Brandon Sand Settlement Demand Letter

[Loopster]

Soylent Green on what basis or where do you derive this fact from of not being liable for damages? I'm interested to learn more of this possibility.  I wonder why would a Can Lawyer get involved if they weren't certain they would receive appropriate compensation for their efforts if this was the case.  Surely some homework as been done I would think.

" This means that they could only legally collect actual damages (the actual retail price) of the images in court.
They couldn't collect "statutory damages" (legal fees, other damages & losses).
So, the prospect of a court case is unlikely; they'd have to spend thousands just to get an award of what would likely amount to a few hundred dollars. "

[Loopster]

Is this what you are referring to?  They have to pick one or the other?

38.1  (1) Subject to this section, a copyright owner may elect, at any time before final judgment is rendered, to recover, instead of damages and profits referred to in subsection 35(1), an award of statutory damages for all infringements involved in the proceedings, with respect to any one work or other subject-matter, for which any one infringer is liable individually, or for which any two or more infringers are liable jointly and severally, in a sum of not less than $500 or more than $20,000 as the court considers just.
(2) Where a copyright owner has made an election under subsection (1) and the defendant satisfies the court that the defendant was not aware and had no reasonable grounds to believe that the defendant had infringed copyright, the court may reduce the amount of the award to less than $500, but not less than $200.
(3) Where
(a) there is more than one work or other subject-matter in a single medium, and
(b) the awarding of even the minimum amount referred to in subsection (1) or (2) would result in a total award that, in the court’s opinion, is grossly out of proportion to the infringement,
the court may award, with respect to each work or other subject-matter, such lower amount than $500 or $200, as the case may be, as the court considers just.

[SoylentGreen]

I followed up on this, and I need to make a correction to my original statement.
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.

It appears from the law that only one or the other option (damages or statutory) may be sought.
I think that the stock photo company would elect to seek statutory damages in most cases.
That's because their business model seeks much more than the purchase price of the image.
They'll call this a "deterrent".  But, it's actually just greed.

Since a search on the copyright database turned up nothing, it's time to find out what kind of contract the artist has with the stock photo company.
In order to collect any kind of damages from you on behalf of the original artist's work, the stock photo company must have an agreement with the artist that essentially transfers rights to the stock photo company.
Without that, they won't have standing to collect damages in court, unless the artist joins in as a plaintiff also.

S.G.

[Matthew Chan]

Well guys, my hosting service issued me this notice regarding posting Brandon Sand's PDF resume and PDF demand letter.  My reply is below following this notice. Presumably, Brandon Sand is behind this action.

For the record, I am not mad at my hosting service. They are doing their jobs. They have been great to me over the years. I have spoken to the owner in the past and I intend to contact him again to let him know what is going on. I will be calling him personally to give my assurances that we provide an honorable and highly-needed service and we run a respectable operation here.

I also requested a copy of the original complaint that eApps was compelled to act on.

Matthew

=========================

To Whom It May Concern:

We have received notice of a complaint of Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) violation under 17 USC § 512(c)(3)(A), regarding material hosted on your account. The infringing material can be found at:

****
****

Please remove the infringing content and respond to us confirming that this action has been accomplished. The disputed material must be removed as swiftly as possible. Please note that if the disputed material is not removed within 48 hours, we reserve the right to suspend your site to conform with the requirements of the DMCA.

If you feel that this complaint was made as a result of a mistake or of a misidentification of the disputed material, please send us a written counter notification within fourteen (14) days. A valid counter notification must substantially contain the following (as required per 17 USC § 512(g)(3)):

(A). A physical or electronic signature of the subscriber
(B). Identification of the material that has been removed or to which access has been disabled and the location at which the material appeared before it was removed or access to it was disabled.
(C). A statement under penalty of perjury that the subscriber has a good faith belief that the material was removed or disabled as a result of mistake or misidentification of the material to be removed or disabled.
(D). The subscriber's name, address, and telephone number, and a statement that the subscriber consents to the jurisdiction of Federal District Court for the judicial district in which the address is located, or if the subscriber's address is outside of the United States, for any judicial district in which the service provider may be found, and that the subscriber will accept service of process from the person who provided notification under subsection (c) (2) (C) or an agent of such person.

Any counter notifications should be addressed to:

Legal Department
eApps Hosting
7742 Spalding Drive
Suite 363
Norcross, Georgia, USA 30092

If you have any questions or concerns regarding this complaint, please let us know.

Regards,

eApps Hosting

====================

Original DMCA Complaint Submitted to eApps
====================

Hello,

Pursuant to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, I am requesting the take
down of the following infringing documents hosted on your server:

***
***

Both documents are infringement of works of authorship as defined in Title
17 of the Copyright statute.

I have a good faith belief that use of the material on the above mentioned
website is not authorized by the copyright owner.

The information in this notification is accurate, and is made under penalty
of perjury. I am the owner of the exclusive right that is allegedly
infringed.

I may be contacted at:
[email protected]

Brandon Sand, Esq.
699 14th St, Apt 252
San Diego CA, 92101

Electronically signed,
/s/ Brandon Sand

[Robert Krausankas (BuddhaPi)]

DMCA applies for copyrighted materials, I would demand that Mr. Sand provide proof of registration, of his "resume", his letter and possibly even his name!

not to mention they are links to scribd...he's barking at the wrong tree!!

[Matthew Chan]

Actually, the original links were ELI links to PDFs we were hosting. I removed the the files and simply pointed them to scribd.

Matthew

[Matthew Chan]

This was my reply to eapps regarding the DMCA Complaint. I had intended on eventually removing all PDFs from the ELI website due to bandwidth concerns so removing the PDFs were really not a big deal to me.

========================================

Hello eapps Legal Dept:

I want to acknowledge receipt of this email and wish to continue maintaining a good relationship with eapps as I have done for many years.  Please forward a copy of this to Rick as I want to personally assure him of our good intentions and introduce him to my attorney friend, Oscar Michelen, who is an experienced intellectual property attorney in such matters and that we will do everything we can to minimize such occurrences.

As you can see for yourself, ExtortionLetterInfo.com is a widely-read website that deals with heavy-handed tactics used by the stock photo industry supposedly in the name of copyright protection. However, we feel they are actually engaged in acts of "legalized extortion" in trying to scare people out of many thousands of dollars per image which far exceed the actual market value of the images in dispute! This is an issue other customers on eapps will likely face sometime in the future and we are leading authority website in the U.S.

A quick study of our website should reveal that we run a highly-credible website with community rules and enforcement in place. Oscar Michelen, a highly respected well-established New York attorney works with me on this cause-based project.

Up to recently, we haven't had issues with DMCA takedown requests. But now, because the spotlight has been shined on some of the lawyers involved and their embarrasingly lack of legal experience compared to the legal threats they regularly issue, they seek to suppress the information where they can.

Regarding this particular DMCA takedown request, because the information is available elsewhere on Internet and we prefer to not host such large PDF documents due to bandwidth concerns, we are happy to comply with this particular request. The documents have been entirely removed from the web server.

The two files in question have been entirely removed and the internal referral links to those documents have been changed.

Thank you for bringing this to my attention.

Matthew Chan

[SoylentGreen]

Firstly, thanks to all for their very hard and diligent work here.
I'm sure that it's a comfort to many that there are those who work to fight this.

Secondly, it's interesting to see that these lawyers have so much time on their hands that they have time to Google their own name.

With regard to ELI linking to content on other sites such as Scribd, we will recall that US law doesn't consider linked content from site "A" to copyrighted material on site "B" to be an infringement by site "A".

In any case, it seems absurd to me that these lawyers would use claims of "copyright infringement" to attempt to hide what they are doing.

When somebody goes through a great deal to hide their actions, their moral compass should be telling them that they're doing something wrong.
I'm sure that Oscar would agree that legal issues should be as open as possible in our society, lest we pay a heavy price.

I think it's time to report Bandon Sand to the California Bar Association for sending his extortion letter into another country.

S.G.

[Extortion-Victim-No Longer]

California Bar Association ...Thanks S.G. I agree

[Matthew Chan]

I requested a copy of the DMCA complaint made to eApps which they were compelled to act on and share with me.

==================

Hello,

Pursuant to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, I am requesting the take
down of the following infringing documents hosted on your server:

***
***

Both documents are infringement of works of authorship as defined in Title
17 of the Copyright statute.

I have a good faith belief that use of the material on the above mentioned
website is not authorized by the copyright owner.

The information in this notification is accurate, and is made under penalty
of perjury. I am the owner of the exclusive right that is allegedly
infringed.

I may be contacted at:
[email protected]

Brandon Sand, Esq.
699 14th St, Apt 252
San Diego CA, 92101

Electronically signed,
/s/ Brandon Sand

[Matthew Chan]

Our friend Brandon has issued a bogus DMCA complaint to Scribd regarding HIS Settlement Demand Letter.  He knows full well that letter has no protection given he sent/delivered it to the intended recipient as a business communication and that person freely shared it with us.  Brandon, like Julie, are two copyright attorneys that should know better than to knowingly file false DMCA complaints. They WILL be held to a higher standard in a court of law and public opinion.

Another counter-notification letter I have to write.  Sigh.... this is really tiresome.

====================

Scribd:

Hello, extortionletterinfo --

We have removed your document, "Brandon S. Sand Settlement Demand Letter" (id: 72740193) in response to a third-party notification or other indicia that this document was uploaded to Scribd.com without the authorization of the copyright owner. If you believe the removal of this document is the result of a mistake or misidentification, please visit our Scribd Support Desk to access the instructions for providing a counter-notification.

For more information, read about our Copyright Management System or contact us through [email protected].

Please note that under Section 512(f) of the Copyright Act, any person who knowingly materially misrepresents that content was removed or disabled by mistake or misidentification may be subject to liability. Please also be advised that we enforce our policy that provides for the termination of users who are identified as repeat infringers.

Thanks for your cooperation.
-Scribd Customer Care

P.S. You can always fine-tune which notifications you receive or opt-out completely.

Scribd Inc., 539 Bryant St., Suite 200, San Francisco, CA 94107, USA

[Matthew Chan]

Scribd provided me the original DMCA complaints from Brandon Sand. He filed two of them.  I don't really care about reposting his sorry resume I found on Linkedin which was fully accessible to everyone.  I think he got licensed as a lawyer in 2010, a newbie lawyer.  Plus his interesting stints in the musical career.

His Settlement Demand Letter, I have filed a counter-notification with Scribd to challenge posting that.

============

Pursuant to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, I am requesting the take
down of the following infringing documents hosted on your server:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/72753092/Brandon-S-Sand-Resume

The documents is an infringement of a work of authorship as defined in
Title 17 of the Copyright statute.

I have a good faith belief that use of the material on the above mentioned
website is not authorized by the copyright owner.

The information in this notification is accurate, and is made under penalty
of perjury. I am the owner of the exclusive right that is allegedly
infringed.

I may be contacted at:
[email protected]

Brandon Sand, Esq.
699 14th St, Apt 252
San Diego CA, 92101

Electronically signed,
/s/ Brandon Sand

***

Pursuant to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, I am requesting the take
down of the following infringing documents hosted on your server:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/72740193/Brandon-S-Sand-Settlement-Demand-Letter

The documents is an infringement of a work of authorship as defined in
Title 17 of the Copyright statute.

I have a good faith belief that use of the material on the above mentioned
website is not authorized by the copyright owner.

The information in this notification is accurate, and is made under penalty
of perjury. I am the owner of the exclusive right that is allegedly
infringed.

I may be contacted at:
[email protected]

Brandon Sand, Esq.
699 14th St, Apt 252
San Diego CA, 92101

Electronically signed,
/s/ Brandon Sand

[Matthew Chan]

Well, the person who provided us Brandon Sand's Settlement Demand Letter has been on the phone with me twice this week and we swapped a couple emails.  Boy, does she have some stories to tell about her experiences with Brandon which does NOT paint him in a good light.  Further, one of those actions could get him severely reprimanded. I have asked her to share her story and she has tentatively agreed. All this recent activity seems to have gotten her riled up. I will keep you updated.

Maybe she will jump on an introduce herself. I hope so.

Firstly, thanks to all for their very hard and diligent work here.
I'm sure that it's a comfort to many that there are those who work to fight this.

Secondly, it's interesting to see that these lawyers have so much time on their hands that they have time to Google their own name.

In any case, it seems absurd to me that these lawyers would use claims of "copyright infringement" to attempt to hide what they are doing.

When somebody goes through a great deal to hide their actions, their moral compass should be telling them that they're doing something wrong.
I'm sure that Oscar would agree that legal issues should be as open as possible in our society, lest we pay a heavy price.

I think it's time to report Bandon Sand to the California Bar Association for sending his extortion letter into another country.

S.G.

[SoylentGreen]

Brandon Sand gave himself a stellar review:

http://www.avvo.com/attorneys/92101-ca-brandon-sand-3411110.html

lol.

S.G.

[Robert Krausankas (BuddhaPi)]

Brandon Sand gave himself a stellar review:

http://www.avvo.com/attorneys/92101-ca-brandon-sand-3411110.html

lol.

S.G.

tis a dirty job but someone has to do it! I was tempted to test the email button, to say hello but figured we could just as easily say hello to him from here..