Messages

106

Higbee Associates Letter & Lawsuits Forum / Re: Service to "fight back" against Higbee

« on: December 26, 2017, 06:56:18 PM »

There was another "referral service" site that popped up a while ago, not sure if it was this one, just revamped, or something completely different, but yeah opportunistic douche bags at work here.. That other site will come back to me at some point, most likely in the middle of the night. Matthew has mentioned to me directly that I have a keen memory for things like this, which is amusing because i generally can't remember more important stuff..

107

Higbee Associates Letter & Lawsuits Forum / Re: Service to "fight back" against Higbee

« on: December 26, 2017, 06:29:57 PM »

To get accurate data one only need to search pacer.gov, not all of those case may be copyright cases. Looks like this site is hosted in Romania, which to me raises more red flags.

108

Legal Controversies Forum / Re: e-mail

« on: December 21, 2017, 11:31:28 AM »

1. Relax
2. Read through the forum get educated.
3. Chances are slim they will sue you.
4. you have no money, so you are in effect "judgement proof"
5. liens on your property are total BS - see #2 above
6. they don't even know your name.
7. DO NOT CONTACT THEM - again see #2 above
8. They look for people just like you, who haven't seen #2 above, are easily scared, and are likely to pay up, don't be that person...GET PISSED if anything and fight back.

109

Higbee Associates Letter & Lawsuits Forum / Re: Higbee claim for a shared YouTube video thumbnail + video title

« on: December 18, 2017, 09:35:43 AM »

Attorney Mathew Higbee is an idiot, and knows nothing about copyright law. I would sim ply ignore it, if he were to file a lawsuit, he would likely lose. He is not even worth spending time responding to.

110

UK Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Feel sick! Lovely Email from Getty! Please help

« on: December 13, 2017, 11:06:08 AM »

DO NOT  RESPOND, DO NOT ADMIT GUILT!!  this only helps them and their case..if they want to bring you to court, MAKE THEM PROVE THEIR CASE!... keep reading get educated, before doing anything...deadlines are designed to get under your skin and to make you react, they mean NOTHING!

111

Higbee Associates Letter & Lawsuits Forum / Re: Higbee followup

« on: December 07, 2017, 03:18:30 PM »

@clist

I had the same suspicion about Hamilton66.  I disagree the advice of the forum is reckless.  Farfrom it.  I also disagree with H's idea of contacting Higbee and making an arguement.  Save thatr for a judge if that were ever the case.  I would be very interested to hear from Mathew or any other of the senior posters comments on Hamilton66's post. 

Yeah. His post seemed very troll "ish".   

Additionally, I've read countless threads on ELI and have spoken to IP and Copyright attorneys and a lot of the statements made on this site were supported.  So I'm calling BS on the "reckless" statement as well.

With that said, I do believe that everyone's situation is different and because of this there is no "1 size fits all" solution. That's why its so important for everyone to take what they read on this site with a grain of salt and do their own due diligence to build and strengthen their case. 

Because at the end of the day, if you've been contacted by a troll ~ you need to get educated so you don't become another victim.

Agreed, there is no magic bullet, short of paying the demand. From time to time we get opinions like this it's nothing new..Most of us are not lawyers and we don't have to play by those standards, which is largely why we suggest "unorthodox" strategies, and prefer the "street fight" mentality., While the op does bring up a few points worth noting, I doubt the case we are discussing would land in the 5th district, in Texas. It would be argued in the 9th district ( I'm fairly certain) where the perfect10 case argued.

Naturally there are always risks involved in being upfront and filing complaints, and even if the Bar association doesn't act, any attorney concerned about there reputation, would likely respond to a filed complaint, even it it went nowhere... Need I refer to Stingers Bar Complaint about one of Tim McCormacks attorney, who not only had to respond, but ended up having to hire an attorney? Do I need to mention the 100's of complaints filed against getty Image with the Washington AG, that each required a response? Do i need to mention that Getty images used to send out letters demanding upwards of 1000.00, and those days are now over, whilst they still send letters, the amount demanded is much more reasonable..Did Getty make these changes to "be nice"..I doubt it, or did they tire of the push back from unhappy, unsuspecting, and now educated people??.. I guess we'll never know the true answer, but I suspect ELI had at least a small impact on their methods.

112

Higbee Associates Letter & Lawsuits Forum / Re: Higbee followup

« on: December 02, 2017, 12:31:19 PM »

I agree with KK, if you are going to contact him at all do it AFTER filing complaints, the complaint will send a clear message you are not to be screwed with... If I were you I would

1. file complaints
2. tell Higbee that you filed complaints and that he has no case.
3. demand that he send you hard copies of documentation, that he is no longer pursuing this matter. ( waste as much of his time as possible)
3. demand an apology from this asshat for not doing his homework prior to sending a poorly written cheesey demand letter.
3. if Higbee was dumb enough ( which he probably is) and files suit, promptly file a counter suit against him and his client.

113

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Received copyright claim letter from Getty Images

« on: November 30, 2017, 07:02:35 PM »

So when you got this image from the royalty free site, did you purchase it? "Royalty Free" does not mean "Free", it means you a time fee to use the image in different ways... $260.00 is a fairly reasonable amount considering Getty used to demand upwards of 1k for infringements concerning royalty free images... You can offer to pay them 50.00, they likely won't accept it, they may counter or outright refuse that amount. They are not going to sue you, it would cost them double that amount just to file papers.

114

Higbee Associates Letter & Lawsuits Forum / Re: Higbee followup

« on: November 21, 2017, 05:41:23 PM »

Greg troy is going to help you with tips/tricks and the "how to" on filing complaints.. way back when when we started doing this with getty he was the driving force, and getty now has literally 100's if not 1000's of complaint filed with the washington AG...Keep in mind the AG or Bar association may not take any action, but Highbee will need to use his time to respond.

115

Higbee Associates Letter & Lawsuits Forum / Re: Higbee followup

« on: November 19, 2017, 07:20:33 PM »

Thoughts on how I might proceed to make him go away?
Thanks!

I can tell you what I would do in your shoes, it would take some additional time /effort, and there is naturally a risk factor involved, but it may work to make him go away..

1.  File complaints with the CA state attorney General, as well as your states AG. He would need to use valuable time to respond to these complaints, which is bit of pay-back
2. File bar complaints with the CA Bar Asociation and if he is licensed to practice in your state, file with that Bar as well...again he would need to waste time to respond...more payback, and a showing you won;t easily be bent over.
3. Publicize his name, and those of the trolls under his employ on every online outlet that comes to mind...here, reddit, ripoff report, twitter, FB..not all publicity is good..

you need to harp on the fact that Higbee is not a copyright attorney, and harp on the fact that the image in question was linked, and never resided on your servers, therefore there was no infringement..

Just for good measure, when making your complaints I would demand a formal apology in writing from higbee, just to make him squirm, and fess up to being an asshat...not that he would do this, but when he doesn't it's one more thing you can publicize.. bottom line is , if he is going to pester you, you need to pester him more.

116

Higbee Associates Letter & Lawsuits Forum / Re: Higbee followup

« on: November 17, 2017, 12:49:49 PM »

If and when this idiot calls, make sure to record it! California is a 2 party consent state, but that doesn't really matter much, you can always announce you are recording, and chances are he'll hang up.. the one good thing about this situation, is the time and energy they are wasting.. If it were me I would welcome this to get escalated to an attorney, so I could string them along, and suck up as much of their time as possible...I'm nice like that!

117

Higbee Associates Letter & Lawsuits Forum / Mathew Higbee of Higbee & Associates 2017 idiot of the year!

« on: November 16, 2017, 10:57:43 AM »

from the Higbee & Associates yelp profile:

Our speciality is offering low prices and outstanding service and results on a wide-range of legal issues, including bankruptcy, immigration and criminal record expungement.    We have 13 amazing attorneys and 60 dedicated staff members who are all eager to help you.   Our prices are typically 30% below what most Orange County law firms charge.

He doesn't even mention copyright in his services, yet he wants people to think he's this bad ass copyright attorney, when he clearly is not educated in said field..trying to extract money for an image that is not only linked, but one that would most likely be considered fair use.. so the question now becomes, how long before the yelp profile is changed to included copyright infringement...what a money hungry greedy a- hole this guy is..

Anybody want to throw a few bucks into a pool, on a dat the profile gets changed?? I say within a week..

118

Higbee Associates Letter & Lawsuits Forum / Re: Higbee followup

« on: November 16, 2017, 10:52:19 AM »

p.s. Here's something I'm scratching my head about. Higbee brags about having an A+ rating with the BBB. And, he's right as you can see here: https://www.bbb.org/sdoc/business-reviews/lawyers/higbee-associates-in-santa-ana-ca-100071532
But, he's got 3 positive reviews, 1 neutral review, and 4 negative reviews. In what universe does half the reviews being negative earn the business an A+ rating? The BBB site has an explanation of how they determine the rating which makes no sense to me. And, yes, I do get that resolving complaints improves one's score but there are some supposedly resolved complaints that haven't been confirmed by the customer.

The BBB is useless, their "ratings" mean nothing, there are a for profit business trying to sell memberships to advertise peoples businesses, who gives a rat ass how they calculate anything.. and BTW I've had clients who posted the BBB logo on their sites linking to their profile, and they have gotten letters from the BBB demanding they "become members" and to remove the logo unless they do so.

119

Higbee Associates Letter & Lawsuits Forum / Re: Higbee followup

« on: November 16, 2017, 10:45:45 AM »

--------------------
My comments below in bold

I've done some research and here are the issues I see with Higbee's claim.

1. I have an <img src="xxxxxxxxx"> link so I'm not even hosting the image.
Therefore no infringement occured, see perfect10 v google

2. His extortion letter acknowledges that I'm not hosting the image since the infringing file location is listed as being on a Barnes & Noble server. Does Barnes & Noble get the rights to use every book cover image they host and display?
the book publisher probably has a license to use the image, the license is probably non-transferrable to B&N ( as most licenses are), but i'd be willing to bet the license is "rights managed" allowing  B&N to use the image

3. The image in question is the cover of a book referenced from a blog article about said book. Does the publisher (who I imagine is happy that I'm promoting the book) own the rights to use the image or does Mr. Grecco?

Grecco owns the rights to the image itself, the publisher has a license to use said image

4. The photographer's image is only part of the book cover. I'm not sure if that negates his claim or not.
it wouldn't negate the claim, IF he had one, he DOESN"T

5. There are literally millions of hits for that image in a Google image search.

irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, a portion of those "hits" may be from legit license holders, some are likely linked form B&N like yours, and some are probably copies.. Mathew Higbee is NOT a copyright attorney,
 he's an ambulance chaser trying to make a quick buck, by chasing low hanging fruit.

6. It seems to be a bit of a gray area but using an image of a book cover in a book review strikes me as fair use, especially since my blog is a small one that doesn't make any money.

There are 4 criteria to meet in order to obtain fair use status, this is one of them, IMHO you also meet the 3 others, which just goes to show how dumb Higbee is.. If it were me, I would be publicizing his letter and screaming from the hill top that he is an idiot and a douche-bag.

I'm not particularly worried about Higbee taking me to court except for the nuisance factor. Plus, there's no money in the corporation running the blog for him to get.

I highly doubt he or Grecco will sue over this, and if he does, I hope you consider counter-suing, to turn the tables on him, he would have a tough road ahead.

Thoughts on how I should proceed? Thanks.

This is completely up to you, i know if it were me, I would respond, and tell higbee ( without laying out my defense, let him figure that out on his own, or let him take a chance.) that he can go pound sand, and this if he continues to pursue this, you will seek legal action, in the meantime I would file complaints with the bar associations and attorney general of california, and you home states AG, to put him on notice.

120

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Fake Lawsuit?

« on: November 12, 2017, 10:24:59 AM »

4.   The documents are not available for one case but the other case available in public site.

If the documents are not available, they don't exist, therefore no lawsuit exists..ALL suits are a matter of public record. Try searching pacer.gov.