Dear (my name),
We are writing to inform you that we have received a complaint alleging that copyright infringement is taking place on your site (my site, along with 20 others on the server) (HOSTING FOR "domain in question"). It appears that the website contains material being copied, reproduced, or otherwise displayed without the consent of the owner/copyright holder.
Infringing on the copyrights of others is a violation of the Go Daddy Hosting Services agreement (http://www.godaddy.com/gdshop/legal_agreements/show_doc.asp?pageid=HOSTING%5FSA ), as well as the Domain Name Registration Agreement (http://www.godaddy.com/gdshop/legal_agreements/show_doc.asp?pageid=REG%5FSA ).
We have included the original complaint we received regarding this matter (below) to help you identify the problem.
This notification was submitted pursuant to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and Go Daddy’s Copyright and Trademark Infringement Policy. Please review Go Daddy's Copyright Policy found at https://www.godaddy.com/gdshop/legal_agreements/copyright_trademark.asp.
In accordance with this policy, as well as your hosting agreement, we have suspended this hosting account until this matter can be resolved, or until you submit a complete counter notification as described in the policy. You have 10 days to send a complete counter notification, if you wish to do so.
PLEASE NOTE: As a web hosting provider, it is not our position to act as the arbiter of intellectual property disputes or to judge who is right or wrong in a claim of infringement. We are a neutral party in this matter and at no point in this matter will we attempt to determine who, if anyone, is right or wrong. Please understand that we are not a court, nor do we have the ability or jurisdiction to determine potential fault in this case. As a result, with the exception of the above-mentioned counter notification, there is no need to send further dispute claims on this matter.
A list of the specific portions of your site in question is included below. For detailed questions, you will need to contact the Complainant at the address listed below.
Description of the Infringement(s)
SEE NOTIFICATION BELOW
Complainant:
SEE NOTIFICATION BELOW
In order to resolve this situation and re-activate your site, you have 2 options.
Option 1: Remove the content that is the subject of the copyright complaint.
In order to reactivate the site in question we will need you to provide the following information in a single email response:
A. An electronic signature. (This can be a scanned copy of your physical signature, or as simple as typing your full name.)
B. Identification of the material in question.
C. A statement, under penalty of perjury, that the material has either been removed or promptly will be removed.
Option 2: Submit a complete counter notification regarding the works in question in accordance with our Copyright Infringement policy. You will need to reply via email and include all of the following elements:
A. An electronic signature. (This can be a scanned copy of your physical signature, or as simple as typing your full name.)
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 you have 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. Your name, address, and telephone number, and a statement that you consent to the jurisdiction of the Federal District Court for the judicial district of Arizona, or if your address is outside of the United States, for any judicial district in which Go Daddy may be found, and that you will accept service of process from the Complaining Party or an agent of such Party.
If you have any further questions, please let us know.
Thank you,
Beatrice
Copyright Claims Department
GoDaddy.com
CopyrightClaims@GoDaddy.com
ARID1016
====================
ORIGINAL COMPLAINT
====================
This is an official notification under the DMCA to effect removal of the
infringing materials noted herein.
Should you have any questions, please feel free to contact me directly.
Regards,
Kristen Sams
Kristen Sams
Copyright Compliance Officer
Masterfile Corporation
3 Concorde Gate, 4th Floor
Toronto, ON M3C 3N7
www.masterfile.com
1.800.387.9010 / 416.929.3000 ex 3097
Email: ksams@masterfile.com
This is the email I received from the hosting company Godaddy after MasterFile sent their email. There is a major gap here though, after checking the DMCA website, there is no complaint on the domain name that was in question for having copyrighted images. Basically we have MasterFile pretending to be submitting claims with the DMCA to shutdown the server. I have full proof of this and documented emails to Godaddy's fraud department along with the local news channel here.
This company shut down many of my clients websites that day, which had none of their images on those sites. There was one site in question, which all of the images were purchased from TemplatesBox.com over a year ago. I would guarantee that if you search TemplatesBox.com, Dreamstime.com (Canadian based company as well), IStockPhoto.com, Masterfile.com and others you will find a lot of the same photos. DO YOU WANT TO KNOW WHY? Photographers need to make money and they needed to make money before MasterFile.com hired them, so what they do is upload their images to as many sites as possible and try and make as much money as possible. Some of them don't go by these copyright rules and regulations and some do. This means that if the images were out there and people have downloaded them in the past and the new photographer gets hired from Masterfile, those images are now in the mix with the extortion letters out there.
I am web developer and I know a scam when I see one. My opinion, you won't find many members on that site buying images. What you will find is a very detailed terms and condition which locks any photographer into their trap. Not sure what they pay the photographer, but I do know that their company was bought for over 21 million dollars recently. So if you have a company that no one will become a member because the prices are astronomical compared to the competition, then they are structured for a different purpose. Their company is created and manufactured to secretly obtain questionable rights to images and pursue legal action against many to gain profits.
The company that purchased them provides image scanning, much like the free technology out there which is not that great to bring to any type of court room other than to say it's inconclusive. www.tineye.com This website will allow you to search images, but go to www.dreamstime.com and select one of those images to use and you will not find images. The reason is because some websites exclude their images from being seen by search engine crawlers.
Conclusion: I have contacted authorities in Toronto and strongly believe that this company is doing nothing but portraying themselves as an unlawful law firm.
We are writing to inform you that we have received a complaint alleging that copyright infringement is taking place on your site (my site, along with 20 others on the server) (HOSTING FOR "domain in question"). It appears that the website contains material being copied, reproduced, or otherwise displayed without the consent of the owner/copyright holder.
Infringing on the copyrights of others is a violation of the Go Daddy Hosting Services agreement (http://www.godaddy.com/gdshop/legal_agreements/show_doc.asp?pageid=HOSTING%5FSA ), as well as the Domain Name Registration Agreement (http://www.godaddy.com/gdshop/legal_agreements/show_doc.asp?pageid=REG%5FSA ).
We have included the original complaint we received regarding this matter (below) to help you identify the problem.
This notification was submitted pursuant to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and Go Daddy’s Copyright and Trademark Infringement Policy. Please review Go Daddy's Copyright Policy found at https://www.godaddy.com/gdshop/legal_agreements/copyright_trademark.asp.
In accordance with this policy, as well as your hosting agreement, we have suspended this hosting account until this matter can be resolved, or until you submit a complete counter notification as described in the policy. You have 10 days to send a complete counter notification, if you wish to do so.
PLEASE NOTE: As a web hosting provider, it is not our position to act as the arbiter of intellectual property disputes or to judge who is right or wrong in a claim of infringement. We are a neutral party in this matter and at no point in this matter will we attempt to determine who, if anyone, is right or wrong. Please understand that we are not a court, nor do we have the ability or jurisdiction to determine potential fault in this case. As a result, with the exception of the above-mentioned counter notification, there is no need to send further dispute claims on this matter.
A list of the specific portions of your site in question is included below. For detailed questions, you will need to contact the Complainant at the address listed below.
Description of the Infringement(s)
SEE NOTIFICATION BELOW
Complainant:
SEE NOTIFICATION BELOW
In order to resolve this situation and re-activate your site, you have 2 options.
Option 1: Remove the content that is the subject of the copyright complaint.
In order to reactivate the site in question we will need you to provide the following information in a single email response:
A. An electronic signature. (This can be a scanned copy of your physical signature, or as simple as typing your full name.)
B. Identification of the material in question.
C. A statement, under penalty of perjury, that the material has either been removed or promptly will be removed.
Option 2: Submit a complete counter notification regarding the works in question in accordance with our Copyright Infringement policy. You will need to reply via email and include all of the following elements:
A. An electronic signature. (This can be a scanned copy of your physical signature, or as simple as typing your full name.)
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 you have 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. Your name, address, and telephone number, and a statement that you consent to the jurisdiction of the Federal District Court for the judicial district of Arizona, or if your address is outside of the United States, for any judicial district in which Go Daddy may be found, and that you will accept service of process from the Complaining Party or an agent of such Party.
If you have any further questions, please let us know.
Thank you,
Beatrice
Copyright Claims Department
GoDaddy.com
CopyrightClaims@GoDaddy.com
ARID1016
====================
ORIGINAL COMPLAINT
====================
This is an official notification under the DMCA to effect removal of the
infringing materials noted herein.
Should you have any questions, please feel free to contact me directly.
Regards,
Kristen Sams
Kristen Sams
Copyright Compliance Officer
Masterfile Corporation
3 Concorde Gate, 4th Floor
Toronto, ON M3C 3N7
www.masterfile.com
1.800.387.9010 / 416.929.3000 ex 3097
Email: ksams@masterfile.com
This is the email I received from the hosting company Godaddy after MasterFile sent their email. There is a major gap here though, after checking the DMCA website, there is no complaint on the domain name that was in question for having copyrighted images. Basically we have MasterFile pretending to be submitting claims with the DMCA to shutdown the server. I have full proof of this and documented emails to Godaddy's fraud department along with the local news channel here.
This company shut down many of my clients websites that day, which had none of their images on those sites. There was one site in question, which all of the images were purchased from TemplatesBox.com over a year ago. I would guarantee that if you search TemplatesBox.com, Dreamstime.com (Canadian based company as well), IStockPhoto.com, Masterfile.com and others you will find a lot of the same photos. DO YOU WANT TO KNOW WHY? Photographers need to make money and they needed to make money before MasterFile.com hired them, so what they do is upload their images to as many sites as possible and try and make as much money as possible. Some of them don't go by these copyright rules and regulations and some do. This means that if the images were out there and people have downloaded them in the past and the new photographer gets hired from Masterfile, those images are now in the mix with the extortion letters out there.
I am web developer and I know a scam when I see one. My opinion, you won't find many members on that site buying images. What you will find is a very detailed terms and condition which locks any photographer into their trap. Not sure what they pay the photographer, but I do know that their company was bought for over 21 million dollars recently. So if you have a company that no one will become a member because the prices are astronomical compared to the competition, then they are structured for a different purpose. Their company is created and manufactured to secretly obtain questionable rights to images and pursue legal action against many to gain profits.
The company that purchased them provides image scanning, much like the free technology out there which is not that great to bring to any type of court room other than to say it's inconclusive. www.tineye.com This website will allow you to search images, but go to www.dreamstime.com and select one of those images to use and you will not find images. The reason is because some websites exclude their images from being seen by search engine crawlers.
Conclusion: I have contacted authorities in Toronto and strongly believe that this company is doing nothing but portraying themselves as an unlawful law firm.