John White’s Comments

• Aug 12th, 2010 @ 11:38am

  Re: Re: Complaining

  on Discovery Channel Forcing Deadliest Catch Fan Site Offline; Claims Embedding Official Videos Infringes
  David, thanks for your support as well as everyone else here. I have emailed thier legal counsel as well as copying several people at Discovery in marketing,public relations and the actual show's producer stating my intent to turn over the domain and to give them an opportunity to clarify their position once and for all. I will be moving to another site but want to see if and how they respond before I decide what direction that project will be taking.
• Aug 11th, 2010 @ 8:48pm

  Re: Re: I guess they forgot to send that response to me

  on Discovery Channel Ignores Repeated Twitter Questions, Sends Content-Free Statement
  Thanks Robin. In the end I removed the site and contacted Discovery in preparation of transferring the domain. Either way I'm far from done I just need to decide which route to take going forward. Initially I though I would just end it and go back to working on my few other sites (which are all recreational topics so no corporate legal nonsense) However with all of the support and emails I received I think it would be too hard to just walk away from this topic altogether.
• Aug 11th, 2010 @ 12:02pm

  I guess they forgot to send that response to me

  on Discovery Channel Ignores Repeated Twitter Questions, Sends Content-Free Statement
  Suddenly today I see their response posted all over the internet. Puzzling I was the one person who did not receive it an as my site was the one in question. So they will ignore the facts with me and at at the same time try and do some quick damage control by showing how much they "value and appreciate our online fans"
  
  Had this been their actual stance with me, there would have never been any issue as I was more then willing to work with them. Funny, I guess they suddenly lost my contact information.
• Aug 9th, 2010 @ 3:28pm

  Re: KP is not a lawyer

  on Discovery Channel Forcing Deadliest Catch Fan Site Offline; Claims Embedding Official Videos Infringes
  Well since this is my site I can accurately answer your questions. Yes the first contact I had was an email/Fedex from a lawyer (From Grace Applefield a lawyer with ArentFox, intellectual property counsel to Discovery Communications, LLC) on June 16, 2010. I followed that up with a response saying I would be happy to work out an acceptable compromise if someone at Discovery would contact me. I also explained that the video clips were uploaded by Discovery and that other material was provided by someone at Discovery (Mr. Pal). I recieved a follow up letter on July 29, reiterating their demands and simply stating they would investigate the prior correspondence I had with Mr. Pal. I then contacted viewer relations as well as a VP of Communications I found on the discovery site via email. A lawyer from Discovery then contacted me and basically asked me why I submitted this to viewer relations instead of just responding to the intial lawyer. I stated I wanted to understand how the use of the videos from their official channel as well as supplied material could be considered "unathorized use". His reply was that this was an issue with Youtube's system and the video was only authorized to be embedded on Youtube and no other site. As for the material he suggested Discovery now was taking a different stance towards fan sites. I'm glad at least this is getting some attention, I honestly would have done anything they requested within reason but they could care less.