Retired Forums > Hawaiian Letters & Lawsuits Forum
HAN/VKT question
Dee:
I might have asked this before but don't recall getting an answer so sorry if I repeat this.
Those who I know that have already paid after getting the demand letters are wondering that if the courts rule against HAN and VKT that this is entrapment/extortion, can they sue to get the money they paid back? I am assuming they have some kind of case at that point? I know a few people who have paid a lot already and are really upset to learn about all this.
Matthew Chan:
You can sue anyone for anything. But the question is whether you can win or collect anything. That is what I say all the time when someone is trying to come after you. Despite our efforts, a ton of people still pay up and settle. It is very hard to save people from themselves. Quite frankly, I don't have much sympathy for people who have been told the scam and they still cave to it. Once you give the money, it is hard to get it back. And more than likely a settlement agreement went on top of it all.
Keep in mind we do call it "extortion" on these forums as a rhetorical hyperbole (not criminal extortion). At the end of the day, no one really held a gun to anyone's head to pay the money or sign a settlement agreement. People cave in because of their own legal ignorance, unwillingness to make a stand, or do the work to defend themselves.
They have simply learned a hard life lesson by caving in. People who let fear run them and not make the effort to get educated do get rolled. The best they can hope for is to make sure it doesn't happen to anyone again.
I am sorry to say, it will be very hard for them to unring this bell. They probably are best to chalk it up to a life lesson.
If they couldn't defend themselves on a relatively simple matter, trying to go after someone and collecting is even more difficult.
It is one big reason I don't personally help people for free anymore on these letters. I would spend the time and effort to help, talk, and strategize with them and they would still act like cowards and ultimately settle. I have no sympathy for those people at all. They got the best advice possible and were too ignorant to know any better when the information was plainly given to them. They were weaklings that deserved to have their money parted from them.
Everyone has to assume a certain amount of responsibility of the outcome. They settled. As I said, it's going to be hard to unring the bell now.
--- Quote from: Dee on May 08, 2012, 10:27:13 PM ---I might have asked this before but don't recall getting an answer so sorry if I repeat this.
Those who I know that have already paid after getting the demand letters are wondering that if the courts rule against HAN and VKT that this is entrapment/extortion, can they sue to get the money they paid back? I am assuming they have some kind of case at that point? I know a few people who have paid a lot already and are really upset to learn about all this.
--- End quote ---
Dee:
Yes I agree. I am equally frustrated with some of them. I sent out a warning to a list serve of businesses and got many people emailing me with their stories asking for help. I told them the situation and I gave them all kinds of information which included your information and encouraged them all to come here and read up then donate for advice and help. I don't think one followed my advice, when I followed up they all ended up paying except one who wont and is prepared to go to court. Now that they see all this court stuff, they are upset and want to recoup.
I agree they deserve it however, I was more thinking along the lines of what kind of trouble VKT and the others can get into. It annoys me that he is getting money for this and if they find him guilty of this, I want to know that they are going to be punished and hopefully have to repay the money. That would be the best way to punish the guy. It seems to me that if a judge sees all the evidence and is told about all the money he has collected, that he would be ordered to give it all back.
Interesting that last week, I managed to intercept an ad before it was published online that had one of his images. I asked the graphic artists where they got it, and she showed me the site where it clearly offered it free. It was a non profit event for children, but still, had he seen that I am quite sure he would have sued them. I am so glad I caught it as they can't afford that.
I just read that whole forum where he wants to sue a painter for painting his photo and selling it. Wow really? I mean, it is just weird to me that he is working with an art network, as an artist and he would be so petty. Be flattered someone was inspired by your image and support artists who really don't make all that much anyway. Not all of them figured out an angle to make money like he did. Then to see he is a Jehovas Witness, really confuses me even more. I have friends who are Jehovas, and they don't behave that way. Actually in Hawaii, you don't run around suing people like that either.
And like someone said, he has not gotten the word out, there are so many things he could do to discourage people from taking images from these sites, including posting information on his own site about it. It isn't that hard, I have been warning people about this and found multiple people who images that were not licenses on their sites and helped them remove them and showed them where to go for legal images.
Robert Krausankas (BuddhaPi):
You can probably bet the farm, there is some sort of provision in the agreement, that when paid it will be non_refundable and confidential
Moe Hacken:
I don't see much hope for those who folded getting any money back no matter what happens to HAN/VKT. I find that very irritating, but they should have never signed on the dotted line.
HAN and VKT may be facing some serious blowback if a judge calls them on their trap, especially if it can be proven that they intentionally planted bait or even if they just passively allowed the bait to disseminate so they could take advantage. If that happens, the money they got from those who rolled over will probably become a defense fund for the trolls.
Many people here have said it: They'd rather pay the money defending themselves than cave in to dishonest threats from yuppies in starchy suits. I personally believe fighting back is virtually a moral duty. If no one fights back, they will divide and conquer every one of their victims.
Any reasonable judge should be able to see, based on the information that's already publicized on this forum and elsewhere, that while each single case can be built to have the appearance of legal propriety, when you look at the circumstances of likely entrapment and the shameless execution of a business model based on legal bullying and fear tactics, each individual case loses merit.
If there is something we can do to help the current defendants against HAN/JKV, we should do it. This could be pivotal in creating case law that effectively eliminates this model. If this precedent is set with the stock image trolls, it may also help with other intellectual property trolls surfacing from every storm drain in America. This extortion model is being applied to music, videos, text, anything than can be branded.
Lettered gave Matthew a suggestion some time ago about filing an amicus ("friend of the court") brief on behalf of the defendants in the HAN cases explaining our findings about the HAN/VKT baitpaper cartel, and turning over all of the information we have on each and everyone of the images he's tainted the information society with. Or at least the ones we're aware of, who knows how many there really are.
Mr. Tylor, by the way, is no longer a Jehovah's Witness. He left the group because of philosophical issues with the prohibition on receiving blood transfusions and receiving organ transplants, among other issues which he describes at length in a post on a forum for folks who have left that group. I want to point this out in fairness to the Watchtower Society. The Jehovah Witnesses I am acquainted with are very nice, sincere and honest people.
But enough about VKT. Let us not forget the other player in the cartel, Hawaiian Art Network LLC. In an earlier post, Matthew found that the place is run by a person by the name of Glen Carner:
http://www.extortionletterinfo.com/forum/getty-images-letter-forum/hawaiian-art-network-settlement-demand-letter-collection/15/
In the same post, Buddhapi strikes gold by finding a page created on Brothersoft.com (be careful with that site, their stuff is polluted with viruses!) where apparently Mr. Glen Carner actually had the audacity to hang some baitpaper under his own name (!!!!), which you can still go and nibble on if you would like to bait the baiters:
http://publisher.brothersoft.com/glen-carner.html
I think Mr. Carner would have some explaining to do to a judge about this. If I were him, I'd be asking who you have to give foot massages to at Brothersoft to take that page down right after reading this post (you do read this, don't you?).
You know what, though? A lot of us have gone to the Brothersoft page and saved web archives of this nifty little free gift. Besides, it's probably all over Wayback Machine, one of their favorite tools of the trade.
Here's the post from Lettered regarding the amicus brief:
http://www.extortionletterinfo.com/forum/getty-images-letter-forum/breaking-new-ground-with-amicus-briefs/
Once you get the big picture, you can see this is not just about intellectual property rights. It's also about intellectual property wrongs.
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