Ah, yes. Masterfile; the Somali pirates of the Internet copyright scamola. First off, I’m not a lawyer or anything of that sort.
$9000 is quite a high amount to ask for this, by the way.
From what I’ve heard, masterfile will usually send a fairly informal email as they did to you at first. You’ll likely discuss the situation with them briefly.
You won’t hear from them for several weeks. Then, you’ll receive about three letters via FedEX, one every three to four weeks.
The first one will contain a FAQ about copyright infringement, along with a “voluntary invoice” which informs you that the price has doubled.
The next one will have some bogus legal papers to scare you, etc. Finally, you’ll receive a letter stating that you have 10 days to pay up.
Two weeks after that, some obnoxious boob will call you.
No court judgment has been made against you, so you don’t really “owe” them a debt.
They’re pretty aggressive; I don’t think that masterfile could survive without this revenue.
They often don’t quit unless they a) get their money, b) find out that you have nothing of value, c) find out that it’ll cost more to fight you than it’s worth,
or d) they know that they’ll never win court and you’ll go there if you have to. So, it’s your job to beat them over the head with points (b) through (d), until they give up.
They don’t really care what the reasons for the alleged infringement were. So, save your breath.
They just want some money as soon as possible.
They have sued people in the past; I don’t think that they make much (if any money) from this.
But, they have to sue people every once in a while, or people wouldn’t be scared enough to pay.
It costs only 50 measly dollars to file the papers, so it’s a cheap way to put pressure on people.
Even if one is sued, you can still settle later on rather than going through the courts. The masterfile toads have a tendency to really make things move at a glacial pace.
Months go by between letters. They serve papers, then wait months before pursuing it, if at all. Many of these lawsuits are simply dropped, or they expire on the court docket.
They go after a variety of different people (some with only one infringement, others with several) to give the impression that nobody escapes their “net”.
If serious money is involved (greater than 50k), they move much more quickly with court action.
Recently, they’ve spent some serious coin on going after the Pointts traffic paralegal business.
I suspect that much of their potential lawsuit budget is being spent on this one.
That’s good news for smaller players caught up in this; there might not be a budget left to pursue other victims.
Pointts brought a “third party” action against its web design contractor, and this contractor in turn brought a third party action against what I take to be a freelancer.
I don’t think that the ‘States have a “third party” action provision like this.
Your web designer’s in India, so it might be impractical to consider a third party action against them if the need arises.
This Pointts thing is going to a mediation in June; this shows that masterfile isn’t completely confident in its legal case.
But, it wants some sort of large “win” on the books, even if it’s just a compromise.
Masterfile hasn’t done a good job of properly registering its content as copyrighted.
If they’re sending you registration numbers from the US Library of Congress, or the US Copyright Office as proof of ownership, you should know that it’s not worth much in Canadian court.
Therefore, if they haven’t registered the photos in Canada, then you could claim “innocent infringement”.
I feel that it would apply in your case; do keep your evidence of this in the unlikely event that you need it.
If you wish to clear up the problem soon, you could offer $200 per image (the minimum often awarded under the Canadian innocent infringement provisions – it’s sometimes even lower).
They’ll balk at this, of course, and flat out refuse. But, they’ll have to take it, unless they could get more by going to court. But, I doubt that they could.
In fact, if they took you to court, and they were awarded an amount similar to what you offered them, they would be responsible for your legal costs and then some.
They’ve registered some compilation books. But, if the original source of the photos wasn’t one of the actual books (a CD-ROM for example), they might be out of gas on this one.
Or, all photos may appear in one book, hence only one infringement. So, feel free to be creative.
Be careful of legal advice from masterfile’s lawyers. They have sent misleading letters to victims in the past.
Such letters will have the law office letterhead and branding on them. However, they’ll have a secretary sign it.
An actual lawyer didn’t sign it, so they can say what they want, and not be exposed to legal trouble for misleading statements.
This is some information about masterfile’s scheme for Canadians:
http://blog.innovatellp.com/2011/02/masterfile-corporation-and-copyright.htmlHere’s an interesting article about Canadian Copyrights:
http://www.rossmcbride.com/articles/Copyright-Registration-What-s-it-good-for/Here’s the Canadian Copyright Act:
http://www.canlii.org/en/ca/laws/stat/rsc-1985-c-c-42/latest/rsc-1985-c-c-42.html#PART_VI_MISCELLANEOUS_PROVISIONS_401830I’m not affiliated with the organizations in these links, or any of their people. But, I did learn a lot from their sites.
Good luck,
S.G.
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