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Author Topic: Need an opinion on a letter I received.  (Read 60242 times)

JLorimer

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Re: Need an opinion on a letter I received.
« Reply #45 on: November 24, 2013, 11:58:01 AM »
I also have google webmaster tools and have requested removal of the cached images and pages from their results.  In fact, I have basically shut down the ability to have my site crawled in any capacity, for any agent that respects robots.txt.

Greg Troy (KeepFighting)

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Re: Need an opinion on a letter I received.
« Reply #46 on: November 24, 2013, 02:18:11 PM »
PicScout does not respect Robot.txt and must be blocked using IP addresses.  There are several threads on this with known IP address for Pic-Scout and other crawlers.
Every situation is unique, any advice or opinions I offer are given for your consideration only. You must decide what is best for you and your particular situation. I am not a lawyer and do not offer legal advice.

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JLorimer

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Re: Need an opinion on a letter I received.
« Reply #47 on: November 24, 2013, 06:24:46 PM »
That is valuable information.  I will find the answers right now.  Thanks!

Greg Troy (KeepFighting)

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Every situation is unique, any advice or opinions I offer are given for your consideration only. You must decide what is best for you and your particular situation. I am not a lawyer and do not offer legal advice.

--Greg Troy

JLorimer

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Re: Need an opinion on a letter I received.
« Reply #49 on: November 24, 2013, 09:57:05 PM »
Implemented.  Thanks again.

john82

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Re: Need an opinion on a letter I received.
« Reply #50 on: November 30, 2013, 01:52:31 PM »
Remember those cases I asked about?  I finally got my Pacer credentials and looked them up.  The first one was a wash because Sanders didn't show up on time and the court had already excused the defendants.  So that one was rescheduled for next week.

The second one is a little more interesting.  The defendant answered BWP's claims very forcefully, basically saying all the same stuff people on here say; they're protected under fair use, they're a news business, BWP didn't own the pictures, etc., etc.

They held their initial conference (which Sanders attended by phone) and they don't have another court date until October, 2014.  At that next date, everyone HAS to appear in person.  But the gist of it is that this is going to take a long time to get resolved.  We won't know if Sanders will actually appear in person (or delegate to a lawyer in the respective state) for another year.

JLorimer

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Re: Need an opinion on a letter I received.
« Reply #51 on: November 30, 2013, 05:51:38 PM »
I don't have a lot of experience with this stuff but it sounds to me that these guys really drag their feet.  Seems that those who have called their bluff are holding strong.  In a year, it seems that it would grow increasingly harder for them to prove their case if they don't already have enough.  Sanders, etc. don't seem to be all that committed in the end.  I would be interested to hear opinions from all the veterans here who have seen more of this than I have.

Greg Troy (KeepFighting)

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Re: Need an opinion on a letter I received.
« Reply #52 on: November 30, 2013, 06:54:00 PM »
Sometimes it's a tactic to "make you sweat" and wonder what's happening and sometimes is it just that these companies are sending out so many of these letters it takes a while to do follow up work.  Sometimes when they meet stiff resistance they just move on to easier prey.

My fight is with Getty and every since I turned up the heat on them for continuing to demand payment, threatening to escalate to legal and refusing to provide requested proof to continue negotiations I have not heard a peep out my Getty pen pal Douglas Beiker for almost a year and a half now.  :D
Every situation is unique, any advice or opinions I offer are given for your consideration only. You must decide what is best for you and your particular situation. I am not a lawyer and do not offer legal advice.

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john82

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Re: Need an opinion on a letter I received.
« Reply #53 on: November 30, 2013, 10:57:21 PM »
I went in and looked at 17 cases that were closed.  Of those, 8 had settlement letters or mentions of settlements.  The other 9 had voluntary dismissals from BWP, but I couldn't confirm they were settled (though I presume they were).

I went in and looked at some of the older cases that weren't closed.  I found two that BWP was asking for a default judgement, which means the defendants either weren't served or are playing dumb.  I only found one where the defendant is fighting it and it's ongoing (along with the cases I mentioned earlier).

Basically, we still don't know how far they'll take it.  The cases that have been closed seem like situations where the defendants were scared and settled early.  I'm interested to see how these other cases go.

JLorimer

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Re: Need an opinion on a letter I received.
« Reply #54 on: December 01, 2013, 04:28:37 AM »
Those documents only cover cases for which BWP has gone past threats and decided to file papers to begin an actual lawsuit, correct?  The reason I ask is because there are several accounts online (I'm thinking specifically of Cary Wiedemann from fairfaxunderground.com) where the person seems to have given them a somewhat forceful answer and BWP backs off.

john82

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Re: Need an opinion on a letter I received.
« Reply #55 on: December 01, 2013, 12:09:39 PM »
I follow the fairfaxunderground discussion thread as well and it's filled with horrible advice from random people.  The guy who said "problem solved" is wrong.  Cary never responded to the thread, so we don't know what's going on, but I guarantee you that Sanders will either send a "second and final notice" or will file a lawsuit against him.  That's what they've done with the other 125+ websites and I know of 3 specific cases where actual lawyers sent strongly worded letters to Sanders and Sanders ignored them and proceeded as usual.

It's not about proving they're wrong; they don't care.  They're betting that they can start the lawsuit process and people will beg to settle.  The 17 cases I pulled all proved that point.

JLorimer

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Re: Need an opinion on a letter I received.
« Reply #56 on: December 01, 2013, 12:28:17 PM »
It is good to hear a different opinion on that situation.  Everybody in that discussion thinks it is over.  That is not the impression I have gotten.  I realized there is a ton of bad advice there.  I was automatically discarding pretty much everything said.  I just wanted to hear the status from Cary himself.

I don't know much about judges and the court.  Should any of these go to actual lawsuit, does it help that the webmaster attempted to either settle realistically or presented a good argument? It bothers me that Sanders basically ignores any evidence and continues to push for a settlement.  It seems to me that Sanders simply ignoring process and reason would work against them, but maybe that isn't how the real world works.

john82

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Re: Need an opinion on a letter I received.
« Reply #57 on: December 01, 2013, 12:51:11 PM »
All of the ones I'm researching (115 and counting) are at the actual lawsuit phase.  A lawyer will have to answer your question about attempting to settle before court.  One thing I noticed from the cases I pulled from Pacer is that a lot of people that hired lawyers filed their answers on time with strongly worded defenses and then settled anyway.

Sanders wants the quick buck and the threat of $50k+ is lawyer fees for an actual trial is enough to get most of the uninformed webmasters to settle.

I will say this; I would not settle until one of these other cases goes to trial (earliest date I found is October, 2014).  The outcome of the first trial will speak volumes as to how the rest will go.

JLorimer

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Re: Need an opinion on a letter I received.
« Reply #58 on: December 01, 2013, 12:57:13 PM »
I really appreciate your reasoning and research.  I attempted to do some of my own but I was confused by pacer.  I wasn't sure if I was even allowed to register for the service.

Did you happen to see the amount that the average person is settling for?  I am curious about those numbers.

How would one hold out until the others go to trial?  What if I would get hit with a lawsuit and the date would be sooner than the earliest you found?  I would also like to see the outcome of the others but I also can't afford to be the case that defines the others either.

JLorimer

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Re: Need an opinion on a letter I received.
« Reply #59 on: December 01, 2013, 02:18:49 PM »
john82, I realize you have invested personal funds in this.  I'm curious, did you see examples of the strongly worded letters that were sent by lawyers to BWP?  I would like to know some of the inaccuracies they pointed out.  If you do have examples, I would be willing to reimburse you for a look at some of those.

 

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