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Hawaiian Artwork, LLC Files Lawsuit!

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Robert Krausankas (BuddhaPi):
Oscar, is there any merit to a possible entrapment defense or something along those lines? Every letter I have seen from HAN involves the same photogrpaher, and all of these images are readily available on literally 100's of sites as free downloads??

::EDIT::

could you possibly expound on this a little more??: "My biggest concern is that if these cases are not properly defended they could make bad law which will help all the other digital image companies in the 9th Circuit"

Robert Krausankas (BuddhaPi):
Here's yet another one that just appeared on the radar..

Hawaiian Art Network, LLC et al v. Moku'aina Properties, LLC et al

http://www.rfcexpress.com/lawsuits/copyright-lawsuits/hawaii-district-court/86202/hawaiian-art-network-llc-v-moku-039-aina-properties-llc/summary/

Peeved:
Here is just some more info with regard to copyright law and lawsuits. Thought it may help as there is mention of "time frames" regarding registration.

Here is the link for the pdf file:

http://www.apanational.com/files/public/keytoprotection.pdf

HIGHLIGHT:

A copyright without copyright registration is next to worthless.

But in reality, a copyright without copyright registration is next to worthless. Why? Well, to start
off, you can’t even file a copyright lawsuit in Federal Court without actually filing a copyright
registration. Secondly, if the copyright infringement that you are suing about occurred over 90
days prior to your copyright registration, you are denied two real big sticks in the copyright law -
court costs - including attorney’s fees and statutory damages. These are very big sticks indeed.

The US Copyright Office explains registration as the following: “Copyright Registration is a legal
formality intended to make a public record of the basic facts of a particular copyright. However,
even though registration is not a requirement for protection, the copyright law provides several
inducements or advantages to encourage copyright owners to make registration.”

Among these advantages are the following:
• Registration establishes a public record of the copyright claim.
• Before an infringement suit may be filed in court, registration is necessary for works of
U.S. origin.
• If made before or within 5 years of publication, registration will establish prima facie
evidence in court of the validity of the copyright and of the facts stated in the certificate.
• If registration is made within 3 months after publication of the work or prior to an
infringement of the work, statutory damages and attorney’s fees will be available to the
copyright owner in court actions. Otherwise, only an award of actual damages and profits
is available to the copyright owner.
• Registration allows the owner of the copyright to record the registration with the U. S.
Customs Service for protection against the importation of infringing copies.

What this basically means is that an “author” of a copyrighted work gets the full remedies under
the law only if the copyrighted work is registered prior to an infringement. Otherwise, the best
you can hope for is an award of actual damages or profits lost — both of which can be difficult to
prove or may end up being less than the costs of mounting a lawsuit in the first place. Talk to an
IP (Intellectual Property) attorney and one of the very first questions he will probably ask is “is it
registered?”.

summer99:
I received a registered letter dated December 6, 2011  from Zvukony & Co Lawyers (Gil Zvulony is the name of the lawyer located in Toronto) demanding that I send them a certified cheque  in trust for $10,000 for infringing on their client's copyrights and moral rights.  I have been given 10 days from  the date of the letter to respond.  I live in Calgary, Alberta, Canada and I had posted another person's blog which included one of the pictures.The second picture I had taken from a site which I thought was a free site which promoted pictures of Hawaii but was not! My mistake! Since receiving the letter, I have taken both pictures off my blog site and Facebook.

I have replied back to the letter via email  stating that I have taken the pictures off the site immediately after receiving the letter.  I have stated that the payment they want is very high compared to the act price of the photos.  I also made the statement that the law firm seems legitimate but how did I know that these pictures were indeed owned by Hawaiian Art Network LLC. 

In reading the information on your forum, Vincent K Tylor has both pictures for sale  for $10.00 under his website Hawaiian LandMark Images and Hawaiian Art Network.

I am interest to hear your comments.

Robert Krausankas (BuddhaPi):
moral rights??? I'm not Canadian, but can a lawyer from Toronto practice in Alberta?? Look as some of the other posts, as they all have good info on how to proceed.... In the meantime rest assured I'll be a doing alittle digging into Mr. Zvolony...we'll see if he has any "morals" himself... 10k is almost laughable and already reflects on his moral value"....

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