Terms of Service Question

  • ryanrichardson29 · Member ·

    Hi,

    I’m planning to start a website on WordPress.com but I wanted to confirm it’s not in breach of the Tos first.

    The intention of the website is to serve as a host for fan translations of Japanese light novels, some of which are licensed by Western publishers and some are unlicensed. In the event that the publisher requests a takedown of a specific series, I will comply within a month’s time and remove content as it’s officially released to the West.

    As I do intend to comply with DMCA requests, albeit not removing everything all at once, I want to confirm with the team here that I would not be breaching the WordPress.com Tos and that this website would be okay to create.

  • micawbr · Member ·

    Hi,
    I’m just speaking as a volunteer here and not a staff member. Looking over the TOS, I’d say your plan to post material which others have the rights to without their permission will get your website shut down.

  • ryanrichardson29 · Member ·

    I started researching this some more, and I don’t think it’s in violation of copyright laws. Other websites doing similar things with similar mediums seem to indicate that what they’re doing doesn’t violate the rights of the original creators. One site in particular simply lists:

    “Copyrights and trademarks for the manga, and other promotional materials are held by their respective owners and their use is allowed under the fair use clause of the
    Copyright Law.”

    Essentially, I plan to comply with the typical rules of fan translations of unlicensed series (in which it is not copyright infringement), and in the case of a licensed series, remove content that is published in the West before its official release. Both situations respect the rights of the publishers and don’t necessarily infringe on any of those given rights.

    If that is indeed the case, and especially considering that I would respect any takedown requests by publishers in question, I don’t see how the content I intend to host would violate any copyright laws and, in turn, the WordPress.com TOS.

    It’d be great to get a staff member’s answer on this.

  • timethief · Member ·

    You need to get a grip on what copyright means and know that without prior written permission from any copyright holder use of their intellectual property is a breach of copyright. http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html The attempted cop-out of I didn’t know it was against the law doesn’t cut it. Ignorance of the law is not an excuse.

    Read: http://en.support.wordpress.com/fair-use/

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  • brookedot · Staff ·

    Hi ryanrichardson29,

    Copyright law, and fair use in particular are complicated. We comply with US law with regards to the DMCA. You may read more about WordPress.com and the DMCA here:
    https://en.support.wordpress.com/copyright-and-the-dmca/

    Point 8 of our Terms of Service states; your site and account may be suspended if you have multiple takedown notices against you, or a notice that covers most of your site.

    Please note, this is not legal advice and you may wish to seek legal advice before starting your site.

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