DMCA Notice

Wikipedia has a better and more comprehensive guide that I would rather defer to. No sense in duplicating content that exists in a better format there. It's just more work for us.

Honestly as i have been reading your reply's on here you seem defeated, your not. Thousands of people from around the world use this site to get news, share thoughts and even talk about generally anything. We all know Andy and Jezza are very aware of us. This site is important to the fans. Viper, don't kill off the front page, its a great place to get quick info.

I have been talking to the counsel i have access to and they have been wondering and doing some research into if this take down notice has any grounds. You have done nothing wrong as far as i can tell but im not a lawyer. Ill let you know what they have to say in time, after all, they are doing it for free so that can go slow.

Have you considered writing to the guys directly? I really wonder if they are aware of what has happened here and if they will do anything to help.

My point is that you shouldn't be so hard on yourself, you are important to a lot of people and just because one small part of the site has been disabled doesn't mean this site as a whole isn't important. Your website has helped soldiers through deployments, helped sick people through hard times and hospital stays and even helped new parents get through those long nights. Don't change a thing dude, keep doing what your doing, please, some of us need it.
 
My point is that you shouldn't be so hard on yourself, you are important to a lot of people and just because one small part of the site has been disabled doesn't mean this site as a whole isn't important. Your website has helped soldiers through deployments, helped sick people through hard times and hospital stays and even helped new parents get through those long nights. Don't change a thing dude, keep doing what your doing, please, some of us need it.

Seconded, and very well said.
 
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I've been doing this for over 10 years. It sucks but I won't miss having to be home at a specific time to release a torrent.

As for the main site, my thoughts are when you take away the downloads, what's left? Episode descriptions and general news. Making descriptions for each episode was a time consuming task and is duplicating the work of a wiki like Wikipedia who arguably does a better job at it. Non-episode news was few and far between. Would you want to visit a site where the last update on the homepage was from months and months ago? I wouldn't -- it'd seem like the site was abandoned.

Instead I would rather offload descriptions to Wikipedia and offload news to forum threads. I want to promote the forums more rather than hiding them behind a rarely updated front page.
 
The forums are probably more important to most people than the torrents anyway. Still it sucks to lose a central and reliable place to find torrents. I'd always assumed that FG was being operated with a nod and a wink from the folks involved with TG production, but clearly the more friendly people involved were unable to keep the lawyers from finding out.
 
I'd always assumed that FG was being operated with a nod and a wink from the folks involved with TG production, but clearly the more friendly people involved were unable to keep the lawyers from finding out.

The BBC has never sent us a DMCA notice that I'm aware of, even to this day. I think they understood we meant no harm and actually helped (in a small way at the very least) increase world-wide awareness of the show.

The organization that sent the DMCA notice was sort of similar to the MPAA here in the US. Sort of. It was an industry group not the BBC. We have no legal ownership of the content though so we cannot counter the DMCA even though I don't think we were doing anything illegal.
 
The BBC has never sent us a DMCA notice that I'm aware of, even to this day. I think they understood we meant no harm and actually helped (in a small way at the very least) increase world-wide awareness of the show.

The organization that sent the DMCA notice was sort of similar to the MPAA here in the US. Sort of. It was an industry group not the BBC. We have no legal ownership of the content though so we cannot counter the DMCA even though I don't think we were doing anything illegal.

That is such BS that an organization that doesn't even own the content can send a DMCA. You wouldn't even think they would have legal standing to get a court order or file a suit.
 
So basically one party with no legal ownership of the content told the other party with no legal ownership to no longer link to the content neither one owns. Yay.
 
The MPAA doesn't own any of the content it sends out DMCAs for either. They're an industry group that enforces copyright on behalf of others. Presumably the BBC pays this other industry group to do the same but they never got the memo that we're cool. :(
 
Here, in some European countries, the publisher / performer / author even may not be a member of such organization and will never get any money that organization collects from you for their artwork!
 
Although I have been using this site for many years I have never joined the forums as I never had a comment. But after watching every episode of Top Gear UK at least three times and Top Gear US and Aus at least once I was immensely disappointed to hear of this DMCA notice.
I just want to thank Viper and everyone else that has helped keep this site running for so many years.
The Top Gear UK team have mentioned this site many times in snippets over the years and here in Australia I know this site is the reason many of my friends became Top Gear addicts. I'm very disappointed the BBC couldn't have given the site their public blessing.
I have found the DVD's of Top Gear to not be complete and while I'm happy to pay to watch I would like to be able to watch the shows shortly after their release and keep the video to watch multiple times. I often would watch each episode by myself, then with my son and then with friends.
Australian TV never has shows on time and they are often edited and lose content. Not to mention with my work schedule I often cannot watch a show at the time it is aired here.
I guess now I will have to troll the illegal websites hoping to find a decent quality copy in fear of being hunted for my crimes :p

So thanks again FinalGear.
May you enjoy your rest after so many years of great work.
 
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As always, the only thing this DMCA-complaint seems to do is hurt BBC's image and piss off a couple of fans. You'd think they'd learn.
If the monster that is the movie and music industry would have learned anything by now then we would have platforms were all the movies and music are easily and legally accessible (and not limited to certain countries/IPs!). I would gladly give someone some money for a quality 1080p mkv with 5.1 audio and only a little bit of compression. However, such a thing does not exist - anything legal right now is far too complicated, far too incomplete, far too restricted and usually way late compared to 1-click-hosters and torrents. But as usual, the industry is not asking what the customer wants but instead wants to sell us their bullshit while surpressing any reasonable alternative.

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Instead I would rather offload descriptions to Wikipedia and offload news to forum threads. I want to promote the forums more rather than hiding them behind a rarely updated front page.
Sounds reasonable. In my opinion the forum is way more important. And thx for all the work you and others have put in during the last years! We will get through this.

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The Top Gear UK team have mentioned this site many times in snippets over the years and here in Australia I know this site is the reason many of my friends became Top Gear addicts. I'm very disappointed the BBC couldn't have given the site their public blessing.
Realistically that could have never happenend. The BBC would have officially endorsed copyright infringement. Even though the BBC "owns" Top Gear, some aspects of the show are just licensed (the music for instance) and can't be given away to everyone for free without another kind of licensing. And good luck trying to justify an increase in public television fees for UK residents so that the BBC can buy proper licenses and show Top Gear to the whole world for free (well, except for those in the UK of course).
Best case scenario has always been that the people in charge know about this site but pretent it doesn't exist. Legally there is nothing the BBC can do that would NOT set an example for the whole internet. I know this whole "technically we didn't host the files, only the links"-stuff has to be sorted out legally in a reasonable way, but until then I sort of tend to agree with the sentiment that sharing a link to a copyright-protected file is about as a bad as sharing the file itself. Explanation: As a downloader I don't really care where the file comes from, and sending me the file or sending me a link to the file amounts to the same thing: I get something I should have pay money for. Link to file instead of file is just one small detour.
I do however propose that the 20th century copyright laws have to be reworked and adjusted to this "thing" called "the internet". Sadly, the people that could do this are either not very interested in it or are working too damn slowly.

Just imagine if you could buy .mkv files from Amazon and if all the stuff would be available instantly. Just too good to be true...
 
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Agree with Viper about hiding the forums. As you can see from the # of post I am very new to the forum but have used the site for 5+ years. Am an active member of many forums and will continue with this one. American TG now being awesome will ensure forward growth. Was convienent to get episodes from here but....oh well there is 100 others I can still download from. Focus on the forum and please continue the episode countdown and major series/episode announcements and I will be happy :)
 
i believe that without this very site there would not even be such a huge following of top gear worldwide. its sad that these people still don't understand how stuff works these days.

Right on. It's this website that kept my interest in TG alive :)
 
what about the fifth gear episodes?
they are not part of the DMCA notice, but are offline, too.
will they come online again, or are they taken down preventive?
 
what about the fifth gear episodes?
they are not part of the DMCA notice, but are offline, too.
will they come online again, or are they taken down preventive?

viper already explained why they are down (and will stay down)
 
The BBC has been cheerfully crushing Dr Who fan sites and even suing people who happen to paint their police boxes blue for over a decade now. This is just the latest in a very long line of similar actions.

its clear the BBC and others just dont understand the impact these sites have on their brands. It sucks
 
You could just post when a new episode is available on other sites, just without saying where. Just something like:
Top Gear America 05?06 Released:
The latest episode is available. Discuss the show on the forum.​

It'd still be very helpful to know when we can get shows, have a place to see the dates of when the latest episodes aired, as well as get news about the shows - all in one place.

I agree 100% with this suggestion. I'd still love to know when new episodes have been released.

Thanks
 
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