BY JAN HAAG

To:
Elizabeth Compton
ERCompton@aol.com
AOL Legal Department

From: Jan Haag
jhaag@u.washington.edu, jhaag@janhaag.com Owner and creator of janhaag.com

Dear Elizabeth Compton, Legal Department, America Online, Inc. (AOL)

Copyright infringement of my work on AOL's Poetry Boards (mainly, as I understand it, on AOL's Coffee Shop and Sassy's Coffee Shop at the Edge of the Universe, but possibly on other boards as well) has been brought to my attention -- and to yours, AOL's attention, before now. To stop this massive copyright infringement and rectify this situation I am submitting a DMCA COMPLIANT NOTICE, appended below.

And, as a good faith gesture, on AOL's part, to remedy this ongoing and shockingly extensive copyright infringement, I ask that the following eight point remedy be implemented, so that all AOL Poetry Board contributors and readers (world wide) are made aware of the true source and author of the poetry in question.

SUGGESTED REMEDY,

FIRST, all postings by the entities using the names and code names of NorthStar1007, Susanna, Baie, Baie d'Ange, Fred, Jack, Fteregul et al and possibly other names still unknown to me, need to be checked to see whether or not they do, indeed, contain works plagiarized from me and from my website, http://janhaag.com.

This can be done by AOL quickly and easily as described under Item 4 of the DMCA Complaint Notice below. I would assume that AOL already knows this elementary procedure and would have made use of it ere now vis a vis the plagiarism of my poetry -- as the plagarizism has already been brought to AOL's attention several times by several people.

SECOND, That all poems plagiarized by NorthStar1007 et al (as mentioned above and listed in the body of the DMCA COMPLIANT NOTICE attached below) be removed from AOL's Poetry Boards. I never gave any permission to anyone to put any of my poetry on any of AOL's Boards any place in the world at any time.

THIRD, That NorthStar1007 et al, revealed as flagrant plagiarizers, be barred (world wide) from any further use of AOL's Poetry Boards.

FOURTH, That all the poems in question be reposted on AOL's Poetry Boards, in the same locations where the plagiarized poems were posted (world wide) using, in each case, the original version of each poem as posted on janhaag.com, and giving correct attribution to Jan Haag as sole author of these works, and that her name, under each poem, be followed by her copyright notice:

Copyright © 2001 Jan Haag
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

FIFTH, That at all locations (world wide) where Jan Haag's original poems are reposted, there appear, preceding any group of poems posted together or any single poem posted separately, the following NOTICE:

________

NOTICE:

The poems posted below were plagiarized from Jan Haag's website, janhaag.com, and posted to AOL's Poetry Boards by one or more persons using the names NorthStar1007, Susanna, Baie, Baie d'Ange, Fred, Frederick, Jack, Fteregul and possibly other pseudonyms or code names.

AOL apologizes for this extensive infringement of copyright and has barred further use of their boards to NorthStar1007 et al (noted above).

The poems are reposted here (below) in their original forms and signed by their original author, Jan Haag,

The Collected Works of Jan Haag are posted on her website at janhaag.com, the URL of her poetry section being http://janhaag.com/POpoetry.html. This opening pages of the poetry section fully indexes her approximately 1000 poems posted on her website.

_______________

Again, each and every poem plagiarized from Jan Haag is to be reposted on AOL and preceeded by the above notice, and followed by her name and copyright notice.

SIXTH, Also, the INTRODUCTION to Jan Haag's The Desolation Poems/POETIC FORMS USED IN ENGLISH, available at http://janhaag.com/PODesIntro.html, from which "NorthStar1007/Susanna" plagiarized a number of lines, verbatim, is to be reposted in full, Preceededby the above NOTICE, and followed by the correct attribution to Jan Haag (as shown beneath the Introduction, and her copyright notice appended.

Beneath this reposting the following NOTICE is to be posted:

____________

NOTICE:

The poems plagiarized and posted by NorthStar1007 et al and titled as (her words) English Poetry Forms were stolen verbatim from Jan Haag's collection POETRY FORMS USED IN ENGLISH. The titles, for the most part, simply form names, are of course, public domain. The descriptions of the forms used by NorthStar1007 et al as epigraphs to the plagiarized poems are not by Jan Haag and were never meant to accompany the poems as originally published. These inserted description may or may have involved instances of plagiarizing from some other source.

____________

SEVENTH, Let it be noted and acted upon, that I insist that the above six points be implemented on AOL's Boards "world wide," as I have been informed that some of my poems have been plagiarized and posted on AOL Boards in countries other than the United States.

EIGHTH, In addition to the above, I wish to receive, within a reasonable amount of time, say within three weeks, a communication from AOL that assures me that all the above items "First" through "Seventh" have been honored and acted upon.

I look forward to hearing from you soon,

Sincerely,

Jan Haag

Following is the

DMCA COMPLIANT NOTICE to AOL

from JAN HAAG, owner and creator of janhaag.com

Include:

1. the electronic or physical signature of the owner of the copyright or the person authorized to act on the owner's behalf.

Statement: My name is Jan Haag, and I am the owner and creator of janhaag.com, URL http://janhaag.com, and the author of all poetry that appears on that website in the section designated poetry. This section begins at http://janhaag.com/POpoetry.html. Approximately 1000 poems are posted in this section, all of which are the unique and original work of Jan Haag -- unless otherwise specifically noted and specifically attributed, as in quotes, epigraphs, references, etc. -- allowed for under "fair use." JH

2. a description of the copyrighted work that you claim has been infringed and a description of the infringing activity.

Statement: Apparently, between 100 and 150 (possibly more), of my original poems which appear on my website, janhaag.com, have been plagiarized and re-posted on AOL Poetry Boards. I have been informed that they mainly appear on Coffee Shop and Sassy's Coffee Shop at the Edge of the Universe. There may also be other boards/folders et al (world wide) within AOL's poetry boards, where poems, plagiarized from my website appear. Indeed there seems to be an ongoing, intentional, continuous stealing of my work by one or more persons using the names/code-names of NorthStar1007, Susanna, Baie, Baie d'Ange, Fred, Frederick, Jack, Fteregul, and possibly others or others under other pseudonyms or code names.

Indeed the culprit, has stolen part of my Introduction to my collection titled The Desolation Poems/POETIC FORMS USED IN ENGLISH where, as I began to write the poems in this collection, I cited my intention to write about 400 poems in forms at the rate of about one a day. NorthStar/1007/Susanna has stolen sections of this Introduction verbatim from http://janhaag.com/PODesIntro.html, posted them on an AOL Poetry Board, and signed them as her own, thus making it appear that she may intend to plagarize the entire collection which consists of, at present, over 333 poems.

Other individual poems have also been plagiarized from janhaag.com. When posting these individual poems to AOL Boards, the plagiarizer usually changes the title, but copies the poems verbatim. At times she changes a name or a word within a poem.

Other collections the plagiarizer has stolen from are BIRDS MIGRATE AT NIGHT and various sections of THE 2001 POEMS. There also remains the possibility that NorthStar1007 et al has stolen from other collections, these thefts being, so far, undetected.

The names of all my collections, and an alphabetical listing of most of my individual poems appears on the Introductory page of the Poetry section of janhaag.com at http://janhaag.com/POpoetry.html. (A few of the most recent poems have not been alphabetically indexed, but are accessible through their collection titles.) In a few instances, as in the 333+ poems of The Desolation Poems/POETIC FORMS USED IN ENGLISH collection, the poems are indexed alphabetically on the collection's own Introductory page, http://janhaag.com/PODesIntro.html. JH

3. identification of the location where the original or an authorized copy of the copyrighted work exists, for example the URL of the website where it is posted or the name of the book in which it has been published.

Statement: All the works that NorthStar1007 et al (as mentioned above) has plagiarized from me exist in their original form on http://janhaag.com specifically, but not exclusively in the Poetry section, i.e. http://janhaag.com/POpoetry.html. JH

4. identification of the URL or other specific location on this site where the material that you claim is infringing is located; you must include enough information to allow us to locate the material.

Statement: I am forwarding to you, at this time, approximately 40 e-mails that contain approximately 100 individual poems that have been plagiarized from my copyrighted website, janhaag.com, and posted on AOL Boards by an entity calling itself NorthStar1007, and signing these, my poems, most frequently as Susanna, but also, occasionally, as Baie, Baie d'Ange, Fred, Frederick, Jack, Fteregul. NorthStar1007, or any of the others, may also have used other pseudonyms.

These e-mails, for the most part, also include the message-ids for each poem or group of poems indicating where and when and by whom these poems were posted to AOL's Boards. Within the subject, title, body, or at the end of the poems, these poems are attributed to various names (as mentioned above). Though most of the poems are stolen verbatim, occasionally, if I use a name within a poem, the name is changed, often to "Fred".

There can be no difficulty in AOL identifying each and every individual one of my poem, for, not only can AOL check them through the URL, http://janhaag.com/POpoetry.html, with all its links, but each individual poem on the AOL postings can be checked by simply doing a "Search" (I use Google) of any line within each plagarized poem. Doing this will turn up the URLs within my site where each of the original poems is located. Once within the page on my website, it is a simple matter of using "Find" to find the particular poem or line sought. I mention "Find", as I frequently have several poems on a page within my collections and "Search" does not always go directly to a particular line or poem.

In this way any and every posting ever made on AOL's Boards by NorthStar1007 et al, or any other psuedonym that is suspected of being associated with them, can be easily, swiftly and definitively checked. If AOL does not know these searching techniques, I suggest AOL may be accused of iresponsibility and inexcusable negligence, i.e. under the law "ignorance is no excuse."

The majority of the poems noted in the forwarded e-mails are in my Collection titled The Desolation Poems /POETIC FORMS USED IN ENGLISH. It begins at http://janhaag.com/PODesIntro.html, where it is completely indexed and linked to every poem in the collection. Every page in this Collection, as every other page on my Website, janhaag.com, begins with the words By Jan Haag and a copyrighted notice is clearly visible at or near the bottom.

The plagiarizing of these poems, as well as others not contained in the following emails, has been repeatedly called to AOL's attention. Thus there is no excuse for AOL to have not used this easy "searching" technique to check out any and all accusations of plagiarism regarding my poems and to have stopped it ere now. Especially as my name, Jan Haag, and my website, janhaag.com, has been repeatedly mention to them in these notification of copyright infringement. Thus AOL may be held culpable of having contributed to copyright infringement either directly or indirectly. JH

5. your name, address, telephone number, and email address.

Statement: My name is Jan Haag. My address is [included in original]. I do not have a phone. I can be reached by e-mail at either jhaag@u.washington.edu or jhaag@janhaag.com. JH

6. a statement by you that you have a good faith belief that the disputed use is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law.

Statement: Being the owner of the copyright and the creator of all the poetry in question, I assure you I never gave permission to the plagarizers NorthStar1007 et al as named above to appropriate any of my poems and attribute the poems to themselves. Nor have I ever authorized anyone to post or publish any of my poems any where in any way at any time without my permission.

As this DMCA COMPLIANT NOTICE form has this specific provision in it which, by its language, provides for a "you" other than the copyright owner (or its agent or the law) to bring to AOL's attention the copyright infringement taking place on their boards and, as this ongoing and repeated plagiarizing and infringement of my copyright has been happening for some time (unknown to me), there is no reason that AOL could not have, earlier, followed up on the accusation of copyright infringement brought to their attention by other persons.

As noted above under Item 4, by a simple search they could have immediately and easily, upon receiving such notice, learned the original source (i.e. janhaag.com) of any of the poems in question, especially as my name, Jan Haag, was given to them each time the plagiarism was brought to their attention. They could also have identified and compared each plagiarized poem, line by line with those that appear on Jan Haag's copyrighted website.

Having done this they could have immediately checked with Jan Haag ( as both her email addresses jhaag@u.washington.edu and jhaag@janhaag.com appear on all janhaag.com pages), to ascertain if the poems post on AOL's boards and signed by other persons had been authorized by Jan Haag.. It thus appears reasonable to assume that AOL knowingly, without taking even the most obvious and elementary steps to check on information provided them by persons whose veracity they had no reason to doubt, allowed the plagiarism of Jan Haag's poems to continue for sometime after being notified. JH

7. a statement by you, made under penalty of perjury, that the above information in your Notice is accurate and that you are the copyright owner or are authorized to act on the copyright owner's behalf.

Statement: The information contained in this notice is accurate and I am the copyright owner.

My name and Copyright notice appears on every page in my website in the following form:

Copyright © 2001 Jan Haag
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

I also date and make hard copies of every poem I write, and every page of my website is titled "By Jan Haag". The copyright notice appears near the bottom of each page. Whenever I rework, rewrite or add to a page, I update my copyright notice. JH

This SUGGESTED REMEDY and DMCA CCOMPLAINT was also sent directly to AOL's LEGAL DEPARTMENT main e-mail address on:

Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 14:38:53 -0700 (PDT)
From: J. Haag
To: Aolcopyright@aol.com
Cc: J. Haag
Subject: Plagiarism on AOL,DMCA Complaint Notice (fwd)

This is a copy of an email sent to Elizabeth Compton.
Jan Haag

Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2001 17:23:07 EDT
From: ERCompton@aol.com
To: jhaag@u.washington.edu
Subject: Infringement of your poems on AOL message boards

Dear Ms. Haag:

I wanted to follow up with you regarding your notice of copyright infringement and your subsequent correspondence with Tracey of the poetry message boards. I stepped aside since Tracey was taking care of removing the postings from the poetry message boards to the best of her ability based on the information provided to her. I would like to take this opportunity to assure you that AOL takes this situation seriously and we have taken steps to try to prevent it from happening again. As I'm sure you understand, we can't be certain that someone won't do something like this again. So if you become aware of such an occurrence, please notify us by completing the copyright infringement notice form and we will take appropriate action.

Yours sincerely,

Elizabeth Compton
Senior Paralegal
America Online, Inc.

Elizabeth Compton | Senior Paralegal  | America Online, Inc. 
p: 703.265.1093   |   f: 703.265.1075   |   e: ERCompton@aol.com