Retired Forums > Hawaiian Letters & Lawsuits Forum
Hawaiian Art Network Lawsuit Collection
Matthew Chan:
I downloaded the court documents (Complaints & Exhibits) from PACER of the 3 outstanding Hawaiian Art Network lawsuits. I have not yet read the complaint or exhibits in detail.
http://www.scribd.com/my_document_collections/3402361
Moku-aina Properties, Aloha Plastic Surgery, and Outrigger Lodging Services are all being sued.
Please note that Vincent Tylor is a co-plaintiff in all 3 cases. Hawaiian Art Network is filing as a co-plaintiff, not the sole plaintiff. It appears that Righthaven lawsuits and the Getty vs. Advernet case has gone into effect by compelling the original copyright holder (Vincent Tylor) be named as a plaintiff in the lawsuit, not simply relying on the stock photo company (HAN) to file a lawsuit.
If HAN had filed as the sole plaintiff, there would be no question HAN would be challenged whether they had standing to sue would be called into question. By including Vincent Tylor (original copyright holder/owner) as a co-plaintiff, it seems HAN has covered themselves on that front.
Let the analysis and critiques begin!
Lettered:
My first thought is that the photographer may not have thought this through very well.
First he has publicly associated his name with these people. That alone would be enough to compel me to not participate, I think.
Second, wouldn't he be opening up himself to potential counter-suits? What if he finds himself up to his eyeballs in counter-suit(s) aimed directly at him? If the going gets tough, will his "friends" hang around to protect him and finance his defense?
Matthew Chan:
Lettered,
I am guessing he is not terribly worried about his name being associated with HAN. Many of us suspect that he "seeds" the Internet with "free wallpaper" images to entrap people. As far as we are concerned, there seems to be some funny business going on.
You do bring up a good point that there is the potential for a counter-suit. If it were me, I would be asking why he is giving away the images for "free" only to turn around and extort them into paying several thousand dollars if they use them on a website. It may not win them the case but it can seriously mitigate any outrageous damages HAN may be seeking.
Now that a lawsuit has been filed, you can bet there will be many more eyeballs following this.
Lettered:
Actually, that may be good news. Maybe this will be the venue to get that practice exposed and shut down.
Seems to me that a good strategy might be to file suit against the free wallpaper site and the uploader (John Doe) for contributory copyright infringement to compel the free wallpaper site(s) to reveal the IP of the John Doe. Even if John Doe is using a proxy server there are ways to figure out who he is.
This will be interesting to watch.
By the way, I assume this is guy we are talking about in the following link?
http://www.hawaiianphotos.net/VKTylor.htm
Robert Krausankas (BuddhaPi):
Lettered, yes that is the person in question, and to follow up with Matts opinion of possibly some funny business going on, I can't help but make the following observations..
HAN has other photographers under their umbrella, yet it seems that only V.K. Tylors images are spread out on multiple wallpaper sites. Furthermore in every letter we have seen and reported on every single one is a V.K. Tylor image.
I've also noted that on many of these sites the signature is already removed, yet Hawaiian Art network / V.K. Tylor are also suing for removal of copyright information.
If I remember correctly the first HAN letter we saw came from Carolyn Wright, who is a well known and respected photo attorney, it would appear that she is no longer involved in these matters and I can't help but wonder why?
There has been some research ongoing in regards to the domain owners of the wall paper sites, just to see if it is remotely possible that there is a link somewhere.
I would also like to know what HAN is doing proactively to have these images removed from the wall paper sites, my best "guess" is nothing.
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