A shout-out to MCFilms!

[Robert Krausankas (BuddhaPi)]

It's good top see other posters out there on the interwebs making posts, and bringing awareness to the "Extortion Demand Letters"!

Resources for non-profit/charity sites

http://groups.drupal.org/node/191698

[Jerry Witt (mcfilms)]

Thanks buddhapi.

It goes a step further. We have our monthly Drupal CMS user group meeting tonight. It's usually pretty well attended, about 50 web developers or so. I suspect tonight's meeting may be better attended then usual because of the free food and booze. At the meeting we do these "Lightning Talks" where members are invited to share something they have recently learned in a 5 minute window. Pretty sure I will be doing mine on Copyright and Copy-wrong, with special attention paid to the practice of "copyright trolls."

[Jerry Witt (mcfilms)]

I just wanted to point out how things went with my "lightning talk" last night. There ended up being about 40 or 50 web developers in attendance,

I narrated my story about developing the site, receiving the images from the client and hosting it under my account. I told them how over a year went by and then I got "The Letter." I put up a screenshot of the notorious GI demand letter. I heard a moment of murmur and noticed one of the other developers nodding in recognition. I recommended this site a couple times, related some of the stories I have read here and pointed out that even buying microstock can help support the copyright trolls as istockphoto is owned by Getty.

I went on to discuss ways we can stop doing business with any company that chooses to threaten their customers in this way. I ran through the gamut of shooting your own images, hunting down public domain images (and documenting where they came from), to using a stock company that is not associated with the copyright trolls -- the only one I know of is pond5.com. I also touched on registering a DMCA takedown agent as outlined on this board and in this article: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/10/dmca-righthaven-loophole/

There were many questions afterward and the information was well received. But what really surprised me was what happened later when we had a free-form networking session.

I tracked down the developer that i saw nodding in recognition. Indeed, he was hit with a letter a couple of years back. In his case he pulled the site down and never replied to their letters and they left him alone. While we were talking, another developer came up. He bashfully admitted that he was hit for $1200 for one image and he paid up. But it doesn't end there. Two other developers came up to me later. One had gotten hit 6 years ago and paid up. He was surprised to find out this was still going on. The other one was very militant in his action. He said, "I called them up and said, 'It's gonna cost you $450 and hour for an attorney to pursue this. I'll tell you what..." And then he adamantly used a euphemism for sexual intercourse that starts with an "f" followed it with "YOU!" and then he hung up. "I never heard from them after that," he said.

It was interesting for me to hear about the different ways people felt with getting this demand letter. But what kind of blew my mind is there were 5 people out of at most 50 that had been hit with this letter. And of that group 40% had just paid up. If this is indicative of the results the stock agencies are getting, it's pretty amazing. I guess they must see the value of torching any possible customer goodwill in exchange for this easy money. Although I still insist that this business model is unsustainable.

I plan on putting together a more polished set of resources. If anyone else gets a chance to share this information on their blogs, at user groups or meet-ups, or with news or political leaders, I encourage them to do so. Change will not happen if people remain silent. But it is not unheard of for companies to be shamed into changing their behavior.

[Matthew Chan]

McFilms,

You did a great service by "coming out" to the group.  All it took was for you to step out publicly and people started gathering around you sharing stories.  And that is why ELI exists today.  People are dying to tell their stories and share their experiences in addition to getting help.

I am sure they didn't feel too good when they realized they paid too much to settle a case that would never have gone to court to begin with.

It is interesting and quite impressive that you have done something I have yet had the opportunity to do.  While we have a large online readership through our videos and this forum, I have never had the opportunity to speak to anyone in person about this beyond a personal one-on-one setting.  I think it is best that I never got in front of a group to speak my mind.  

I could live to regret the things I would publicly say and in the process embarrass myself along the way.  It is probably best I stay behind a keyboard and my camcorder otherwise it could get ugly. :-)

Matthew