The Great Powet Outage of September 2007

For the regular readers, you may have noticed the site has been down for the better part of the past two days.

The reason for this was that we were served with a DMCA copyright infringement letter from an internet investigator on the behalf of Microsoft. Last month, we posted a leaked copy of the Halo 3 manual (which several commenters exclaimed that it had to be a fake). All seven of these images were listed in the email specifically by filename. Our host, who received this letter, shut the site down. When we got in contact with the host, they forwarded the letter to us. After reading the letter and getting back in touch with our host we were given a 5 hour window today to remove all traces of the images from our site.

We have done so and the site has been restored.

We are going to further review the policies of our host regarding further instances such as these and based on that, make a decision to move to a new host or not. While we are willing to comply with letters such as these when they are valid, we are more than discontented that the host decided to shut our site down for such a length of time without any type of notice before, or during the outage, until we were forced to reach out to them.

I have copied the infringement letter after the jump.

But first, Zac made a couple videos about the fall and rise of Powet.

Demand for Immediate Take-Down: Notice of Infringing Activity

URL:
http://powet.tv/powetblog/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/halo3manualcover.png
http://powet.tv/powetblog/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/halo_index.jpg
http://powet.tv/powetblog/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/halo_story.png
http://powet.tv/powetblog/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/halo_controls.png
http://powet.tv/powetblog/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/halo_goodies.png
http://powet.tv/powetblog/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/halo_baddies.png
http://powet.tv/powetblog/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/halo_gunzzz.png

CASE #: 98614

13 September 2007

Dear Sir or Madam,

It has come to Microsoft’s attention that your website includes
material which is in violation of Microsoft’s intellectual property
rights. Content currently residing within your computer system
infringes on the trademark rights of Microsoft Corporation and
constitutes an unauthorized activity relating to Microsoft computer
programs. Moreover, the material contains proprietary trade secret
information belonging to Microsoft. I am authorized to act on behalf
of Microsoft in this matter.

The infringing materials residing on your system are the screen shots
of Microsoft software programs available at the following location:

http://powet.tv/powetblog/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/halo3manualcover.png
http://powet.tv/powetblog/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/halo_index.jpg
http://powet.tv/powetblog/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/halo_story.png
http://powet.tv/powetblog/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/halo_controls.png
http://powet.tv/powetblog/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/halo_goodies.png
http://powet.tv/powetblog/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/halo_baddies.png
http://powet.tv/powetblog/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/halo_gunzzz.png

Posting of Microsofts proprietary trade secret information as
described above is not authorized by Microsoft, any of its agents, or
by law. We request that you immediately take steps to remove this
material from your website. If you do not act expeditiously to remove
access to the infringing material, you may otherwise be liable for
trademark infringement, trade secret misappropriation, and/or other
remedies at law, including civil and criminal penalties.

We appreciate your cooperation in this matter. Please advise us
regarding what actions you take.

Yours sincerely,

Graeme Grant
Internet Investigator

on behalf of Microsoft Corporation
One Microsoft Way
Redmond, WA 98052
United States of America

E-mail: Internet1@microsoft-antipiracy.com