Ars Technica: American Bar Association Urges Against File Sharing Lawsuits

[Matthew Chan]

Although not directly related to stock photo extortion letters, I have repeatedly brought up how ongoing negative publicity and attention (our First Amendment right) as an effective AND ENTIRELY LEGAL tactic and strategy to fight back against reckless copyright troll/extortionist lawsuits against innocent, non-willful infringers ESPECIALLY when they involve small number of low-resolution images.

Ars Technica writes this article which essentially says that the American Bar Association believes that suing consumers causes a "public relations problem".  Really, big shock there.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/07/american-bar-association-urges-against-file-sharing-lawsuits/

Further, Getty and its alway genius, insightful management continue to create thousands of new enemies each year through its extortion letters (thereby furthering empowering ELI and others that publicly speak out, complain, and fight back).  This, of course, does not count the scores of photographers that now hate Getty and what they stand for.

The RIAA and MPAA has experienced first-hand experience in the consequences of legally attacking consumers.  Righthaven got put out of business by making the mistake of going after bloggers who (under fair use) quoted newspaper articles. It didn't hurt that federal court judges got wise to Righthaven and Steve Gibson.

Prenda Law got put into the ground by federal court judges when they got wise to Steele and his cohorts sleazy tactics. Those lawyers face all kinds of sanctions now for the unethical deeds. It's kind of fun watching federal judges go beat up on and call out the dirtbag lawyers within Prenda.

Getty counsel (both inside and outside) stupidly thinks because they don't file many lawsuits, they can continue to get away with using extortion letters asking for crazy amounts of money from innocent infringers without ever having to prove they own the images. I predict that Getty's extortion letter campaign will eventually hit a tipping point of no return and ELI intends to be there to witness this.

Getty is in a dying industry and business where its main clientele (big media) are diminishing in power and influence each year. Getty cannot stay big without big media support. Legacy book and magazine publishers are shrinking, consolidating, and collapsing. Getty cannot sustain their overhead from sales of microstock and royalty-free images alone. They need lucrative rights-managed suckers customers to support all those expensive salaries by Jonathon Klein, his managers, and their faceless inside counsel (whom hide behind outside suckers counsel, Timmy "Mack" McCormack and Scott "Towels" Wilsdon)

PACA, the organization which most stock photography businesses are a member, is trying to desperately encourage and teach its membership to stem the tsunami of customers running away from expensive, rights-managed images to microstock and royalty-free images.  They want to reverse the so-called "brainwashing" that the stock photo industry themselves inflicted years earlier by pricing lower-resolution web-use photos for a lesser price.

Simultaneously, Getty's portfolio of so-called assets (collections of millions of images) are a DEPRECIATING asset as more supply is being CREATED and DUMPED OUT by the general public with their easy and affordable access to superior cameras and other photography equipment.

Back to the Ars Technica article which the American Bar Association is discouraging its members from contributing to their clients public relations problem. (Scott Towels and Timmy Mack should pay very close attention to what the ABA is saying.)

For those of you interested in reading about what the ABA is discussing, here is the link to their White Paper.

http://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/administrative/intellectual_property_law/advocacy/ABASectionWhitePaperACallForActionCompositetosize.authcheckdam.pdf

[Matthew Chan]

These are important excerpts from the White Paper on pg. 30-31, 59,
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3. Remedies Directed Against Consumers

Finally, while it is technically possible for trademark and copyright owners to proceed with civil litigation against the consuming public who affirmatively seek out counterfeited products or pirated content or engage in illegal file sharing, campaigns like this have been expensive, do not yield significant financial returns, and can cause a public relations problem for the plaintiff in addressing its consuming public.

For instance, the Recording Industry of America (“RIAA”) initiated a campaign several years ago against consumers who engaged in illegal file sharing of copyrighted music. During that time, Civil Remedies the RIAA initiated lawsuits against over 18,000 individual users, most of whom paid a few hundred dollars in settlements to avoid the potential for statutory damages of $150,000 per infringing
use. More recently, the RIAA has abandoned its former policy of directly bringing cases against consumers in favor of expanding its focus on educating the consuming public about avoiding piracy.

The Motion Picture Association of America (“MPAA”) followed in the RIAA’s footsteps with its own set of lawsuits directed against consumers who engaged in the illegal file sharing of copyrighted films and other video, though on a vastly smaller scale. It, too, later abandoned this approach.

Based on the information currently available, the IPL Section does not believe that legislative action directly targeting consumers would prove effective in reducing piracy or counterfeiting at this time. Alternatively, a well-constructed and continuous public outreach campaign to educate the public about piracy and counterfeiting, the negative impacts these activities have on the U.S. economy and ways consumers can be proactive in trying to stop such conduct may have a longer lasting positive impact.

D. Public Reaction

Reception to COICA, PIPA and SOPA followed a similar pattern: initially receiving support from copyright and trademark industry leaders and coalitions; appearing on the fast-track to becoming law; then dogged by criticisms from civil libertarians and Internet industry interests; and ultimately abandoned. Often times, critics showed support for the bills’ intentions, but opposed their passage because of what many perceived as threats to free speech and due process.