Posts Tagged: "Jerk.com"

On April 17, 2013, the United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued an Order Denying Petition to Quash Civil Investigative Demand in the Matter of Jerk, LLC. This means that an investigation started by the FTC will now proceed and Jerk.com will either need to challenge the FTC in court or they will need to turn over the requested files and information. The hammer seems to be coming down on Jerk.com, which should make an awful lot of tormented, harassed and cyber-bullied people quite happy.

Last week, a petition was created to petition the White House to take down the website Jerk.com. To date the petition has unfortunately not received many votes. Earlier today I was the 28th e-signer of the petition. My guess is that this is due to lack of publicity more so than anything else. Once people learn of the petition my guess is that the signatures will accumulate quickly, but will there be enough time to reach the 100,000 signature threshold by February 22, 2013?

Jerk.com isn’t the worst website on the Internet by a long shot, but the arrogance with which the site is operated and seems to flagrantly disregard copyright laws is astounding. If you are going to use a DMCA Takedown Notice you should be certain that you are the copyright owner. If you are in the picture that Jerk.com uses the copyright owner would be the photographer unless you specifically obtained the underlying copyrights by assignment. So the person who should send the DMCA Takedown Notice is the copyright owner. Alternatively, have the person who took the copyright assign any and all copyrights to you before you send the DMCA Takedown Notice. This can easily be achieved by a basic copyright assignment.

Jerk.com is perhaps the most abusive and offensive website on the Internet. In addition to encouraging the voting on whether people are jerks they allow the most vile commentary to be published. I can’t think of anything else to call this other than cyber bullying. Not only are they engaging in widespread harassment of unsuspecting, innocent and helpless individuals — INCLUDING CHILDREN — but they are also engaged in widespread copyright infringement.