I cannot believe this is still going on! Britney better speak up and save her number one fan. If she doesn’t, she will disappoint millions of her fans.
The drama! Britney Spears’ number one fansite is Breatheheavy.com. The site was created and is maintained by a young man named Jordan Miller. He’s like that harmless cute kid on your high school soccer team that was friends with every kind of clique. Breatheheavy.com is a non-commercial fansite, which means he is NOT MAKING PROFIT. He is simply one of Britney’s biggest fans.
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Jordan Miller has gotten quite a bit of notoriety lately (I mean, he went from sitting in his room just web surfing on his computer, to E! News coming over and doing an exclusive interview with him). He is becoming well known. Breatheheavy.com has grown immensely this year! During the day, the site has thousands of visitors slamming it all at once. All visitors are fans of Britney Spears. The fans visit this website to see the latest REAL and up to date news, photos and video of her.
Let’s get to the point. Britney’s Dad Jamie Spears, who is currently her ‘conservator’, wrote Jordan an unfriendly email, stating that Jordan ‘take down a variety of Britney news on Breatheheavy.com The main reason Jamie wanted to stick his toe in, was because Jordan was freely writing news stories about ‘Jamie being an overcontrolling conservator to Britney’. Jamie didn’t like what was being said about himself, so he has gotten the ‘Britney Lawyer Team’ to go up against the young and innocent Britney fan; Jordan Miller.
Jordan Miller is a fan who loves Britney enough to start and dedicate A LOT of his time to her fansite (non-commercial) and ‘The Britney Team’ wants to take the site down? It must be like a bad nightmare to be pushed around by your very own hero. It’s not Britney directly who is doing this. It is her team and all of the copyright and licensing people doing this. Sounds a little familar. I remember when our friend Perez Hilton was just starting out. If you didn’t know, he used to go to the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf on Fairfax and Sunset to build and work on his site. He went there to get free internet! Holler! He just loved what he did. You could actually go see him there working. Then celebs even started showing up and confronted him about his mean blogs about them. So then to make a long story short, celebs and viewers caught onto his blog site and then BOOM! The money and fame rolled in fast. Guess what happens then? Similar to Jordan Miller-the cockroaches come out from the dark corners and try to snatch your success away. Perez had a Million Dollar something lawsuit on him for using copywritten photos that he did not pay for. He got through it and became successful anyway. A measly Million Dollars became the laughing stock! Perez did the same thing Jordan is doing, copying the lawyers letters onto Breatheheavy.com! Showing us what he is going through. Perez let his viewers follow along with the lawsuit and boy it was fun! Perez was unbreakable after that. Hang in there Jordan, Bloggers unite and fight! XO
Here is Jordan’s recent blog about The Britney Team trying to take him down. His own hero!
“But I thought BreatheHeavy was forced to close, Jordan?”
Ha, me too. And still is? Your guess is as good as mine.
In March, Jamie Spears’ lawyers (which Britney is paying for) demanded I remove my fansite, BreatheHeavy.com, “immediately” for copyright infringement, as well as violating Britney’s, I mean Brittany’s rights to publicity and privacy.
In lamest terms, “JORDAN, SHUT THE [expletive] UP ABOUT JAMIE AND THE CONSERVATORSHIP.”
The lawyers cited BreatheHeavy’s (now removed) Lyrix page as copyright infringement for posting the lyrics to her albums.
UM… HELLO?
As a result, BreatheHeavy was forced to temporarily shut down until I found a solution.
Again, your guess is as good as mine.
Fortunately, Clarke Walton, an Internet defense lawyer here in Las Vegas, has taken on my case(?) pro bono.
Clarke and I put together a formal response to Jamie’s lawyers to resolve the matter in a responsible, amicable manner, saying (in part):
quote:
“According to our independent investigation, your allegations against Mr. Miller are without merit. As you know, my client’s website is a non-commercial fan site regarding Ms. Spears. Ms. Spears is perhaps the most recognizable pop music celebrity on the planet. Accordingly, her rights are much different than most individuals.
Please know that Mr. Miller in no way wishes to infringe on Ms. Spears intellectual property rights. As a matter of fact, my client is perhaps one of Ms. Spears’ most sincere fans. To that end, my client desires to make a good faith effort to operate his Website in accordance with the law, while exercising the freedoms of fair use and free speech that he is allowed.
Upon your further review of the Website, if you do find any specific infringements that you would like to see addressed, I invite you to submit them to my office, so that I can discuss them with my client. Please rest assured that my client will take immediate action to cure any specific intellectual property violations brought to his attention. In addition, please feel free to use the notice and takedown provisions of the DMCA to address any of your client’s problems concerning copyrighted material available on the Website. I assure you that I will work with my client to resolve these matters in an expeditious manner.”
In other words, I want this matter taken care of and start fresh.
Jamie’s lawyer, Brad Rose, isn’t so keen on burrying the hachet.
Rose emailed back (within 24 hours [you KNOW he’s making the big bucks off Jamie Britney… ~allegedly~]) saying:
quote:
“The fact that Mr. Miller appears to have removed the copyrighted recordings and lyrics from his site at this stage does not absolve him from liability for past infringements that have occurred well within the applicable statues of limitation.
…
In the event our clients elect to file suit against Mr. Miller, he will, therefore, face liability for, inter alia, willful copyright infringement for which plaintiff can elect either statutory damages of up to $150,000 per each work infringed or actual damages.”
Brad Rose continues to say that I am not allowed to use Britney’s “Womanizer” song available on her public Myspace page.
“Moreover, we are aware that Mr. Miller maintains a myspacepage (www.myspace.com/breatheheavydotcom) which, despite the threat of suit from out clients, includes a flash player that plays Ms. Spears’s song ‘Womanizer.’”
HA, I laughed at that part, too.
“Mr. Miller’s site intentionally uses Ms. Spears’s copyrights, trademarks and likeness without authorization to generate commercial traffic and to generate advertising revenue, and based on the evidence we believe that any ‘nominative fair use’ defense would fail.”
With no foreseeable resolution in site, I mean sight, I am left with the emptiness and lack of passion reporting on a girl that may end up being my demise.
I want to work this out and am willing to compromise, but not at the expense of censorship.
I mean, if you enjoy checking out Britney’s shoelaces and fan-made whatevers, there’s always her official site. If you want regurgitated copy + paste news, there’s always the plethora of her other (ugly) fansites.
For originality, style and sexiness, there’s BreatheHeavy.
Like Britney says in her latest single: “confidence is a must, cockiness is a PLUS.”
Oh wait, that’s copyrighted.
Stay tuned…
