ExtortionLetterInfo Forums
ELI Forums => Getty Images Letter Forum => Topic started by: Robert Krausankas (BuddhaPi) on September 24, 2012, 11:33:50 AM
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EYpdpC9-UM
There are a few more...
http://www.youtube.com/user/TheCopyrightRegistry?feature=watch
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Interesting sales pitch.
I noticed that he used language such as you can "claim your image on C-Registry".
Which implies that doing so provides some sort of "legal" protection, or "legal standing".
It clearly does no such thing. Only the Copyright Office can do that. Even then, most people fail at using it properly.
This "C-Registry" does have definite uses for copyright trolling extortion practices.
Anybody... me you, Buddhapi... any of us could sign up for C-Registry, "claim" some random image, and then attempt to extort monies from the end user under the guise of "infringement".
Again "C-Registry" cannot prove ownership, infringement, or even that a picture is actually copyrighted... it could link to any bogus number at the copyright office.
I should also mention that if Randy Taylor is storing all of these images cataloged on "C-Registry", then he is personally committing copyright infringement on a huge scale.
Anyway, "C-Registry" appears to be a clone of PicScout's "ImageExchange", and also a clone of google's Image Search.
None of these can provide a shred of proof regarding allegations of copyright infringement.
It's back to the same old thing; "you're using our images", and "we don't have show you any proof, just pay us".
Fail.
S.G.
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well hells bells, now I may have to go get me an account just to see how these images are stored...
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this is relevant to my interests...
S.G.
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That was an interesting video and a good find thanks for sharing it!
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Heres a little snippet from C-registry's terms of use you have to agree to if you sing up...interesting to say the least..
YOU grant The COPYRIGHT REGISTRY:
For the purpose of globally and universally distributing INFORMATION in the broadest, most unlimited means possible,
A nonexclusive, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, and fully sublicensable right to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, and display INFORMATION throughout the world in any and all media without limitation, and
For the purpose of providing global and universal ACCESS to view your CONTENT in digital form,
A nonexclusive, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, and fully sublicensable right to access, view, host, cache, route, transmit, store, perform and/or display CONTENT, and
For the purpose of including your CONTENT in reports and documents issued by The COPYRIGHT REGISTRY that relate to Digital Millennium Copyright Act Take Down orders, copyright ownership and authorship of CONTENT, conflicts of ownership and authorship as stated in the Website, and other printed and digital forms relating to INFORMATION,
A nonexclusive, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, and fully sublicensable right to cache, use, reproduce, copy, resize, crop and/or publish CONTENT, and
For the purpose of enabling YOU and users to embed VERIPIXEL in CONTENT to announce that CONTENT is copyrighted and to enable use of The COPYRIGHT REGISTRY to identify the claimed righterholder(s) for said CONTENT,
A nonexclusive, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, and fully sublicensable right to copy, modify, adapt and distribute CONTENT for the sole purpose of embedding VERIPIXEL in said CONTENT, and
For all purposes,
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Wow! That is amazing on so many levels. First that he has the balls to say that you give me
A nonexclusive, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, and fully sublicensable right to....
on every item and then that people actually do it.
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Great information as usual, Buddhapi!! My Jaw is hanging open, aghast...
These terms of use sound a lot like they were lifted from Facebook's old terms of use regarding photos.
I don't think that he can do what he intends to do without actual written contracts.
The terms "perpetual" and "irrevocable" raise my eyebrows.
Additionally, no mention is made of what "content" is, or what "information" constitutes. Either one can be text and/or images.
No stock image agency will sign with his venture with wording like that. Is this guy some kind of scam-artist?
Sorry if this has come up before, but can a (non-attorney) send DMCA notices on behalf of a third party?
S.G.
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I will post later in regards to what they deem "information" and "content", as it is spelled out. Much like a lawsuit anybody can submit a DMCA takedown request, however in doing so, by signing it you are stating that you are the owner of the content, and open yourself up to perjury. I have a working theory of all of the players and how it all operates, hopefully I'll find time today to post it.
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Definitions from C-Regisrty.us Terms and Conditions:
CONTENT ? "Content" will mean copyrighted and not copyrighted intellectual property, including images, video, music, audio, movies, illustrations, graphics, icons, logos, and other 2D and multi-dimensional time-based, sound-based and image-based media, in whole or in part (herein referred to as "CONTENT").
INFORMATION ? "Information" will mean individual and aggregated data, in various combinations of text, audible and visual presentation, including but not limited to URLs and dates of use of CONTENT, claimed ownership and authorship of CONTENT, identity and contact information of users of The COPYRIGHT REGISTRY and claimed rightsholders of CONTENT, and other information relating to CONTENT, whether provided by YOU, third parties, automated processes or other means (herein referred to as "INFORMATION").
(this is directly from their site, someone writes really bad code.)
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The problem with Randy Taylor's venture, as I see it, is that any random person can sign up for his service.
Then, that random person can "claim" an image on the Internet, and then give Taylor "a nonexclusive, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, and fully sublicensable right to cache, use, reproduce, copy, resize, crop and/or publish" those pictures.
I assume that the plan is that the random person can "troll" or "extort" money from people, based on Randy Taylor's lame registration system as "proof" of ownership.
This is counter to the concept of registration with the actual copyright office. The copyright office can give one prima facie proof of ownership.
Official papers are signed before the image is actually published, or very shortly thereafter. You can make a registration before anyone else has copies of the work; a very important point.
My understanding that non-exclusive rights can be conveyed on another entity verbally. You wouldn't have much proof in any dispute, however.
But, Taylor's system offers neither verbal (spoken) agreements, nor are any contracts signed.
If he uses/modifies images that are "claimed" under false pretences, he'll be trolled and possibly sued many times over.
Apparently, he's been working on this for years... we're finding major faults in the system in five minutes.
I wouldn't be too surprised if it's used only for trolling, and fails eventually.
Maybe I should post my comments on his youtube channel?
S.G.
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I was thinking along the same lines...I could sign up, claim to own all of Tylors images, and before you know it, Randy Taylor would find himself in a lawsuit with Hawaiian Art Network...actually Masterfile images would be better, they like to file suit more so than HAN...a perfect example of "what goes around..." I don't see many photogs signing up for this, they are very protective of their rights and clearly his terms is a rights grab.
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Agreed. It would actually be pretty east to troll Randy Taylor with this.
I could register some my right-managed photos with the copyright office, for example. 50 of them is a good number.
Next, make up a fake name at some BS address. "Claim" the images under the fake name with Taylor's "C-Register"/"Stock PhotoFinder".
Now, I can come out of the wood-work using my real name, and send demand letters to Taylor at 10k apiece.
That's... 5 million dollars. lol.
As far as actual proof of ownership, registration with the Copyright Office is the only option... everything else is literally junk.
S.G.
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no to mention, that his "veripixel" thingamabob adds some sort of color coded pixels to the image, so he would also be liable for "altering copyright management information" on top of the infringement... Yo Randy you might want to bail on this idea...I see potentially more butt hurt coming your way...you can thank us later!
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This is crazy. I don't know who would ever put up their actual images on this thing. He appears to be trying to create his own private copyright office while also getting the right to use the images. It would be interesting to see how he describes this "registration" in any trolling letter he sends out.
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Great to see Oscar's input!!
I doubt that any stock image agencies could use his system, either.
Most of these businesses don't hold ownership the images that they sell.
Therefore, I don't think that they could legally "sublicense" their catalog to a system such as this.
S.G.
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I'm still kind of foggy on the relationship between "exclusive rights" and the "right to sue" as they pertain to copyright law. When someone participates in C-Registry they are granting some "nonexclusive rights".
How does this affect the right to sue for the original copyright owner? Can he still sue? I'm pretty sure C-Registry can never sue, right?
Of course, anyone "can" sue for anything, but you know what I mean ;) .
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It would seem to me that the non-exclusive rights given to "C-Registry" don't overlap the exclusive rights that a photographer would typically give to a stock photo agency such as Getty.
Randy Taylor himself explains this in the C-Registry" copyright forum.
http://c-registry-copyright-forum.blogspot.co.il/2009/04/what-rights-do-photographers-grant-c.html
It’s critically important to note that creators are merely granting ACCESS to their works with C-Registry, NOT USE of their works.
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Scraggy,
From the link you posted (bolding mine):
Then note that this limitation is further reinforced in the grant. So, within this limited access, the photographer is granting the right to “access, view, host, cache, route, transmit, store, perform and/or display” the images (or music or video). Note what’s NOT included in those rights. There is no right to copy or modify or use or distribute the images. That’s an amazingly limited grant of rights.
At the very least the semantics of words used in that explanation are messy in my opinion. What's the difference between "distributing" and "transmitting" the images for example? Seems to me like this guy is saying "trust me I won't do it" while his contract allows him to do anything he wants. That's the way I interpret it anyway.
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A person or company holding only "non-exclusive rights" wouldn't have enough legal standing to "win" a copyright infringement infringement case in court.
I think that Taylor's scheme is not intended as a system that would allow HIM to sue.
It's intended to give provide copyright trolls/extortionists a tool that gives the impression that they have legal proof of infringement(s).
Taylor asserts that "It’s critically important to note that creators are merely granting ACCESS to their works with C-Registry, NOT USE of their works." I think that this statement is very misleading.
From Buddhapi's posting, Taylor states: "A nonexclusive, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, and fully sublicensable right to access, view, host, cache, route, transmit, store, perform and/or display CONTENT, and.."
We all know by now that access, viewing, and routing through linking only is probably ok.
However any other use including "hosting", "performing" and especially "storing" are clearly infringements under law.
I say "infringements under law", because Taylor's present system doesn't provide the use signed contracts or recorded verbal agreements.
Something else that should be of concern is that he mentions a "royalty-free... right".
Many images on the web are still rights-managed. But, he's attempting to create a system that overrides the rights-managed system.
Therefore, he's attempting to take images having much greater value, and placing them into a category of much lesser value.
I have never seen such an ill thought conceived business.
S.G.
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A person or company holding only "non-exclusive rights" wouldn't have enough legal standing to "win" a copyright infringement infringement case in court.
. . .
Furthering that thought . . . if someone did enter their work into a C-Registry contract, then wouldn't any other distribution rights they grant to others (Getty for example) be nonexclusive as well, therefore taking away any legitimate standing for Getty to sue?
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My personal opinion is as follows:
An owner of a piece of content such as an image may give any number of people/companies non-exclusive rights for certain uses.
Such as when you license a royalty-free image for your web site... you can use it, but you can't sue third parties for infringements.
This would not diminish in any way the exclusive rights given to a company such as Getty images. They could sue over infringements in such a case.
The legal concept of "exclusivity" in terms of copyright doesn't follow the common dictionary meaning of "exclusive".
Legally, an exclusive rights holder can do certain things, while a non-exclusive rights holder can do more limited things.
S.G.
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Looks like C-Registry will have the potential to act as a pretty convincing unofficial copyright database that will greatly facilitate the extraction of copyright settlements from uneducated and fearful infringers ( i.e. they pay up! ).
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Agreed!!
But, if his business has legal difficulties (and I think that it will), it may be short lived.
S.G.
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. . .
Legally, an exclusive rights holder can do certain things, while a non-exclusive rights holder can do more limited things.
S.G.
This is the murky part for me. What happens when someone transfers one (or several) of the Exclusive Rights (defined by sec 106) to more than one recipient? I suppose the first valid transfer would overide subsequent attempted tranfers?
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Obviously, it's fairly straightforward when all of the Section 106 exclusive rights are transferred as a group to another entity.
The Section 106 rights are indeed "exclusive", so if all rights are transferred to a company or person, none of those rights can be held by other entities simultaneously.
I think that giving exclusive right(s) to more than one entity at a time could cause big problems if there were to be a legal dispute.
There's no guarantee that a court would find that the last person to sign a contract would be found to be the actual rights holder.
Perhaps, nobody on the list would have legal standing.
To complicate matters, the list of exclusive rights can be broken up, and then each right can be granted to different entities individually.
Regulars here know that I'm no lawyer, but it's my opinion that each rights holder would have good standing to sue in the event of a dispute if his/her exclusive right(s) is/are violated.
Furthermore, disparate entities may own the same exclusive rights simultaneously, if they are in different territories.
Obviously, rights holders may draft any contract that they desire, so long as the laws do not preclude the stipulations in the contract.
Trouble starts if the rights holder drafts a contract that is unenforceable under law in the event of a dispute... by then, it's often too late.
S.G.
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Interestingly 205(d) seems to make it quite clear what takes place for conflicting transfers. I think it also makes it clear (if I am reading it correctly) that two entities cannot own the same exclusive right(s) at the same time. I'm still not sure how it would pan out if the exlusive rights were divided into geographical areas.
Thanks to Scraggy's posts on other threads for some interesting reading that led me to this.
(d) Priority between Conflicting Transfers. — As between two conflicting transfers, the one executed first prevails if it is recorded, in the manner required to give constructive notice under subsection (c), within one month after its execution in the United States or within two months after its execution outside the United States, or at any time before recordation in such manner of the later transfer. Otherwise the later transfer prevails if recorded first in such manner, and if taken in good faith, for valuable consideration or on the basis of a binding promise to pay royalties, and without notice of the earlier transfer.
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I'm still not sure how it would pan out if the exclusive rights were divided into geographical areas.
If the geographical divisions were creatable and enforceable, then you would still have territorial exclusive rights.
Regarding the display and licensing of images on the Internet, is any such territorial exclusivity theoretically possible?
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Territorial rights are the only option, in fact.
One may own exclusive rights in the USA for example.
But, registrations with the US copyright office aren't valid in Canada...
So, one would have to make registrations for the Canadian territory, etc...
There's no "world copyright office".
Of course the 'states attempts to get extradition orders to bring alleged infringers to their shores to face trial.
...to face their laws... but, I guess that's a bit off topic.
S.G.
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I don't see how it's possible to divide the Internet territorially.
The physical world can be divided territorially.
But on the world wide web, once an image goes up , it's seen in every territory simultaneously.
How many exclusive licenses can I violate by uploading one image to the Internet?
I think the answer has to be ONE. It's precisely why Getty's and Masterfile's agreements give them worldwide exclusive licenses.
In the words of David R. Johnson and David G. Post, published in the Stanford Law Review: 48. 1367 (1996):
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is02/readings/johnson-post.html
Law And Borders: The Rise of Law in Cyberspace
Cyberspace has no territorially-based boundaries, because the cost and speed of message transmission on the Net is almost entirely independent of physical location: Messages can be transmitted from any physical location to any other location without degradation, decay, or substantial delay, and without any physical cues or barriers that might otherwise keep certain geographically remote places and people separate from one another
Ian
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I'm still not sure how it would pan out if the exclusive rights were divided into geographical areas.
If the geographical divisions were creatable and enforceable, then you would still have territorial exclusive rights.
Regarding the display and licensing of images on the Internet, is any such territorial exclusivity theoretically possible?
I suppose you could divide it up in any way agreeable to the parties of the contract? For example I think one person can have exclusive digital media rights while another has print media rights? I'm still foggy on the divisibility part of exclusivity.
However, it seems to me that if you were sued by Getty and could show that the same copyright "exclusive right" transfer existed for another company for the same image(s), that Getty would either have to show they documented their own transfer with the Copyright Office within the allocated timeframe (highly unlikely, I think) or back off.
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I suppose you could divide it up in any way agreeable to the parties of the contract? For example I think one person can have exclusive digital media rights while another has print media rights?
Again, I'm not a lawyer, but this seems plausible. Locally printed newspapers are limited to a physical territory. But if the same newspaper had an online version, then it might be that for that different use ( online digital use ) , a separate exclusive license holder may exist.
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So my thinking condenses down to this:
Getty comes after you for infringing on a digital image. They produce the copyright transfer contract from the photographer. You find the same image on other sites for sale and somehow compel the second website owner to supply you with a copy of the second copyright contract. You show that both contracts transfer the same "exclusive right" and that neither contract was registered with the copyright office within the 30 day timeframe.
Doesn't this mean no one has standing to sue you?
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Lets also not forget, that in that big case Getty "won" by default, but received absolutely ZERO, which came down to among other things the fact that the "contributor" signed an "electronic" contract, but no-one on Getty's end signed anything...so chances are pretty good, what we're discussing here would be way over their heads, if they can't even comprehend that for a contract to be valid it MUST be signed by both parties.
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Buddhapi makes a very important point.
Let's not lose sight of what kind of fight this really is.
It's all trolling/extortion. These trolls lose on the basic of legal standing.
Additionally, before transferring any rights, one must actually own the image, and register the image as copyrighted.
Wonder if anyone is doing that? Probably not.
S.G.
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Buddhapi makes a very important point.
Let's not lose sight of what kind of fight this really is.
It's all trolling/extortion. These trolls lose on the basic of legal standing.
Additionally, before transferring any rights, one must actually own the image, and register the image as copyrighted.
Wonder if anyone is doing that? Probably not.
S.G.
I didn't realize the image had to be registered before transfer. Which section is that? If you're right about that, that would take away Getty's standing to sue in most cases I would think.
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I think that it's "understood" that an image must be registered with the copyright office first, to assert the rights afforded by law.
After that, said rights may be transferred. A "transfer of rights" doesn't create a registration with the copyright office, you see.
Anyway, here's some verbiage from 205(c) 1- 2-
(c) Recordation as Constructive Notice. — Recordation of a document in the Copyright Office gives all persons constructive notice of the facts stated in the recorded document, but only if —
(1) the document, or material attached to it, specifically identifies the work to which it pertains so that, after the document is indexed by the Register of Copyrights, it would be revealed by a reasonable search under the title or registration number of the work; and
(2) registration has been made for the work.
http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap2.html
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Scraggy had mentioned "I don't see how it's possible to divide the Internet territorially."
The concept of whether the Internet can or cannot be divided up into territories is of no use here.
That's because each territory (country) has its own copyright laws. There's no "world copyright law" and no "world copyright office" even if the Internet is assumed to be "freely accessible worldwide".
Therefore, we are left only with regional systems, and regional laws. Each country or union has its own set of laws.
It may surprise some that copyright laws in the US do not make any special provisions for infringements on the Internet (in the subject matter of images that we discuss on ELI).
I should reiterate that if I register something in Canada, I have no standing in the United States, for example.
This pretty much blows the concept of "worldwide" out of the water, regardless of the perceived reach of the Internet.
Nothing changes just because it's on the web.
For example, imagine that I registered one of my photographs in Canada, and a US citizen "infringes" by using it on his web page residing in the US.
I couldn't go to a US court and make this person pay damages, by using Canadian laws and Canadian registration data.
In addition, I couldn't bring the person to a Canadian court, and make him/her pay damages based on an infringement made in the US, by a US citizen.
The argument that the "Internet is worldwide" would fail, because systems of law are not "worldwide". They differ.
The quote from David R. Johnson and David G. Post is really great, and I wish that it was as they say.
But, none of what they say is anywhere close to being law, and any country could black out Internet service if they really wanted to.
It has in fact already happened. Try using Facebook in China, or Gmail in Iran...
S.G.