The Daily Mail has sent a letter to istyosty.com shutting it down.
I’ve written about istyosty several times and if you’re not a regular reader this post explains what it’s all about.
Anyway, as of now istyosty is no longer cacheing the Mail, the Sun or the Express. If istyosty hadn’t of complied, the Mail would’ve chased for £150,000 per cached article plus legal expenses. They didn’t like the bit on istyostys’ ‘about’ page that detailed how it reduced hits and consequently ad revenue. Just as predicted, the Mails wallet is its’ soft spot.
The Mail also are under the impression that Istyosty is making money off the back of it…
Your deliberate attempt to interfere with Associated o’hits” Newspapers’ ability to get valuable to its website, through the willful infringement of our clientls copyrights, are irreparably damaging to Associated News. Under the law, Associated News is entitled not only to injunctive relief against you, but also is entitled to receive awards of damages, recovery of your ill-gotten profits, and to recover the attorneys’ fees and costs it incurs as a result of your violations of law.
Statutory damages alone may be awarded in the amount of $ 150,000 per work infringed under the U.S. Copyright Act,17 USC $101, et seq.
Istyosty did not use the Mails identifying features, logos etc to advertise itself, the only time they appeared was when a cached page was brought up.
As you can see from this cache of Istyostys’ frontpage, there are no adverts. As Istyostys’ cache process stripped the adverts from the Mails pages there were no adverts on those pages either. No adverts, no income generated.
Anyway, as usual, Istyosty doesn’t have the resources to contest this latest threat from the Mail and so has to close.
A good tool for media watchers, and one that the Mail obviously felt it had to take seriously.
It was good while it lasted. Thank you Istyosty.
The take down notice can be seen here (.pdf), or I have a copy here.
Mail rips off photographer http://www.wonderlandblog.com/wonderland/2011/08/the-daily-mail-knowingly-and-commercially-used-my-photos-despite-my-denying-them-permission.html
Thanks George, you’ve just reminded me to post about that.
[…] as the Daily Mail is taking down istyosty.com for copyright infringement, up pops another story involving the Daily Mail and copyright […]
So which part of this story makes prosecution under US law viable? Sorry if I’m being slow.
I’m not entirely sure.
I do know (thanks @copyrightgirl)that cacheing is not the problem, it is catered for within UK (and presumably US) law.
I think the problem arises due to the fact that the whole purpose of the site was to deny the Mail revenue which, for obvious reasons, is not a valid purpose for cacheing under UK, and again I presume US, law.
Istyosty might’ve been able to plausibly deny this and come up with a different reason for the existence of the site if it hadn’t had the whole reason for it existence spelt out nice and clearly on its’ ‘WTF’ about page.
Now, though, it’s too late.