Yahoo! closes DV411 Online Store
over an alleged copyright infringement.
Yahoo! disabled DV411 store (http://dv411.com) on 8/12/2002 at 7pm, over an alleged copyright
violation, after over two years of hosting it on its servers.
The alleged violation was not over pirate movies or CDs, it was a single product image that our competitor (B&H Photo-Video) claimed to have copyrighted.
Yahoo! Terms of Service (TOS) Section 7.2 say the following: "Yahoo! may in its sole discretion and at any time discontinue providing the Service, or any part thereof, with or without notice" (http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/).
Read this section to see how Yahoo! reserves the right to disable any and all parts of your store, with or without notice or reason, and bear no legal responsibility for it.
This incident demonstrated to us that Yahoo! may arbitrarily disable any store, without notice and without reason.
Scary? Yes, and it can happen to you, too. Here is what happened to us:
1. 8/8/02. Our competitor B&H Photo-Video complains to Yahoo and to us that we use a product image that is copyrighted by
them.
2. 8/8/02. Yahoo issues a "Copyright Counter-Notice" on the same day with the following text:
"B&H Photo-Video, Inc. has notified Yahoo! that you are posting content on Yahoo! Store that appears to contain material copyrighted by B&H Photo-Video, Inc.. B&H Photo-Video, Inc. also has notified Yahoo! that it did not authorize any such use of its copyrighted material on
http://store.yahoo.com/computervicestore/dledctvid.html.
**** In accordance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we will
disable your Yahoo! Store within 48 hours. ****"
Note the use of the word "appears" in this text. The claim may not have
been substantiated in any way, yet Yahoo! issues a threat to disable the store
based on what "appears to be only a claim of a 3rd party, of an
alleged violation.
3. 8/9/02. We take the allegedly infringing images off the web site, apologize to B&H Photo, with a copy to Yahoo! Copyright.
4. 8/9/02. B&H Photo emails back with a "thank you" for resolving the issue.
5. 8/9/02. We ask Yahoo! Copyright to verify for themselves that the images were indeed removed from our store, and what else do they need to lift the threat of closing the store.
6. 8/10/02. Yahoo! Copyright responds with "If resolution has been met, we will need written notification from B&H Photo-Video, Inc. or his/her agent."
7. 8/10/02. We respond with, "how can we control what B&H Photo-Video does or does not do?".
We further say that while we will request that B&H Photo-Video faxes a written notice to Yahoo! Copyright, what will happen if they don't? Will Yahoo! still disable our store, despite that the resolution was met and the original reason for store closure no longer existed?
8. 8/10/02. Yahoo! continues saying that a written notice from B&H Photo-Video is required to avoid
the store closure.
9. 8/11/02. We email to B&H Photo-Video asking to fax a written notice to Yahoo! Copyright.
10. 8/11 - 8/12/02. We receive no response from B&H Photo-Video and send several emails to Yahoo! Copyright asking them what can
we do to avoid the closure.
11. On 8/12/02 at 7pm, Yahoo! terminated our store. "Page not found" is what you will get when trying to navigate to our web site: http://dv411.com or
http://computervicestore.com.
Some stats. The store did about $1m in sales in 2001. As of yesterday, it had over 500 items.
It opened in early 2000, and always had a positive "top service" rating. It was one of the top 10 professional digital video retail sites in the US.
Our business was established in 1992 and like most other businesses, depends on integrity, knowledge and repeat business to survive and be profitable.
Without the store, our business is crippled: we can't even process credit cards without it.
Without it, we have no web presence outside of a hopelessly outdated old site that has no
e-commerce. We have no backup of the store information which took years to put it.
It will take months and months of 16-hour days to recreate the web site the way it was, with a service other than Yahoo!
The question that still rings in my head, "How could Yahoo! do that?", was the reason why I wasn't in a hurry to get that written notice from B&H that Yahoo! requested.
I was pretty sure that Yahoo! would choose not to arbitrarily close a store of a paying customer,
and not to disregard years of a successful business relationship, without a good
reason. Boy was I wrong...
In summary, this post is to let others know of potential dangers of hosting a store at Yahoo!, and to ask for help:
Is there indeed no recourse with Yahoo! arbitrarily closing a store that
effectively cripples our business and 10 years of hard work? Could you recommend a good business lawyer familiar with online services who could help us litigate with Yahoo!, should they choose not to reinstate our store?
Thanks everyone for help.
Alexei Gerulaitis
DV411 -- 310 838-9000 |
page views.