Click Official ELI Links
Get Help With Your Extortion Letter | ELI Phone Support | ELI Legal Representation Program
Show your support of the ELI website & ELI Forums through a PayPal Contribution. Thank you for supporting the ongoing fight and reporting of Extortion Settlement Demand Letters.

Author Topic: copyright legal issues mitigation and dual copyright  (Read 5512 times)

testycal

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 6
    • View Profile
copyright legal issues mitigation and dual copyright
« on: May 18, 2014, 03:06:04 AM »
Mitigation

appears stock companies sit on alleged infringements after finding them using webcrawler technology and then send demands to maximize profits ie would not be profitable to send letter after one week of infringement.  Standard of discovery is knew or ought to have known of the infringement - sitting on the claim for years may be a lack of mitigation reducing potential damages.  Stock companies have access to this technology so I do not buy that it takes them 3 or more years to find an image and would be interested in obtaining documents during a lawsuit if mitigation was raised as an issue against the stock company - comments?


Dual copyright

secondly is the dual copyright that has been raised in a few places in this forum - for example stock company A and  stock company B e have apparently a sublicensee relationship where stock company B purports to license their copyright to stock company A - stock company A identifies photo as it having copyright so that  the result is 2 different companies both claiming  copyright.  Company B sends demand  for alleged infringement and response is prove your ownership and disprove Company A's alleged ownership as one copyright cannot exclusively belong to 2 different entities unless there is joint ownership of the copyright. comments?
« Last Edit: May 18, 2014, 03:07:35 AM by testycal »

JLorimer

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 118
    • View Profile
Re: copyright legal issues mitigation and dual copyright
« Reply #1 on: May 18, 2014, 08:14:24 AM »
I would also be interested to hear thoughts on your mitigation point.  The letter that was sent in my case showed an observation date of over six months before the date of the letter I received.  I've always been curious why it would take them 6 months to follow through on what was observed.

Greg Troy (KeepFighting)

  • ELI Defense Team Member
  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1859
    • View Profile
    • Yeah, We Do That.
Re: copyright legal issues mitigation and dual copyright
« Reply #2 on: May 18, 2014, 09:02:59 AM »
As to your first point I do not think it is a case of the company sitting on images and waiting. I think it is more of a case of far more data than can be managed. Go to Google, enter a search term and in less than the second you will get results in the hundreds of thousands if not millions. Now use intelligent software to filter down your results to tens of thousands of entries, how long will it take you to look at these? Now repeat the process with a program with multiple extensions running 24/7.

While I believe the technology is there that settlement demand letters could be mailed out as soon as an image is found there is no way the copyright compliance teams would be able to handle the influx of responses, inquiries and complaints resulting from this type of mass mailing.

As to your second question it may be more of a case of an artist for whatever reason having agreements with two companies and the companies not realizing it. There are situations such as the class-action lawsuit in Israel where a company like Getty Images try to transfer rights to another company so that they could collect on settlement demand letters were Getty was not legally set up to do so. The case was argued that by the terms of the contract the artist signed, Getty maintained exclusive rights and could not transfer those rights for the purpose of collections.
Every situation is unique, any advice or opinions I offer are given for your consideration only. You must decide what is best for you and your particular situation. I am not a lawyer and do not offer legal advice.

--Greg Troy

stinger

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 766
    • View Profile
Re: copyright legal issues mitigation and dual copyright
« Reply #3 on: May 18, 2014, 11:29:44 AM »
To JLorimer's point:  If the letter shows an observation date of six months ago, that is when the Statute of Limitations begins.

Often, you will see quoted on this web site that the safest date to use as the start of the SOL is the first date of any letter you received.  That is the most conservative approach.  The DMCA says they have 3 years from their discovery of the statute.  If someone gave you evidence that they had discovered the infringement 6 months ago, you can certainly make a strong case that that is when the statute of limitations begins.

Greg Troy (KeepFighting)

  • ELI Defense Team Member
  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1859
    • View Profile
    • Yeah, We Do That.
Re: copyright legal issues mitigation and dual copyright
« Reply #4 on: May 18, 2014, 05:59:11 PM »
I agree with you 100% Stinger and my apologies to JLorimer I missed your point or I would have included it in my reply.

To JLorimer's point:  If the letter shows an observation date of six months ago, that is when the Statute of Limitations begins.

Often, you will see quoted on this web site that the safest date to use as the start of the SOL is the first date of any letter you received.  That is the most conservative approach.  The DMCA says they have 3 years from their discovery of the statute.  If someone gave you evidence that they had discovered the infringement 6 months ago, you can certainly make a strong case that that is when the statute of limitations begins.
Every situation is unique, any advice or opinions I offer are given for your consideration only. You must decide what is best for you and your particular situation. I am not a lawyer and do not offer legal advice.

--Greg Troy

testycal

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 6
    • View Profile
Re: copyright legal issues mitigation and dual copyright
« Reply #5 on: May 18, 2014, 06:45:09 PM »
Regarding mitigation the standard is knew or ought to have reasonably known.  I am curious how stock companies using picscout software that is scouring the internet 24 hours a day seem to always take 3 years to locate an alleged infringement. Seems that the ought to have known standard is applicable given that the very tools the stock companies use to locate these images should allow them to find the alleged infringing images "faster"

stinger

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 766
    • View Profile
Re: copyright legal issues mitigation and dual copyright
« Reply #6 on: May 18, 2014, 08:13:05 PM »
I share your skepticism Testy.

But the courts are about what you can prove.  Now if you had an insider willing to share the real scoop . . .

testycal

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 6
    • View Profile
Re: copyright legal issues mitigation and dual copyright
« Reply #7 on: May 20, 2014, 07:50:15 PM »
and if and when MF proceeds to suit the discovery process will require MF to disclose this information if mitigation is pleaded as one aspect of any number of defences - realizing that MF will not want the process to get that far.  Often a game of chicken

JLorimer

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 118
    • View Profile
Re: copyright legal issues mitigation and dual copyright
« Reply #8 on: May 21, 2014, 11:32:30 AM »
This is encouraging news to me.  It is what I initially thought until someone somewhere else said I should use the date I received the letter just to be safe.

Going by their own observation date, I can now celebrate over one year passed on the statute of limitations.

I agree with you 100% Stinger and my apologies to JLorimer I missed your point or I would have included it in my reply.

To JLorimer's point:  If the letter shows an observation date of six months ago, that is when the Statute of Limitations begins.

Often, you will see quoted on this web site that the safest date to use as the start of the SOL is the first date of any letter you received.  That is the most conservative approach.  The DMCA says they have 3 years from their discovery of the statute.  If someone gave you evidence that they had discovered the infringement 6 months ago, you can certainly make a strong case that that is when the statute of limitations begins.

Greg Troy (KeepFighting)

  • ELI Defense Team Member
  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1859
    • View Profile
    • Yeah, We Do That.
Re: copyright legal issues mitigation and dual copyright
« Reply #9 on: May 21, 2014, 01:01:47 PM »
Great news! Hang in there!

This is encouraging news to me.  It is what I initially thought until someone somewhere else said I should use the date I received the letter just to be safe.

Going by their own observation date, I can now celebrate over one year passed on the statute of limitations.

I agree with you 100% Stinger and my apologies to JLorimer I missed your point or I would have included it in my reply.

To JLorimer's point:  If the letter shows an observation date of six months ago, that is when the Statute of Limitations begins.

Often, you will see quoted on this web site that the safest date to use as the start of the SOL is the first date of any letter you received.  That is the most conservative approach.  The DMCA says they have 3 years from their discovery of the statute.  If someone gave you evidence that they had discovered the infringement 6 months ago, you can certainly make a strong case that that is when the statute of limitations begins.
Every situation is unique, any advice or opinions I offer are given for your consideration only. You must decide what is best for you and your particular situation. I am not a lawyer and do not offer legal advice.

--Greg Troy

 

Official ELI Help Options
Get Help With Your Extortion Letter | ELI Phone Support Call | ELI Defense Letter Program
Show your support of the ELI website & ELI Forums through a PayPal Contribution. Thank you for supporting the ongoing fight and reporting of Extortion Settlement Demand Letters.