A foolish hobby seems to have gotten me in trouble. I owned (took it down now) a celebrity fansite that had pictures from AKM images. I didn't know this, they came from a forum and were all around the internet. My site, like all the other fansites, had news, pictures, etc. However, this obviously does not matter because I do not own the images. I got 2 emails from the Copyright Enforcement Group. One email for quite a few pictures and one for a thumbnail of one of the already mentioned pictures. The total is near $9000 dollars and I have a month to pay it on their website. The site was purely non-profit, it did have ads, but made $2 dollars in over a year and that does not cover hosting or a domain name.
I should also mention I did have a DMCA policy up, but it seems you need to register an agent. This is odd in nature isn't it? Signing up for a law does not seem right.
Now looking at the census here and reading for hours it seems a letter is the best approach. I have setup a consultation with a lawyer and am thinking of going with Oscar's letter as well. I searched through the internet and it seems they randomly ask certain people to take down images (same ones they asked me about) with no payment and others they ask for a takedown plus money.
The email just shows an image comparison and the url to the image. Unlike some others who seem to show a screenshot of the website itself. Any thoughts on this one? I have looked thoroughly through the site and most seem to deal with stock images.
I should also mention I did have a DMCA policy up, but it seems you need to register an agent. This is odd in nature isn't it? Signing up for a law does not seem right.
Now looking at the census here and reading for hours it seems a letter is the best approach. I have setup a consultation with a lawyer and am thinking of going with Oscar's letter as well. I searched through the internet and it seems they randomly ask certain people to take down images (same ones they asked me about) with no payment and others they ask for a takedown plus money.
The email just shows an image comparison and the url to the image. Unlike some others who seem to show a screenshot of the website itself. Any thoughts on this one? I have looked thoroughly through the site and most seem to deal with stock images.