[Invalid]: Copyright violation

[RoserTM]

First of all, I apologize if this is the wrong place to ask this kind of questions. I felt a bit lost in your site and this is the only way of contacting you that occurred to me.
I'm contacting you because there's a website that is infringing my copyright, and the webmaster of the site is using your software.
As I have read in Dealing With Photo Gallery Abuse (http://coppermine-gallery.net/team/#abuse) I contacted the admisistrator of the picture gallery on the 25th of September. I sent them a personal message where I explained they were distributing my work without permission, and I asked them for the immediate removal of my works. I have made this many times before so I know how to make the correct procedure. My message has been ignored thus far and the administrator is still uploading copyrighted photos.
This is the website in question: http://www.lunaonline.nl/ I don't feel comfortable discussing this things in a public forum, so if you would be so kind as to PM me, I would give you more details.
I did not know how to deal with it since that is no website where one simply sends a DMCA Notice of Alleged Infringement. Instead I could only contact the administrator and ask for a polite resolution. Normally, the copyright infringement is unintended because of ignorance and the problem can be readily resolved in no time. But this administrator has shown no interest in making amends. So I saw the "Powered by Coppermine" in the footer and decided to contact you.

Thanks in advance,
Rose

[Joachim Müller]

I can understand that you're upset, but it seems that you haven't understood what we're trying to say in

Dealing With Photo Gallery Abuse
Very often people encounter content uploaded to a coppermine-driven photo gallery that they disagree with, take offense to or believe infringes on copyrights. We've collected this listing of Frequently Asked Questions to help you determine your best course of action. Please read this page before contacting us with a complaint, as many questions will be answered below.

I see a "Powered by Coppermine" in the footer - isn't it your site?
Coppermine is a free photo gallery software package that webmasters can download and install on their own websites. If you see a copyright as above, it probably means that the webmaster of the site is using our software. This means that no, the site isn't ours - they simply use our products. However, since we too use the software, there is a slight possibility that the site is a Coppermine project site. Before you contact us though, you should look into it more carefully to try and identify the owners of the site. If you can contact the true owners directly, you will save yourself (and us) time.

What's the fastest way to get results?
The first rule in dealing with picture gallery abuse is keeping a level head and being civil. Firing off an email threatening litigation and throwing around insults will only galvanize them against you. Always make the first step a polite notice indicating the nature of your complaint and a polite request for resolution. If this message is ignored, then proceed accordingly. Contact their host, or perhaps have your lawyer send a proper cease and desist letter. Keep in mind though - don't lose your cool. More often than not, the slight is unintended, and can readily be resolved.

Whom should I contact with my complaint?
The first person you should contact is the administrator of the picture gallery. Register on the gallery, find the administrator and send them an email or personal message on the forum if they have one. If they do not respond to your petition you should contact the host of the gallery, to determine whether or not the gallery is in contravention of the host's acceptable use policy.

Who is hosting the gallery?
The "Powered by Coppermine" tag at the footer of the gallery software does not indicate that we are the host - rather it indicates that we are the group that owns copyrights to the gallery software, much like Microsoft owns the copyright to the code behind Microsoft Word. If you would like to determine the host, you should look at the WHOIS information for the domain name.

How can I contact the owners of the gallery/web site?
The first way is to register on the gallery or web site in question, and try to contact them through the tools provided on the site. If that fails, try examining the whois information for the website. A great tool for checking whois information is www.checkdomain.com.

They are displaying my copyrighted material, how do I stop them?
The first step is to get in touch with the owner of the site. If you can prove that the material is being distributed without permission, contact the host to have them temporarily suspend the offending account.

How can I get the personal contact information or IP address for a user on a gallery?
In short, you can't. You really only have two ways - the first is to ask the member for their contact information, the second is to take the complaint to a court of law, and have a court order issued to collect the information. The reason for this is that in most countries, privacy legislation prevents the website owner from sharing that information with you.

The short version is: don't contact us at Coppermine; we just developed the app that the people are using. We have no control over their site. We don't know them. If the police find out that a criminal is wearing a pair of Nike sneakers, that might help them in an effort to catch the criminal, but they won't turn to Nike and ask them for help: Nike doesn't build exploding dye packs or tracking equipment into their shoes to help legal authorities, nor do we built any hidden remote controls into the app we provide. Once someone has downloaded the application anonymously and free of charge from our download section (or rather: a load of mirror servers all around the globe), we have no more control what people do with our app. And even if we had the power to control them, we would not police them.

So I saw the "Powered by Coppermine" in the footer and decided to contact you.

That decision was wrong. Please do not contact us on such issues, we simply can't help you.

so if you would be so kind as to PM me

No way.

I did not know how to deal with it since that is no website where one simply sends a DMCA Notice of Alleged Infringement.

In case you have no idea how to query the dutch domain registry, here's the whois lookup for the domain lunaonline.nl:

Registrant:
      BMI000052-ONEAS
      B.M. Indewey Gerlings
      Gandhistraat 137
      2131PD  HOOFDDORP
      Netherlands

   Administrative contact:
      GER015443-ONEAS
      BI Gerlings
      +31 (0)647892554
      bm.gerlings@gmail.com

   Registrar:
      One.com A/S
      Kalvebod Brygge 45
      1560 Kobenhavn V.
      Denmark
      Denmark

   Technical contact(s):
      FUN001122-ONEAS
      Hostmaster Funktionen
      +45 (0)46907100
      hostmaster@b-one.net

This information is provided as a courtesy and does not mean that we're in any way involved in that web page - in fact, it's just the output of

Code Select Expand

whois -h whois.domain-registry.nl lunaonline.nlon the console of my Linux box. This is all the help I am willing to provide in your case.

Joachim Müller
- Coppermine project manager -