Masterfile people responsible for your miseries

[DontMessWithTexas]

The main person that appears to be responsible for your letters from Masterfile is:

John L. MacDougall
Senior Compliance Officer at Masterfile Corporation

from Toronto, Canada. Here is his linked-in profile, resume and picture:

http://ca.linkedin.com/in/jlmacdougall

*DELETED*  I wonder how much commission he gets from each extortion letter that he sends.

It would be interesting to see who the other main people in this company are responsible for this.

[SoylentGreen]

Yes, post more MF and Getty personalities.
It's great to know who we're dealing with!!

S.G.

[Oscar Michelen]

Ladies and Gentlemen:

Can I call upon you to rise to our better selves. These types of posts and comments really have no place here.  I have dealt with John MacDougall on numerous Masterfile cases and have found him to always be professional and courteous.  While we have strong disagreement  on a number of legal issues, he always makes his points politely and professionally. I have never heard him nor heard of him being boorish or overbearing. In fact all of Masterfile's people have behaved in a similarly appropriate fashion which has led to the successful and amicable resolution of many of their claims. 

In addition, is it really relevant to our issue that Mr. MacDougall is smiling in his LinkedIn picture? Unless MF starts getting down and dirty I think its best if we restrain ourselves and act professionally also. Just my two cents.

Oscar               

[dontgivein]

John L. MacDougall from Masterfile is the man that trains and supervises *DELETED*. He is neither *DELETED*, his letters are far from it. They are *DELETED* . He just wants the most *DELETED*. *DELETED* for one or two pictures. He *DELETED* whether your infringement was innocent. This is how he earns his living.

[dontgivein]

Knowing how these people look like really helps. Little bit of humour helps everyone relieve this stressful experience. If Mr. MacDougall has a sense of humour, he will be ok with this as well.

[Robert Krausankas (BuddhaPi)]

And I suppose you have dealt directly with this individual?? I respectfully ask that you heed Oscar's suggestion, this is the best site on the net regarding this situation, it has helped numerous folks to no end. These types of posts will not benefit anyone and could risk the reputation of this wonderful resource..

[SoylentGreen]

Of course I respect Oscar's wishes, and his mission.
Matt and Oscar have done a stellar job here!!

It's quite interesting to myself (and I'm sure many others) the reaction that the picture has garnered.
The responses here are a real "barometer" as to the feelings of those who are concerned about the issues at hand.

It's no secret that companies such as MF, Getty, and Brandon "Gimme-Ten-Grand" Sand and their attorneys disseminate misleading communications on a large scale in order to get money.
These communications may not be something that one could take action over.
But, there's an issue of morals and ethics.

Personally, if I was signing my name to hundreds of threatening letters, I wouldn't put my photo out on the Internet.
But, somebody, somewhere was going to become the "face" of the Internet "demand letter".
Before anyone goes off the deep end here about this, I'm just stating common sense.

S.G.

[DontMessWithTexas]

Many here have said that John L MacDougall signed their letters recently. Is he the only onle left there? There is also:

Tanya Gangursky
Copyright Compliance Assistant at Masterfile Corporation

http://ca.linkedin.com/pub/tanya-gangursky/4/a44/579

The company may be struggling because fewer people are sending them money.

[SoylentGreen]

Here's some more names from their head office:

Yvonne Mitchell - Copyright Compliance Officer
http://ca.linkedin.com/pub/yvonne-mitchell/4/a44/706

Also, there is/was a person by the name of "Shahadyda Babb" there as well.
This person may have removed his/her info from LinkedIN.
Maybe the Masterfile stress was too much.

Publicly available info.
Have any readers had any run-ins with these folks?

S.G.

[Matthew Chan]

Oscar and I have been contacted by attorney Steven Weinberg with a short email letter regarding personal attacks and inflammatory remarks regarding John MacDougall of Masterfile.  John is clearly unhappy about it and had Steven Weinberg send us a letter.  According to their letter, they feel it is unlawful and defamatory.  Unsurprisingly, I don't agree with him and if it were really brought up in a court of law, I think it would be a very weak case.  Personally, I think John has a bit of a thin skin about it.  It is actually pretty tame compared to much of what I have seen written about others on other websites.

http://extortionletterinfo.com/masterfilecase/weinberg-letter-to-eli.pdf

I do want to publicly say about Steven Weinberg that we appreciate him not using a "hammer" with the Certified Mail or Overnight Letter bit.  I considered it a professional courtesy he gently emailed me the letter stating his position without drama and I can respect it. I become much more offended and angered when the FIRST course of action is some Certified Letter or Overnight Delivery that lands on my doorstep.

Nevertheless, the reason why this forum is so reputable and credible is that we do have rules of forum behavior.  I have always stated, personal attacks, insults, and inflammatory statements does not help the mission.  And Oscar, has consistently reinforced this.

As such, I have deleted those sections of posts that I believe to be "over the line".  It is good for everyone. For the record, I have never met or encountered John, not even seen his photo, so I don't have any opinion on him one way or another.

Going forward, I will have to insist that people choose their words more carefully.  You can express your anger and frustration without name-calling and offensive, inflammatory statements. If you cannot, you should not post here because it hurts the website's mission.

Last thing, attorney Steven Weinberg wants me to make it clear the following: "..in posting my letter, it would be an injustice and frankly defamatory to John to do so under the rubric that his feelings need to be protected – if you are going to post my letter, the truthful comment would be that Masterfile supports discussion protected by the first amendment, but will not tolerate unprotected, unlawful defamatory statements."

Is everyone clear where John and Steven stands now?  I hope so.

Matthew Chan

[SoylentGreen]

I'd like to reiterate once again what a great site this is.
I know that it's much work.  But, a valuable work it is.

I'm sure that everyone here appreciates mr w's letter.
It's so much "win" and "shite was so cash" as the "infringers" sometimes say.
But, I don't see how these kind of litigious threats make any money for MF.

Not to worry.
The best course of action may be to copyright the names and photographs of key MF employees.
Then, copyright the word "deleted".  Don't copyright in bulk, though.  That's weak.
Make sure that the rights are also purchased from the original photographer and your momma who named you.

These efforts will protect you from those who disagree with you, and will surely keep you out of that place called G*tty.
MF can send their threatening mails to: "Copyright Trolls, C/O Who Gives a Crap, P.O. Box Your Momma, LOL4LOL"

Thank you for your time.

S.G.

[Matthew Chan]

It is very clear they do not consider it humorous. Up until recently, I was neutral on their behavior because I had no personal experience. Now, I got a small taste.

But to have them pay attorney Steven Weinberg draft that letter over one guy's over-the-top post gives me the impression he that "someone" is thin-skinned.  And no, I do not believe that sharing my "opinion" that someone is a bit sensitive is defamatory at all.  

This reminds me of my run-in at the Napoleon Hill Foundation many years ago.  They couldn't be bothered to contact me directly. They acted like cowards going through an attorney to deliver an expensive package. They would have the company pay unnecessary legal fees to handle something that could a simple email or phone call could have remedied quickly.  Ultimately, NHF went away.  I complied quietly the first time and replied to them privately and made the adjustment.  Then a year later, they send me another letter.  That time really ticked me off and I decided to just let everyone see our dialog.  I am not bound by any confidentiality agreement so if someone is going to mess with me, then I will let everyone see that, just like they will see my rebuttals.

At least, Steven was experienced enough to send a short letter via email, not an outlandish package.  All things considered, I think Steven handled it appropriately given the situation but John on the other hand, how hard would it have been to send an email to Oscar or me for Pete's sake?

Our written forum policy is no outrageous name-calling, personal insults, inflammatory language, etc. A quick mention of our own policy would have taken cared of it. It goes to show the mindset of the stock photo industry and why I recommend boycotting them to spend money on a good camera or a good graphic artist and stay away from stock photos altogether.

http://matthewchan.com/2011/01/20/how-to-stop-using-stock-photos-boycott-the-stock-photo-industry/

Matthew

Knowing how these people look like really helps. Little bit of humour helps everyone relieve this stressful experience. If Mr. MacDougall has a sense of humour, he will be ok with this as well.

[Matthew Chan]

SG,

If you re-read the letter, Steven Weinberg wasn't actually threatening me or Oscar.  It was a formal notification that if we didn't make the adjustments for what they considered defamatory remarks on the offending posts, they would get a court order to trace the original poster of the comment and possibly file suit on them.

My thinking is even if they found the guy, then what? Spend how much money to sue some guy who mocked John?  

I told Steven that I felt that there would actually have be some belief in the public statements being made and actual damages proven. I also told Steven that I felt that courts had some degree of "common sense" over this kind of stuff.

For example, if someone on this forum or some other place says that "Matthew Chan is a putz" or "Matthew Chan is a dick" or "Matthew Chan is an idiot" that is not really defamatory, just some name-calling.  I may get upset but I would not say that is defamation.  Yes, it is definitely name-calling and insulting but not defamatory to me.  You just have to look at the context.  Now if someone said "Matthew Chan is a thief" or "Matthew Chan is a crook" or "Matthew Chan is a rapist".  That would definitely be defamatory and I would be jumping up and down over it to get that removed.

If you want to see a scathing review of me and some insults of me and one of my books, look here:

http://bookmakingblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/this-book-is-inaccurate-inadequate-and.html

There are some personal insults about me although the guy never met me. I didn't much like the book review, of course.  But I wasn't shouting defamation of character.  Yes, he insulted me but nothing that qualified as defamation.  And I did take the time to write 3 rebuttals on my TurnKey Publishing blog to his scathing review. I even posted one rebuttal on his blog and he accepted it.

Anyhow....

Quite frankly, the letter from Steven was mostly a time-waster and drama-creator as is evident now that I have to write about this and share the story.  I took the time to *DELETE* the offending comments.  I am fairly confident that the original poster will not be mad at me for making the changes vs. potentially exposing him against some so-called defamation case which amounted to about 3 posts I believe.

From what I could tell, there wasn't this huge campaign to trash John's name, it sounded more like venting to me than anything else.

Anyhow, it isn't a fight worth fighting. But heck, we have yet another story to talk about.  ELI never gets boring even when I really want it to.  Just when it gets quiet, something comes up.  Getty Images contacted us once very nicely about removing an ex-employee's name.  It was one of the frontline Getty Images License Compliance team member and both Oscar and I decided to do it just to be nice since that employee had already left the company.

Of course, it didn't hurt that Getty Images didn't stoke the fire on my case in which case it could have gone very differently.

Everyone knows that Oscar is the calm, thoughtful respectable one out of the two of us.  Without him, I probably would have little credibility.  :-) I am the insane, irrational, stubborn and rebellious one with few credentials.  Quite honestly, I sometimes think he is a bit crazy associating his name with mine.  Has anyone googled Oscar's name?  It screams high credibility and the man cares about his professional reputation.

I am actually dumb enough to be skeptical and not listen or believe everything an attorney tells me especially the opposing side.  I am dumb and crazy enough to represent myself against a seasoned lawyer in front of a judge to tell my side and appeal to his good, common sense armed with a tiny bit of knowledge and experience IF I feel strongly about my position.

Matthew

I'd like to reiterate once again what a great site this is.
I know that it's much work.  But, a valuable work it is.

I'm sure that everyone here appreciates mr w's letter.
It's so much "win" and "shite was so cash" as the "infringers" sometimes say.
But, I don't see how these kind of litigious threats make any money for MF.

Not to worry.
The best course of action may be to copyright the names and photographs of key MF employees.
Then, copyright the word "deleted".  Don't copyright in bulk, though.  That's weak.
Make sure that the rights are also purchased from the original photographer and your momma who named you.

These efforts will protect you from those who disagree with you, and will surely keep you out of that place called G*tty.
MF can send their threatening mails to: "Copyright Trolls, C/O Who Gives a Crap, P.O. Box Your Momma, LOL4LOL"

Thank you for your time.

S.G.

[SoylentGreen]

Matt,

Thanks a lot for your well-thought-out comments.

I agree that these "defamation" things can be tough to litigate unless the activities were were quite severe.
If a person of some stature said something about another who is a private citizen that was untrue, and actual damages could be shown, then it's a different story.
For example, if a newspaper editor or noted author said something, it would carry more weight than "anonymous person x" on the internet.

Another interesting aspect is that the more that a person puts him or herself "out there" whether in a positive or negative way, that person will eventually garner attention.
If John becomes the "poster boy" for the issues at hand by his own actions in his chosen profession (and that may be happening), there won't be much to actually stop people from calling him schoolyard names.
Even if it does sting a bit.  Don’t like it?  Change professions.  The courts won’t be his personal army, though.
If I said something about Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook for example, nothing would likely happen; he's a public figure.  I'm not.
But, you guys are doing the right thing by taking the high road, no question.

I've seen a certain value in this thread.
You get to see a side of the people involved that one might not otherwise observe.
It's like pouring water down some ground-hog holes, just to see if anyone's home.  This time, John was home.
For some of these folks such as John, there's the thrill of the "catch", like deep-sea fishing.  They get really jazzed if they think that they've landed a "big one".
Some get a bit arrogant; they get a sense of power in thinking that they can bully others.
I do think that there's probably a hint of fear at work here too.  Some sociopaths have all three traits, but experience no guilt or regret.
It's gone from "some company's sending me these letters" to "just who the hell are these people?"  That was a very good question.
Now, we know a little more about them.

I also suspect that John's fairly "driven".  I'll tell you why.  He used to head up the MF office in the US.
Now he works in Canada as the copyright infringement guy.  He's surely trying to get back "up there", although they've already filled the executive positions recently.
So, he's either really good at what he does (and he's staying there because of that), or there may be other reasons.
Is everything in the demand letters true?  That's like asking if they've registered all of their images.

Now, they could try to find "anon" people on the Internet who say something about them or their people.
But, it's really, really difficult.  I mean difficult proving it, especially.  They could even know who it is, but it's not so simple to get the legal access to documentation that would prove it.
They'd never, ever get a court order to find out an ISP address over anything that's been said here, and then go to an ISP with a court order to find out who it was.  Then have to make a winnable case out of it.
This reminds me of a picture that I saw the other day that jokingly said, "Come get me, I'm behind seven proxies!"
Furthermore, if any readers have the mistaken impression that going after someone for slander on the Web is easy, you need only to look at the case of "Sloan vs Truong".
MF's thinly veiled threat of litigation is the polar opposite of marketing.  So, it's going to hurt their sales.

The fact that things have been so civil here so far is that you and Oscar have garnered a lot of respect.  It's not that people are so worried about these companies and their "image".
I actually hope that MF tries to do such things in the future; track people down who say anything about them.
They'll appear to be like a certain church that goes after anyone who says anything negative about it.
Each letter, each phone call, each lawsuit; sliding a little closer each time to the point where they just go too far.

Anyway, at the very least it's surely been amusing for many.
For others, it's probably been quite enlightening.

S.G.

[Matthew Chan]

SG,

It is sort of strange to me. This one little thread was really no more significant than any other thread. But now, this thread becomes much more important and significant one because one of Masterfile's legal representatives has engaged this forum albeit through a backdoor approach.

They call it "defamation".  I like your term as "schoolyard name".  Admittedly, it is a bit juvenile for any of us to engage in schoolyard names but it slips out in the heat of passion.  And in the world of the Internet, it is semi-permanent unless you take action.

But I think you have to pick and choose those times.  John, through Steven, chose this time to take action.  They got results most certainly but seriously, am I going to stay quiet about this?  To me, I tell people I am a publisher. I blog, I write commentary, I lead an active discussion forum.  Of course, I will have something to say and comment about it (while maintaining civility and decorum).

I know people don't expect that I will share incoming emails or standard correspondence.  But I have tried to live transparently.  And thankfully, people like you and others help be my eyes and ears.  Not only that, Oscar and I greatly appreciate the vocal support and you guys uphold your conduct very well.  It makes us proud and gives us the little motivation to try harder and work for peanuts.

ELI used to be about the Getty Images stock photo demand letters only but over time as Oscar and I have taken notice of the legal landscape as it pertains to intellectual property, we have (through our community members help) discussed a whole range of questionable activities now labeled and named by EFF as "copyright trolling".

Essentially, ELI has evolved to covering and discussion copyright trolling and all its players.  And I have always said the companies and businesses don't act by themselves.  There are actual people who make decisions and choose to partake in this whole copyright trolling business. (Don't get lawsuit-happy people, I didn't make up the term.  EFF did.)

Clearly, Oscar, myself, ELI, and this community are one side.  And you got Getty Images, Masterfile, Righthaven, Imageline, etc. on the other side.

As you said, if you become a person of any influence, you will get talked about both good and bad. John has the "protection" of Masterfile as long as he works for them.  But then he has to think about what happens when he leaves MF.  He signed all those letters.  He may say it is his job but some people are not going to take too kindly to his job.  I will outright say that doesn't give us the right to take him into a back alley and beat him up or make up stories about him.  (But poking a little fun at him? hmm...)

But I believe that it is legitimate conversation on what he is doing and how he is doing it.  Oscar has defended John's conduct between them and John is probably professional with most people.  I have no reason to question Oscar's assessment of his professionalism.  But if John expects that just because one guy goes off the rails in a few posts and he will yell "defamation" each time, give me a break.

Oscar and my name are plastered on the Internet so it is pretty easy to find us, call us, or email us.  But most of the complaints and name-calling going on elsewhere on the Internet is not so easy to track.  Readership is pretty high about it and I just know someone will be humored by this whole incident. Well that is not our problem. Our only concern is safe-guarding our little corner of the Internet we know as ELI.

AS I re-read the entire post, I noticed everyone else was pretty civil.

One thing I will give credit to Getty Images to is that they have been surprisingly silent all these years despite all the things said about them.  Riddick of Imageline acted like crazy so we HAD to talk about him and his antics. 

Up until the letter emailed to me by Steven, I had not even looked at John's LinkedIn profile until tonight.

I guess it is a good thing that Masterfile or its employees feel we are significant enough to react to by sending one of their legal representatives to contact us.

Sometimes, you just can't make this stuff up. Reporting on real life adventures is sometimes better than conspiracies we create in our own mind.

Matthew