As of today we are able to publish the takedown notice we received last month regarding content from 2006 on zockerseele.com, our video games blog.
If you can’t understand German it won’t be very useful or informative, but at least the last page is written in English:
There are strange things going on here in Germany.
As we wrote last month, it is always the same “agency” which claims to own copyrights for a wide array of pictures. And, as I read, only small blogs are sued (500-600 to date) which are often not able to defend themselves.
We also needed to hire a specialized company for this case. Unfortunately to this day, nothing has changed for the better.
You will read the ending, be it a happy one or not, here: http://zockerseele.com.
So long,
the aethyx staff
New Media in Germany is like colors for the blind: No one has a clue.
Unfortunately this has serious negative consequences.
As of October the 7th, we have been sued.
It is always the same “agency” which is disturbing the blogger subculture here for no reason for years now. Unofficial estimates say they sent out 500-600 take down letters. Since January. Which makes it one of the most foul & most consequent campaigns against independent online writers _ever_ here in this strange European country.
To be clear: This is no serious business. Rumors have it that this agency scans weblog archives over and over and over again in hunting down the one picture/graphic/photo which is not referenced correctly and/or has gone viral after some bloggers mentioned it in an article. The next step seems to be that they obtain the rights for it, long after the content has gone viral, and sue the authors, claiming not only the freshly obtained rights but also suing even the smallest blogs for thousands of Euros.
Some of these authors are scared and close the blogs directly. Others simply have no money to defend themselves. In other cases an author simply is not able to sent back the declaration to cease and desist on time and runs into much bigger problems. Also, when sending back the default letter the agency sends you as an attachment you need to sign, you not only give up the rights to them for the next 30(!) years, but also are in danger being fined for another round of thousands of Euros. It’s an evil circle. A circle artificially created because German law to this date simply does not know or has any interest in creating safe harbors for shared content on the Internet.
Because, you know, as Chancellor Merkel already said: “The Internet is virgin territory for us all”. This was shortly after the Guardian revealed the extensive NSA snoopings going on for years. Yeah. Welcome to the “New World”! What a brave human you need to be in this world…
All the worst,
the aethyx staff
If you are looking for a completely new WordPress-Webhosting-package we introduced an unique special offer last month.
Some more information, here is a little update:
* fast & reliable servers located in Germany
* servers are 100% powered from renewable energy ressources
* brand new SSL certificate 99€/domain per year or 159€ for 2 years (unfortunately, we have no control over this price)*
The domain included in this package is for a new registration. If you already have one and want to port it to us this is no problem. In this case we need to calculate a new price which will be below the 5€ per month we introduced last month.
To be fair, our special offer was for completely new authors who want to start their very first project. It needs some effort to port domains and databases and stuff, so we also need to calculate a separate price for this porting service if you are moving to us. Also keep in mind that it needs some time for ICANN to transfer domains. You won’t be able to start immediately with us, ten to 14 days should be realistic.
*In fact it is possible to install a certificate if you already have one, but keep in mind this will cost 30€/year for installation and maintaining.
Enough of this, drop us a line when you are ready to get things started: info[at]aethyx.eu!
All the best,
the aethyx staff
Today we want to offer you a special webhosting package for a limited time. This offer ends when 10 new customers are found. There is a chance that we will do this again in the future, so please do not be upset when you are not chosen in the first round. Everybody deserves a second chance! 😉
Here the important details:
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* 1 domain name of your choice for free
* 1GB webspace
* unlimited traffic
* 50 Email accounts
* 5 subdomains
* newest version of WordPress preinstalled (1 MySQL database included, of course)
* choose the plugins you like from here: https://aethyx.eu/eshop/ OR choose up to ten from http://wordpress.org/plugins/. We configure anything and make them run
* installation of a custom theme from inside your new WordPress OR choose one from http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/
* installation of your own independent counter for free (see expCounter for details)
* price: 5€/month (terminable to the end of any month)
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Interested? Drop us a line: info[at]aethyx.eu!
All the best,
the aethyx staff
“summer time and the living is easy”
Summer is hell when it is that warm and uncomfortable and you are sitting in front of a computer.
So, what we do now is: We go outside.
We recommend this for you, too.
If you can not get loose of your hobby/profession/whatever then there are a lot of hacker camps which you should check out. Some name it “Summer of Code”, but one should never forget that there are more important things you can do in reality. You know, the place where your pizzas come from and stuff.
If you are looking for appropriate music we recommend Kruder & Dorfmeister, they made a lot of instant classics back in the days. Or Seelenluft from Switzerland.
We are out. Enjoy the weather and don’t forget to feed the cat!
All the best,
the aethyx staff