Messages

1186

Legal Controversies Forum / Re: Google to start devaluing sites

« on: August 11, 2012, 08:32:46 PM »

SG, I would be interested in reading the precedent and would very much appreciate you posting the link. While I do not know enough yet to feel I can contribute meaningfully to the current discussion I do read everything that's posted and like to check out court cases, precedents and the like when cited.

Good discussion.

If I recall correctly there's a DMCA lawsuit court precedent (if anyone's interested, I'll provide a link).
It's considered as a landmark case and it's kind of the de-facto standard of what to expect from such a case at this time.
The finding was that the plaintiff (a victim of a false DMCA takedown), was entitled to have their content re-instated, and they collected all attorney's fees.
No other damages were awarded.

I agree with BuddhaPi that lawsuits can be a big pain, risky, and something like this would be difficult to prove.
However, modern e-commerce systems collect and process a lot of data. A smart (and angry person) might be able to leverage this.
I think that a strong case might include traffic statistics from before and after a de-listing, tied into sales/profits.
In theory, it should be easy to show how many impressions and completed transactions arrived from google prior to a DMCA takedown, and a comparison could be made to the conditions after the DMCA takedown.
It's worth mentioning that many lawyers and judges might have a difficult time grasping such concepts.  So, it would be an uphill battle, as BuddhaPi rightly points out.

Filing a successful lawsuit on the basis of this may be out of the question for individuals or small businesses.
However, large companies can and do file all the time.  Imagine that an important corporate site was de-listed on the day of a major product launch?

All this will be interesting to watch, as people and organizations attempt to apply copyright as part of strategic business plans.

S.G.

1187

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: An Experiment Against Getty

« on: August 10, 2012, 09:44:20 PM »

Glad to see that you are joining the letter writing campaign!  I have a couple of suggestions for your letter, you state:

I am writing to bring to your attention an egregious practice of habitual extortion against small businesses

You do state that this is done without proof but I might change that a bit to explain how they refuse to provide proof when requested.  This is the part that makes it fit the definition of extortion.  They are demanding large sums of money, refuse to provide proof, threaten legal action if not paid, don’t follow through on lawsuit threats.

Also if you have a Getty penpal compliance specialist assigned to you I would name them personally in your complaint as well.  Make your letters personal and tell your story in a way to bring in the person reading and make them want to help you and/or bump it up to the next level.

Hi Folks! Just wrote to my senators. Feel free to copy and paste if you like:

Dear Sen. XXX,

I am writing to bring to your attention an egregious practice of habitual extortion against small businesses by the photo archive company known as Getty Images. These people search web sites for images that may or may not be theirs, and threaten people like myself, demanding huge amounts of money for damages and copyright violations without any proof of their claims. This is not an isolated incident. Thousands of small businesses are continually harassed by these people without cause or evidence.

Getty Images' abuse of copyright law to attempt extortion of funds from honest small business owners like myself is predatory and a huge waste of time and resources, having to answer to unsubstantiated charges and defending our businesses and reputations.

I would be happy to provide you with further information and resources to pursue this. I sincerely hope someone will. This has depleted the energies of thousands of people, hindering the productivity and quality of life honest, hard-working business people.

Thanks for your attention in this matter.

Sincerely,

1188

Legal Controversies Forum / Re: Google to start devaluing sites

« on: August 10, 2012, 09:26:56 PM »

Great article Robert, I agree with what they are trying to do and I’m sure it will be modified and tweaked but I applaud them for it.

1189

Legal Controversies Forum / A Victory for Innovation and a Vote for Sensible Copyright Law

« on: August 07, 2012, 11:06:21 PM »

Found this article and thought it was interesting.

Many of these nascent entities cannot survive an extended interruption of operations pending lengthy litigation. An unbalanced standard for preliminary injunctions in copyright litigation therefore can easily chill innovation, as services are effectively put out of business long before a court can ever reach a determination on the merits of the infringement claim.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/08/myvidster-victory-innovation-and-vote-sensible-copyright-law

1190

P2P/BitTorrent Lawsuits Forum / Judge Howell Tells ISPs They Must Comply With Subpoenas

« on: August 07, 2012, 11:00:24 PM »

Another step back in fighting trolls.

http://dietrolldie.com/2012/08/07/dc-is-troll-heaven-judge-howell-tells-isps-they-must-comply-with-subpoenas-for-subscriber-information-112-cv-00048/

1191

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Any complaints against Getty from New York Attorney General Office ?

« on: August 07, 2012, 10:55:00 PM »

Yes, so far Robert has only requested complaints from the WA AG office so they are all from there.  Getty has offices in NY and IL as well and I am sending in requests to those states AG for any complaints they have on file.

when reviewing the complaints, they were all directed to the Washington AG

1192

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Any complaints against Getty from New York Attorney General Office ?

« on: August 07, 2012, 10:28:16 PM »

Funny you should ask that, I have letters going out in the mail in the morning requesting complaints on file at the New York and Illinois AG offices.  I am not sending one to California as their AG's website states they will not release complaints on companies unless claims have been proven in CA.

However unless the latters are originating from that office I doubt there will be any complaints against is as I believe they all come from the main headquarters in WA.  They also have a separate address there just for our compliance pen pals.

Are there any complaints against Getty from New York Attorney General Office ?

1193

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Another Victim

« on: August 07, 2012, 09:03:30 PM »

Great blog post and your right, what a difference a week can make!  Welcome to the fight!

1194

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: An Experiment Against Getty

« on: August 06, 2012, 10:48:42 PM »

Tonight I also received a letter from the Washington State Atty. Gen.'s office stating that Getty has replied to my complaint. What is interesting is that this is the exact same response letter that they sent to the Washington state Better Business Bureau. I know this as this letter has the same to errors in it that their reply to the Better Business Bureau had. The first error is they have my company name wrong in the second error is once again they have the demand amount wrong. In their response they are claiming their demand amount is $8750 as opposed to the actual demand amount of $875.

This just shows the lack of concern and how frivolously Getty Images and their copyright compliance team members Douglas Bieker and the rest take these complaints from the Atty. Gen.'s office and the Better Business Bureau that they can't even take the time to proofread their responses.

Below if you are interested is the link to the reply as well as my response.

https://www.scribd.com/collections/3777294/Correspondence-with-Getty

1195

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: An Experiment Against Getty

« on: August 06, 2012, 08:10:19 PM »

lucia,

If you're going to write a letter to your Congressman or whoever I would recommend approaching the letter from the angle that what Getty is doing is extortion since they refuse to provide proof, threaten legal action and harass. I would also name in addition to Getty Images who ever your Getty copyright compliance penpal is. I think you will find this may give you the best results in the most bang for your buck.

Stinger-- Did you get the letter from Kirk? Or Durbin?  I was putting off writing until I heard back from getting again. But I could write one to which ever seems to be moving along on this.

1196

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: An Experiment Against Getty

« on: August 06, 2012, 08:06:28 PM »

Moe,

I have re-upload the document and corrected the link on the post, the document should be available for viewing now. Thank you for bringing that to my attention.

Great stuff, Greg. The transparency of your campaign makes a stark contrast with the secrecy the trolls like to operate in. Thanks for sharing your progress with the forum.

I did have trouble viewing the Ohio Attorney General's letter. For some reason I got a blank page. I was able to read your response to them; nice work lobbying for an investigation of Getty's "strategic litigation" model.

1197

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: An Experiment Against Getty

« on: August 06, 2012, 08:12:19 AM »

Thanks Moe and I will check the link and re-upload the document when I get home from work tonight.

Great stuff, Greg. The transparency of your campaign makes a stark contrast with the secrecy the trolls like to operate in. Thanks for sharing your progress with the forum.

I did have trouble viewing the Ohio Attorney General's letter. For some reason I got a blank page. I was able to read your response to them; nice work lobbying for an investigation of Getty's "strategic litigation" model.

1198

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Multiple Roles on ELI and the bigger copyright extortion fight

« on: August 05, 2012, 11:19:47 PM »

I couldn't agree with you more Oscar. 

The goal of this site and forum was to educate folks about what was going on to let people know that they did not have to fold and pay Getty. It has now grown to be a great community of energetic, vibrant, witty and intelligent people all willing to work collectively to fight these trolls. I agree with Matt that expanding internationally may be too much right now, but I also think that as the team has grown, we have been able to expand into other topics and that is the future of the ELI site - a go-to place to learn how to fight copyright trolling!

1199

P2P/BitTorrent Lawsuits Forum / Disabled Prenda lawsuit victim threatens suicide.

« on: August 05, 2012, 11:08:36 PM »

I am not even sure what to say about this story, although I am glad to say the victim did not follow through with his threats it is a sad day when these copyright trolls pick on innocent people and can drive them to these extremes. The victim in this case does suffer from a variety of disabling mental illnesses but the tactics that these troll use are designed to induce stress and fear and I think there should be a special place reserved in hell for copyright trolls and their ilk.

http://fightcopyrighttrolls.com/2012/08/03/a-disabled-victim-of-a-copyright-troll-threatens-to-kill-himself/

1200

Legal Controversies Forum / New leaked TPP text puts fair use at risk

« on: August 05, 2012, 10:59:07 PM »

Here's an article I found over on the EFF website and thought it was very interesting.

EFF believes that it is vitally important that fair use and exceptions and limitations to copyright be protected in international trade agreements.
 
But the United States Trade Representative (USTR) is putting Fair Use at risk with restrictive language in the Trans-Pacific Trade Agreement (TPP). The US and Australia are both proposing very restrictive text, and Peru is willing to accommodate the bad language. KEI reports on the leak of the negotiating TPP text on copyright limitations and exceptions.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/08/new-leaked-tpp-puts-fair-use-risk