Should I worry about this?

[breest]

I just got an email from Apic Worldwide stating the following:

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NOTICE of COPYRIGHT-TRADEMARK, RIGHT of PUBLICITY INFRINGEMENT

APIC-WORLDWIDE
3325 Griffin Road #137
Ft. Lauderdale, Florida 33312
(954) 983-7312

All images and references to Jennifer Love Hewitt, Denise Richards, Alley Baggett, Tori Spelling

"Right of Publicity"

Notice is forwarded to additional victims of this unauthorized and defamatory abuse.

THIS NOTICE IS PER THE “DIGITAL MILLENIUM COPYRIGHT ACT” of 1998
http://arl.cni.org/info/frn/copy/band.html

Steve Easton is the director of APIC-Worldwide, NOT an attorney. On behalf of the owner of the exclusive right to the material at issue in this notice, I hereby state that I have a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the owner, its agent, or the law. I hereby state, under penalty of perjury under the laws of the United States, that the information in this notification is accurate, and under penalty of perjury, that the complaining party is authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is being infringed as set out in this notification.

APIC WORLDWIDE, (the Association for the Protection of Internet Copyright), is a non-profit membership organization dedicated to the continued education of Internet copyright law and enforcement of such law through the co-operation of international, domestic, federal, state, and local statutes, laws, and ordinances. Additional information can be found at:
http://www.a-w.org http://www.apic-worldwide.com

Be advised that the "ANTI-PIRACY ACT" makes it a federal crime to distribute copyrighted material via the Internet while the "FEDERAL LABELING AND RECORD-KEEPING LAW" (Title 18 USC 2257, 75 CFR 75) makes it a federal crime NOT to maintain, on file, proof of age for every model displayed.
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Should I worry about this?

[John_Little]

Do you own the the rights to the pics?

If so, you have nothing to worry about. If you stole the pics, I would be worried.

[Terrance11]

If apic sends you an e-mail, they're serious about it. They can bring you to court for using copyright celeb content, in which they could either sue you, take all profits from your website, or possibly just have your site shut down.

[Jorge]

do a search on the board, there is a similar thread several months ago.
if you bought content, fuck them
if you do not live / host in the US, fuck them
otherwise, remove that content, and write back you followed their suggestions.
I am pretty sure that the burden of proof rests on them, they must prove they REALLY copyrighted the material etc. but why to bother with a trial if you earn several bucks from these depictions, and invest time & money in such dispute. I think they (Alley, Denise ...) just do not want to appear on an adult site, it is not a question of copyright at all - if you have some paparazzi photos, APIC & others do not have copyright to these pics as well.

[nic]

if you want a good host contact me

[Exxxotica]

A good host? Ha! Try a good lawyer, because you are fucked my friend.

Best to get rid of the content.

[nic]

Yeah, I think Steve Apac or whatever is responsible for shutting down loads of sites before.

[xApster]

Most people here was not in the celeb biz... I have got like 30 of those things form 1 time or another.. they just do it a bucnh of time to scare people.

There is a small chance they would do something but I don't think they would waste there money taking down a small celeb/cj site... they go after the paysites and once those are gone the niche slowly dies.

[Barbarian]

yeah you should be worried. Apic will likely put your host on notice and most hosts are so paranoid about getting sued that they will take your site down with any allegation of copyright infringement thats not complied with within 24 hours.

[toker]

Zerox a copy of your middle finger and mail it to their office or better yet fax it to them. ;)

[XxxPower.net]

You should be worried man. I got sued by MTV few months ago after one email like this. They won the case and I lost my domain name. It was for music site, but it's the same for the adult sites.

nasko