TUT (Please read!)

[porkd]

I just wanted to share we will top 1 Million page views in one month (February). We have accomplished this in only our 4th month since launch, and we have not advertised yet. Most of you are familiar with our site, and if not read a couple other threads. I do not want to post link because search engines will crawl.

I do want to share this for all to pay close attention too! Since our inception and quick growth we have been sought out by several different companies. As most of you know we deal in the niche arena of "college life and perspectives".

Here's the deal....Recently a huge college licensing company contacted us about partnering with them. In not so many words they said if we didn't partner with them they will put their lawyers on us to remove all our content. Well, after receiving their proposal which included a fee of $15,000 a month (which includes only 25 videos) we of course have no option but not to partner. They also said in our initial conversation they are kicking themselves for not coming up with our idea.


This is our feelings....

We have the same content as youtube or any other video site out there. Does youtube have a licensing agreement? Based off our research no. Does revver, dailymotion have a agreement...based off our research no. We feel as if we are trying to be strong armed into an agreement which we cannot do at this time.

We will and are preparing to fight this attack. We feel this is not just an attack on us, but for all start ups like everyone on this forum. I ask that if anyone has any legal experience or insight to please share. We do have a couple lawyers but will not get them involved unless absolutely necessary. As it is extremely expensive.

Lastly, if you do have a site gaining momentum make sure all your T's are crossed and your I's are dotted.

[SportsGamingTV.com]

I would highly recommend that you get proper legal advice from an attorney, particularly one that deals with trademarks and copyright issues. You can probably find more than one who will give you a free initial consultation.

Having said that, I am not aware of any one entity that owns the rights to the marks of every university in America. If this were a problem, you would be hearing about it from individual universities (I imagine), and I'm confident that most of them are happy to know that their school is being promoted. It almost sounds like someone is just trying to bluff you out of a lot of money.

Another topic is, as you mentioned, the same videos are readily available in many places online. Trademarks are not like a copyright. They have to be strongly enforced. The fact that they would give you a problem, but not these other sites, then they are not taking measures to secure their marks, which could be enough to nullify any claim against you for using their marks.

The exception to this is if you have content from a broadcast source that has a copyright claim. Like if you are using CSTV videos, then they would certainly have a claim against you, but you could easily bypass that by embedding their youtube stream. But that would only be for isolated videos, not a blanket claim against your own site.

Anyway, I wouldn't be worried "too much". A lot of people are fast to threaten legal action, whether they have sufficient grounds to or not, but few actually do. I've had lawsuits threatened against me more times than I can count, but it has never happened. Is someone threatens to sue me, I tell them to stop running their mouth about it and file the papers. Anyway, go speak to an attorney or two about it. That's your best bet.

[musictvblogger]

I have had some experience with this kind of stuff. You can pm or email me if you like.

I might tend to agree that they have very little to stand on unless the U's have a union that is watching they stuff.

That said, money always wins.

I would love to share the experience. I ditto the real legal help which I can show you how to get.

You are not NFL-Tube or the like, you are at a level where there is some vast singular power. I mean, was it Havard? Yale? U of I? Each one would be on their own unless - like with jobs for interns the process has been sold out. Some years ago I had many interns from NYU and city colleges. All of a sudden I could no longer get them as their job fairs disappeared and you could not post jobs on campus. I was informed I had to pay to teach interns. If I wanted to list spaces to teach them I would have to list through Monster as a new contract had been made. They now made money getting intern jobs while interns still earned nothing but experience in the field of their choice. There may be many ways to save your idea and turn the 10k monthly as a cost to them for renting your space. Even if there are ways.

So, look at the idiots again at the door, but remember, money always wins. Oh yeah, and the old scout slogan "Be Prepared". Thats why you need some real legal advice not forum sputum.

Sorry for your troubles, you are the avantrepreneaur that made something where nothing was before. The could not think of it because they are in a box. Maggots like this are everywhere.

[iknowalittlebit]

You are right about Google not having licenses for all the content they host, but they also get sued more than you can imagine. The difference between us and Google is the fact that they have dozens of high priced lawyers already on the payroll. I am assuming that you do not. One poster said that money always wins and that may very well be the case.

There are several small video sites that have been sued in the last year and lost. Some were adult sites and others general interest. There are a lot of stories online about this.

[grynmoors]

<insert godfather theme here>

if we didn't partner with them they will put their lawyers on us to remove all our content. Well, after receiving their proposal which included a fee of $15,000 a month (which includes only 25 videos)

Wait, let me get this straight...they want YOU to pay 15K a month otherwise they will cut the head off a horse and stick it in your bed?

Or is it the other way around, they will pay you the 15K...and what guarantee you would be paid?

</godfather theme>

They sound like the guys from Nigeria that I just saw an investigative report on where you get those spam emails, if you give us 14K we will give you 2 million....the reporters called their bluff and set up meetings and got these guys in hotel rooms and stuff, it was awesome. Tell them you'll send this story to the newspapers if they don't back off. "Legal Firm tries to Strong Arm College Video Site". Nice headline, don't you think?

[stonerocket]

Man reading your original post gives me the spooks, im behind 100% Fight the f**kers, if you lose then atleast you tried.

I can see the idea though, take facebook for instance they hotlink video`s from youtube.

Its all about money to be honest, theres too much greedy scum in this world who want everything and do not care who toes they tread on to get it.

[grynmoors]

I still think it would be more fun to have Dateline NBC investigate the creeps and whoever else is behind this.

I have two words for these guys..."Blow Me!"

[porkd]

Thanks for the support! We are not backing down. We sited our videos on over 6 other sites across the internet which do not have license agreement with this company. They submitted us a partnership agreement which was outrageous, and we told them no deal.

We are waiting for our nice little legal letter from their lawyers telling us to remove content. We WILL not back down, and they better be prepared as I have the proof they tried to strong arm us and almost blackmail us into an agreement by threatening us if we did not partner with them to get their license agreement.

Stay tuned on this one folks!

[bcmoney]

Congratulations,

I commend the honest effort you've put in, your success so far (seems apparent given the situation and people who want a piece), and especially your dedication to seeing things through to the end no matter how tough they get.

We really need to form a better support community as each of our individual sites and services begin to grow, in order to deal with these sort of things. That may be impossible because we're all from all over the place, possibly different laws and different countries, but it would sure help.

Anyway, best of luck at reaching a positive conclusion to this issue as quickly and efficiently as possible (though with lawyers involved I realize that may not always be possible).

One finger salute to them (henceforth refered to as: the bastards ) and a HERO's salute to you!!!

[mersh]

Sorry for the cross-post but this story got my blood boiling.

Lawyers SUE YOU WITHOUT WARNING if they have a case.

If they THREATEN to sue you, it's because they DON'T have a case and they know it.

LAWYERS ARE FUCKING WORTHLESS PIECES OF RAT TURDS ON A SANDWICH MADE OF TWO SLICES OF SEWER SLUDGE SPREAD WITH PIG ENTRAILS.

I'm sorry, I'll try not to beat around the bush so much in the future, and just come out and say how I feel. For now you'll have to read between the lines.