Hawaiian Artwork, LLC Files Lawsuit!

[Robert Krausankas (BuddhaPi)]

Looks like Hawaiian Art Network, LLC has filed a suit against Aloha Plastic Surgery, and to no surprise Vincent K Tylor is also named as a plaintiff

http://dockets.justia.com/docket/hawaii/hidce/1:2011cv00722/100339/


Correction!!!! Make that 2 suits!

http://dockets.justia.com/docket/hawaii/hidce/1:2011cv00721/100348/

[Robert Krausankas (BuddhaPi)]

I managed to find the attorney in this case and it appears he actually has some experience..

http://www.ip-law-hawaii.com/J_Stephen_Street_Profile.html

I wonder if he is aware that there may be seeding of images happening with Hawaiian Art Network and "artist" V.K.Tylor

http://www.rfcexpress.com/lawsuits/copyright-lawsuits/hawaii-district-court/86075/hawaiian-art-network-llc-v-aloha-plastic-surgery-llc/summary/

:::EDIT::: this same attorney is involved in both cases mentioned in the original post.

[Robert Krausankas (BuddhaPi)]

Here's another one the same lawyer is handling, I know nothing about this case, except it is with another company "Pacific Stock" and i assume it is in regards to stock images...

Pacific Stock, Inc. v. Big Kahuna Adventures Hawaii LLC et al

http://www.rfcexpress.com/lawsuits/copyright-lawsuits/hawaii-district-court/86073/pacific-stock-inc-v-big-kahuna-adventures-hawaii-llc/summary/

[aimiyo]

Yes thats me !!

Well I will post details later and made another post in another thread.

I will find out more about this as we go along....

Thanks for your web site

I will be back.

M

[Oscar Michelen]

The company is carefully picking and choosing whom to file against and is focusing on Hawaiian businesses. They still will have many issues to deal with in court and it will be interesting to see how the Federal District Court responds to these cases. My biggest concern is that if these cases are not properly defended they could make bad law which will help all the other digital image companies in the 9th Circuit, which  includes California! So while it may seem that its just little old Hawaiian Art Network involved over a few filings, there may be a lot more at stake here.       

[Robert Krausankas (BuddhaPi)]

Oscar, is there any merit to a possible entrapment defense or something along those lines? Every letter I have seen from HAN involves the same photogrpaher, and all of these images are readily available on literally 100's of sites as free downloads??

::EDIT::

could you possibly expound on this a little more??: "My biggest concern is that if these cases are not properly defended they could make bad law which will help all the other digital image companies in the 9th Circuit"

[Robert Krausankas (BuddhaPi)]

Here's yet another one that just appeared on the radar..

Hawaiian Art Network, LLC et al v. Moku'aina Properties, LLC et al

http://www.rfcexpress.com/lawsuits/copyright-lawsuits/hawaii-district-court/86202/hawaiian-art-network-llc-v-moku-039-aina-properties-llc/summary/

[Peeved]

Here is just some more info with regard to copyright law and lawsuits. Thought it may help as there is mention of "time frames" regarding registration.

Here is the link for the pdf file:

http://www.apanational.com/files/public/keytoprotection.pdf

HIGHLIGHT:

A copyright without copyright registration is next to worthless.

But in reality, a copyright without copyright registration is next to worthless. Why? Well, to start
off, you can’t even file a copyright lawsuit in Federal Court without actually filing a copyright
registration. Secondly, if the copyright infringement that you are suing about occurred over 90
days prior to your copyright registration, you are denied two real big sticks in the copyright law -
court costs - including attorney’s fees and statutory damages. These are very big sticks indeed.

The US Copyright Office explains registration as the following: “Copyright Registration is a legal
formality intended to make a public record of the basic facts of a particular copyright. However,
even though registration is not a requirement for protection, the copyright law provides several
inducements or advantages to encourage copyright owners to make registration.”

Among these advantages are the following:
• Registration establishes a public record of the copyright claim.
• Before an infringement suit may be filed in court, registration is necessary for works of
U.S. origin.
• If made before or within 5 years of publication, registration will establish prima facie
evidence in court of the validity of the copyright and of the facts stated in the certificate.
• If registration is made within 3 months after publication of the work or prior to an
infringement of the work, statutory damages and attorney’s fees will be available to the
copyright owner in court actions. Otherwise, only an award of actual damages and profits
is available to the copyright owner.
• Registration allows the owner of the copyright to record the registration with the U. S.
Customs Service for protection against the importation of infringing copies.

What this basically means is that an “author” of a copyrighted work gets the full remedies under
the law only if the copyrighted work is registered prior to an infringement. Otherwise, the best
you can hope for is an award of actual damages or profits lost — both of which can be difficult to
prove or may end up being less than the costs of mounting a lawsuit in the first place. Talk to an
IP (Intellectual Property) attorney and one of the very first questions he will probably ask is “is it
registered?”.

[summer99]

I received a registered letter dated December 6, 2011  from Zvukony & Co Lawyers (Gil Zvulony is the name of the lawyer located in Toronto) demanding that I send them a certified cheque  in trust for $10,000 for infringing on their client's copyrights and moral rights.  I have been given 10 days from  the date of the letter to respond.  I live in Calgary, Alberta, Canada and I had posted another person's blog which included one of the pictures.The second picture I had taken from a site which I thought was a free site which promoted pictures of Hawaii but was not! My mistake! Since receiving the letter, I have taken both pictures off my blog site and Facebook.

I have replied back to the letter via email  stating that I have taken the pictures off the site immediately after receiving the letter.  I have stated that the payment they want is very high compared to the act price of the photos.  I also made the statement that the law firm seems legitimate but how did I know that these pictures were indeed owned by Hawaiian Art Network LLC. 

In reading the information on your forum, Vincent K Tylor has both pictures for sale  for $10.00 under his website Hawaiian LandMark Images and Hawaiian Art Network.

I am interest to hear your comments.

[Robert Krausankas (BuddhaPi)]

moral rights??? I'm not Canadian, but can a lawyer from Toronto practice in Alberta?? Look as some of the other posts, as they all have good info on how to proceed.... In the meantime rest assured I'll be a doing alittle digging into Mr. Zvolony...we'll see if he has any "morals" himself... 10k is almost laughable and already reflects on his moral value"....

[summer99]

I appreciate the fact that you will look into Mr. Zvulony. I will fiind out if a Toronto lawyer can practice in Alberta.

I certainly appreciate the support of this forum  and those of you who are willing to help people like me. Thank you so very much. I have been reading and studying information and am learning about what others have done.  I'm looking forward to hearing what others have to say  about this latest letter and wonder who else is getting these Canadian letters.

I have had a very large increas in the  pages read on my blog for about the last two months.  It went from 2500 pages to about 11000 - averageing from 350 to 400 each day. Didn't really know why but after checking the history now realize  that most of it is seaching images with the the direct names of my blogs. Someone has spent a lot of hours going through my site page by page looking for things. This might be a heads up to anyone else when they have a high increase in volume which they did not have before.

Thanks again.

[Robert Krausankas (BuddhaPi)]

I have had a very large increas in the  pages read on my blog for about the last two months.  It went from 2500 pages to about 11000 - averageing from 350 to 400 each day. Didn't really know why but after checking the history now realize  that most of it is seaching images with the the direct names of my blogs. Someone has spent a lot of hours going through my site page by page looking for things. This might be a heads up to anyone else when they have a high increase in volume which they did not have before.

Thanks again.

That would be picscout the robot they use, which disguises itself, and is hard to detect..thus sucking your bandwidth that you pay for, and loading down your server too..

[Canada Bob]

FYI, checked the Canadian Copyright online database and couldn't find anything registered under Tylor or Hawaii.  Did however find them in the US online database.  Of course, this was only a quick search and nothing extensive.  Wonder if the same rules apply in Canada (eg. if not registered, cannot sue for statutory damages / legal fees)?

[SoylentGreen]

Canada Bob,

It seems that while Canada does have "statutory damages", these damages can be sought whether or not the image was registered.
In the 'States, the image must be registered in order to seek statutory damages.

In Canadian law, it appears that the plaintiff must seek either "damages" or "statutory damages".
Wherein plain old "damages" could be just the purchase price, and "statutory damages" would be loss of profits, etc.

A judge can grant "legal fees" (which appear to be separate from "statutory damages"), but my understanding is that this decision would be based on the merits of the case.

Naturally, these facts wouldn't keep a defendant from formulating a defense based on lack of ownership, if it could be shown that the plaintiff doesn't own the rights to the content in question.

S.G.

[lucia]

I have had a very large increas in the  pages read on my blog for about the last two months.  It went from 2500 pages to about 11000 - averageing from 350 to 400 each day. Didn't really know why but after checking the history now realize  that most of it is seaching images with the the direct names of my blogs. Someone has spent a lot of hours going through my site page by page looking for things. This might be a heads up to anyone else when they have a high increase in volume which they did not have before.

Thanks again.

I saw that at my blog too.  I'm working on a set of scripts to mitigate this for people. For now, at least add the following two lines to the htaccess file in the root for your domain:

# don't permit directory listing
IndexIgnore *

The first line is a comment and does nothing but remind you about the function of the second line.  The second line closes off a great big superhighway method some bots use to find the names of all your file images.  Backroads still exist. That's why I'm trying to find other methods to help people block off the backroads and catch this sudden grazing real time. But at least add the

IndexIgnore *

line.

Even aside from any copyright issues, this behavior is bandwidth sucking (i.e. increasing your hosting costs). So you want to stop it anyway.