST TO SEE IF IT COULD BE DONE.

OH MY GOD!!!
LAWYERS COST MONEY!!!

Too bad you didn’t invest the money back then…You may soon find yourself paying a whole lot more than just $3000.

I’d hire a lawyer now , and ask him : how to phrase your letter of apology to CBS containing your promise to stop using their property illegally

[Dale_Sams]

1. What was the Shatner movie? The People? Terror at 37,000 Feet (or whatever it was?)

2. SOME you responders could be nicer about this. Name-calling isn’t cool.

3. OP if you got pissed at them wanting you to send them proof that you had desisted, I get it. That rankled me too.

and finally. I appreciate what you were doing. Providing a service and in your own way making sure these movies stay “alive” or “culturally relevant”. I get it. If I don’t make a copy of “The Hindenberg” soundtrack and pass it on to my kids, it could all but vanish in a few decades.

BUT I think you have two choices. Comply and hope they take no further notice, or write and say that this is the first you heard of it and your roommate wrote the nasty notice and that you will comply.

[AncientHumanoid]

Bill Shatner:

"You are in error!

You did not discovered your mistake; you have made two errors.

You are flawed and imperfect, and you have not corrected by sterilization; you’re made three errors!"

[Belowjob2.0]

'Struggling' Screenwriter Sued By Twentieth Century Fox For $12 Million *...

Keep in mind, Ms McIlvaine wasn’t selling anything. She was just sharing scripts, that Fox owned, on her website. She neither made nor attempted to make money. No money changed hands.

You, on the other hand, are selling what is effectively stolen property. CBS could roast you like beef.

[Dale_Sams]

Anyone here ever got a letter from your cable provider that basically consisted of this:

"(sigh) Dear valuable subscriber, Warner Brothers has recently sent us [insert very verbose and outraged letter] and demand (eyeroll) we cancel your cable because apparently you downloaded [Recent film I shouldn’t have downloaded]*. Kindly knock it off. If we get many more of these complaints we actually will cancel your service.

*Note to self. Don’t download recent films. Stick to old stuff no one cares about.

edit: Oh, here’s a hilarious self-deprecating anecdote. I’ve downloaded probably two recent films in my life. One of them was “Cabin in the Woods”. I rationalized that because Robot Chicken spoiled the f**k out of it, I wasn’t going to spend money on it after that. (Yes, I can be quite a spoiled brat at times)

[Gatopescado]

I regret not making my Shatner joke the first time I opened this thread.

Too late now.

[AncientHumanoid]

@Gatopescado

I regret not making my Shatner joke the first time I opened this thread.

Too late now.

DO IT! DO IT!

No one will sue you… Trust us*

*don’t trust us, we are not offering legal advice in an online forum

[Dale_Sams]

@Belowjob2.0

'Struggling' Screenwriter Sued By Twentieth Century Fox For $12 Million * TorrentFreak

Keep in mind, Ms McIlvaine wasn’t selling anything. She was just sharing scripts, that Fox owned, on her website. She neither made nor attempted to make money. No money changed hands.

You, on the other hand, are selling what is effectively stolen property. CBS could roast you like beef.

Anyone wanting to know how that ended (Took me a surprising 15 minutes). Fox eventually dropped the suit. I assume this woman was able to afford attorneys due to public donations.* And the irony of all this is…no not that she sold a script to Fox, though that did happen. She probably will write a script about this someday.

*I would have had to represent myself. In fact that would have been my angle in meetings with Fox’s lawyers. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. But I can’t afford to give you all one thin dime. Can’t we just call it a day? You all have made your point. You’ve scared a lot of people. But if you take it much further, the PR backlash is going to LOSE Fox money. So pretty please. With sugar on top. Let’s just walk away.”

[Just_Asking_Questions]

Well, on the one hand, the entire series including the pilot of Barbary Coast is available on DVD. So, by your own logic, you have to stop selling it.

On the other, I may or may not have a copy that may or may not be an illegal copy of Sole Survivor that might or might not have been on ebay, and I’m theoretically glad someone made it available.

[Dewey_Finn]

@chappachula

@Kamakiri

No. I do have scruples,- but I was told that first I would have to pay a lawyer $3000 JUST TO SEE IF IT COULD BE DONE.

OH MY GOD!!!
LAWYERS COST MONEY!!!

Too bad you didn’t invest the money back then…You may soon find yourself paying a whole lot more than just $3000.

I’d hire a lawyer now , and ask him : how to phrase your letter of apology to CBS containing your promise to stop using their property illegally

That’s the part I found hilarious; the OP didn’t want to voluntarily spend $3,000 on a lawyer, so instead he/she poked the bear and might have to spend many times that for a defense lawyer or six figures in penalties for copyright violations.

Plus in the OP, the letter supposedly sent to CBS said, “My lawyer is standing by.” Is that the same lawyer you weren’t willing to pay $3,000?

[Just_Asking_Questions]

And on the third hand, Barabary Coast was an ABC TV show. Sole Survivor is ambiguous - Wikipedia lists it as an ABC Movie of the Week, but made by CBS. Seems unlikely. Maybe the cease and desist letter was actually fake?