ExtortionLetterInfo Forums
ELI Forums => Getty Images Letter Forum => Topic started by: BadLuck on November 08, 2011, 01:06:22 AM
-
Humor me guys, I've been thinking a lot about how these companies find the "end" user.
At this point we all know that they are using at least one bot: PicScout. (there might be more, but this is the most well known)
1. The bot crawls the web 24/7
2. It flags images and crawls the entire "infringing site".
(From here... I'm assuming the next steps)
3. The lovely employees of GI (and/or its network of friends) will then look at this site.
4. Someone or something finds out details about the "end" user.
5. The letters are more than likely handled by an automated process and sent off.
6. Some people pay and some play the lovely waiting game.
It's step 4 that I really am curious about. How is it that GI (and friends) find out who/where the end users are?
Yes, most businesses will be easy to find because they list things right on the website. However, some businesses only list a phone number or email. Would GI just call them to try and trackdown where they are? In the case of email, if GI sends the letter through this channel... it doesn't seem like it's all that "official" and wouldn't hold up well in court to sue. Emails can be lost.
Then, there are those who get bullied over their personal blogs. Most of these blogs will never have an address or phone number attached. At most, they might have an email. Once again, if GI contacts over email, that doesn't seem like it's all that "official" and wouldn't be a great leg to stand on for a lawsuit.
But what happens when there is who.is protection on those sites (that don't have attached addresses, phone numbers, or emails)? How far has GI gone to find this information?
I've only found a couple posts on the forums that were about non-business sites, so I can't form much of an opinion on this. Thoughts?
-
I think they rely heavily on whois info and hope that it's not private..if it is I would think if the address and such is not on the site, they would be forced to send DMCA takedown notice to the hosting provider. Any reputable host would not release this info unless a subpoena is sent. They could also use government sites that provide business information, tho that wouldn't be all that reliable unless it show a phone number which matched up with the site..Manta is another source they could look at to get business info, which may also have a link back to the site..
-
I agree that “whois” information is the main source of site ownership information.
While we may choose to keep our “whois” information “private”, it’s well known that companies such as Domaintools ignore privacy laws and make such information available regardless. They’ve made a business out of serving the infringement business.
Some people choose to deliberately register incorrect whois information for their site.
ICANN might send notice and later suspend domains that have such incorrect info, but issues of faulty contact info aren’t policed very well.
Indeed, email is probably the worst method to notify somebody of something, second only to telephone because there’s plausible deniability.
Spam filters weed out threatening letters immediately. Have you checked your spam box lately? I haven’t.
Many email servers no longer send a notice to the originator if an email is undeliverable.
So, there’s no sure proof of delivery, or proof that the recipient has read the email if it is delivered successfully.
If you receive demand letters by email, it’s a sure sign that they don’t have any other way to contact you.
You may decide to “lay low” in such an instance.
Lawsuits are actually pretty rare in reality.
But, people talk about it because it’s really the only means of actual ‘enforcement’, and without it any payment made is, in fact, voluntary.
Even if a lawyer sends a demand letter to somebody, I really don’t consider this as an indication that an actual legal process has been initiated.
Note that even if you have corresponded informally with somebody about a demand letter in the past, this in itself doesn’t mean that they’d have any proof to show that you should have been aware of an impending lawsuit in the future.
Proper papers must be delivered according to the laws in order to prove that you have been “served” proper notice of a lawsuit.
In the actual event of a lawsuit, the use of a “process server” to serve documents upon a defendant is the “gold standard” of proof that a litigant has received legal papers.
There’s other methods, such as registered mail, courier, etc. But these are weaker methods.
However, email has been used as a method of last resort (and even Facebook) to deliver “notice”.
How could that work? Well, if you were served a lawsuit through email for example, then you replied “yeah, but I removed the photos”, that may be sufficient proof of “service” in some places because it’s obvious that you read the document.
This is usually employed in addition to other methods of contact in order to build a case to show that the defendant is aware of the suit.
But, again lawsuits are a rare occurrence. But, It never hurts to be a more “difficult” case in order to make an adversary move on to easier targets, though.
S.G.
-
I wonder to what lengths they would go to for a company that is "untraceable." No address, email, phone. Protected or false Who.is info and is registered and hosted by "shady" providers.
Thanks for time guys.
-
If they can't find you, or somehow prove that you've been made officially aware of the issue, it would be difficult for a copyright troll to get anywhere with an issue of infringement.
How hard they try to find you would depend upon how much they thought they could get if they could locate you.
It's quite time consuming and surprisingly costly to track down somebody who doesn't want to be found.
On the web these days, it's quite easy to lead people on a "wild goose chase" that goes nowhere, too.
Corbis went to great lengths to find the owner of TemplateMonster and several other allegedly associated businesses.
They went to such great lengths because they were seeking 109 million dollars.
You can read more here:
http://www.allbusiness.com/retail-trade/miscellaneous-retail-retail-stores-not/4452913-1.html
TemplateMonster eventually settled for 20 million with Corbis. However, several other defendant companies, notably UltraVertex (which was served the lawsuit via e-mail) never responded to the suit and didn't pay a cent.
More here:
http://www.allbusiness.com/retail-trade/miscellaneous-retail-retail-stores-not/4453202-1.html
S.G.
-
I think they will not go too far to find a company as Getty is issuing hundreds maybe thousands of letters per week and getting lots of checks sent to them, so they are likely only going to do some basic attempts to search for the end users.