Messages

1336

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Another copyright bot: 80 legs.

« on: July 08, 2012, 10:53:49 PM »

I agree with Moe SG, that is definitely not hijacking the thread this is the kind of stuff that people need to know about. I think I will continue to scour the old threads for this type of information that has previously been posted and I will start a new thread most likely over in the legal controversies forum and list everything in that one thread. Then if people want when they find something new they can post it in there as well or if I notice it I can crossposted.

And as far as the bot goes SG I agree, I read the article about it and that does look like a scary bot.

I'm kind of highjacking the thread here.
But here's one that creeps me out a bit:

Cyveillance?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyveillance
http://secpriv.com/who-is-cyveillance-and-why-should-you-care

S.G.

1337

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Another copyright bot: 80 legs.

« on: July 08, 2012, 06:36:15 PM »

Thank you, more good information.

I'm at the point where if I can't figure out what a bot is, it's banned.  If they leave a link to a non-existant web page? Banned. Web page is impossible to understand? Banned.  We page says 'seo', 'reputation' etc? Banned.  Email to contact them? Banned until they answer the email. 

I am at the point where I am just starting to try and understand all this but I learn fast and should catch on before too long

I like the idea about blocking everything from outside the country, while the blog page in my website offers free DIY tips to homeowners my actual business is just limited to a three county area or about a 25 mile radius from my home. There's really no need for anything from outside the US to access my website.

1338

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Another copyright bot: 80 legs.

« on: July 08, 2012, 04:30:02 PM »

Lucia--

I do realize that there could never possibly be a definitive list and I was looking more for just a single thread where we can place what we have already discussed as well as anything new that should develop to make it easy to find. After reading your comments I see that the task is even more daunting than I imagined trying to catch and/or stop all of these bots and crawlers. Thank you for the link to Zblock I will download that and look at that this week.

That is awesome that Zaphod is including your custom signatures in his next update! You should be very proud! And I want you to know that we appreciate what you do here and in sharing your knowledge with us.

Greg--
There will never be a "definitive list".  These guys move around. As you can see, 80 legs changed it's user agent string name. They aren't the only one to do that. Also, the best method to block will depend on how your site is hosted. ( Shared hosting? Dedicated server? )  It will also depend on other features.

I've come to the conclusion that you can't just try to block copyright bots. If you want to control bots, you have to think about broadening your goals, and figuring out tradeoffs based on what sort of web site you are operating.  For example: If you are a vetranarian running a web page for the convenience of customers in a small town just outside of Omaha  Nebraska, your first step might be to block traffic from everything outside the US! This automatically catches Bezequint in Israel.  After that, you could start worrying about crawlers etc.   When you are worrying about crawlers, you can do a pretty thorough job. But even so, you could never be sure that Picscout won't come by since companies will take out accounts on a variety of IPs.

My main solution has been to use ZBblock on my site hosted at Dreamhost. This writes IP's it's blocked to a file, and I then have a script that reads the block list created on ZBblock  and bans lots of nasties at cloudflare (a free service which I now use for content delivery.)

But really-- if you use PHP, one of the best things you can do is get ZBblock (http://www.spambotsecurity.com) and install that.  This is-- after all-- my custome additions to the zillions of things Zaphod has designed his script to block.  Once you have ZBblock going, you still have to monitor your logs to notice suspicious things. BTW: He is adding many of the items in my custom signatures in his next update. He is very vigilant about finding new user agents-- and people report them to him.  Even if you can't use his script, downloading it and reading the signatures.inc file can provide you lots of information on what to block.

I do need to get my plugin working-- but it's only for Wordpress. It's mostly going to be useful for people on shared hosting who use php.  (The main difficulty is writing it so it's easy for people to install and use. But I'm blocking all sorts of stuff.

1339

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: A new collection Agency working with getty

« on: July 08, 2012, 03:52:57 PM »

Glad to see you back posting again Robert, I have certainly missed your humor although Oscar may have enjoyed the break from having to cringe so much

Great find, great discussion..for every letter the copyright cow Timothy Mccormack sends out, we can now send out like 5 complaints! His sphincter is probably so worn out from puckering at this point, he's probably got himself a butt plug....well actually he may have already had one of those.....just say'in

1340

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: A new collection Agency working with getty

« on: July 08, 2012, 03:18:14 PM »

I like that one even better Moe!

I am ready and prepared to give serious butthurt to Getty and anyone that allies themselves with them. I think Eli should adopt the old Civil War flag of the rattlesnake coiled up ready to strike with the slogan underneath it saying Don't Tread On Me

... or we'll "thread" on YOU! 

1341

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Another copyright bot: 80 legs.

« on: July 08, 2012, 03:14:37 PM »

Lucia,SG and/or Moe would you guys be willing to consider doing something like Robert did with his definitive list of copyright trolls but for user agents and IP addresses that need to be blocked? I'm searching through the different threads trying to find all the places where this was discussed and am finding it difficult to glean what I need out of the form due to its size. From what I have seen you all seem to be the most knowledgeable and probably already have a well-established list and if it was all contained in one thread it would be relatively simple to search for that thread and get the information you need. It would also be nice when we find anything new to just be able to add it to the archive.

I'm not trying to put more work on anyone but thought that you all might be the go to people on this. Let me know what you think and thanks!

1342

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: A new collection Agency working with getty

« on: July 08, 2012, 11:55:02 AM »

Glad to see you posting again Robert we've missed you and there's even more places you can send letters to than that! My current list of letters of I have for Getty consist of the Washington State Atty. Gen.'s office, the Ohio State Atty. Gen.'s office (since they sent their letters to me across state lines to where I do business and Ohio's laws are much more defined and put up with less of the crap that Getty tries to pull than the Washington state laws), the Washington State BBB, be Ohio State BBB, the senator and congressman for my district as well as their Ohio counterparts and of course the office of the president of the United States. Since it is an election year I thought what the heck, I would send out the last batch letters appropriately modified to reflect how Getty is hiding behind copyright law and using extortionist practices to inflict harm on individuals and small businesses trying to recover in these economic times. I tell them that a simple Google search in addition to looking at the Eli forms will show that this is widespread and affecting many people and ask that this be looked into with the possibility of Senate and Congressional hearings to make Getty come in and account for themselves. And I let them know that this issue as a voting business person is very dear to my heart as I am affected by it.

Of course now I can add to this the list of potential buyers for Getty and send letters to them as well as I mentioned earlier.

And I am really hoping that Timmy will send me a letter as I would enjoy sending complaint letters to all of the above mentioned places in addition to the Washington, Idaho and Oregon State Bar associations. Come on Timmy I'm waiting, I'm starting to get Robert I twitch and my finger is hovering over the print button .

I am ready and prepared to give serious butthurt to Getty and anyone that allies themselves with them. I think Eli should adopt the old Civil War flag of the rattlesnake coiled up ready to strike with the slogan underneath it saying Don't Tread On Me

Great find, great discussion..for every letter the copyright cow Timothy Mccormack sends out, we can now send out like 5 complaints! His sphincter is probably so worn out from puckering at this point, he's probably got himself a butt plug....well actually he may have already had one of those.....just say'in

1343

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: A new collection Agency working with getty

« on: July 07, 2012, 08:48:07 PM »

That is indeed a very interesting article SG and a great find!  The implication of this is great indeed, if Timmy doesn't provide you with the proof, you can add the FTC to the list in addition to the attorney general, bar associations and BBB for your complaint letters.

Hopefully before long the only thing Timmy will be asking for is to know if you want to Biggie size that.

Again, great find SG!

1344

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: A new collection Agency working with getty

« on: July 07, 2012, 12:32:47 PM »

From their website:

Facts and Figures
 

A global leader in business to business debt collections
> 350 Collections specialists worldwide provide customers with local expertise
Single point of contact for our customers
20 Offices worldwide
Part of the Atradius Group with 160 offices in 42 countries
We serve more than 12,000 customers
We handle more than 100,000 cases a year
One global process and IT platform for fast and efficient handling of your debt
Worldwide average success rate* of 55,84%
* Debt collection success rate =  The value of collected payments expressed as a percentage of  the total debt received, excluding insolvencies and withdrawals

here's a list of countries in which they maintain offices worldwide:

Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Mexico, Denmark, USA, France, Germany, Oceania, Hungary, Australia, Ireland, Italy, Asia, The Netherlands, Hong Kong, Poland, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

it says on their website that the company was originally founded in the Netherlands in 1925.

1345

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: A new collection Agency working with getty

« on: July 07, 2012, 12:05:35 PM »

I am curious Robert, did the person who received this letter reside in the United States or are they located elsewhere? Since this is an agency that collects debts and is an international company this could be just to Getty is using if the person resides outside of the United States and within one of the countries the business operates in.

1346

P2P/BitTorrent Lawsuits Forum / Re: Judge Wright Calls P2P Lawsuits an Extortion Scheme

« on: July 07, 2012, 11:56:32 AM »

Agreed Bob, but it may also help us in the long run in fighting Getty. If in their letters they continue to threaten legal actions and have Timmy send out letters threatening lawsuits but never follow through on it, in my mind that's classic extortion. It seems to me that if they continue to make threats but never follow through on them, that is something that should be added to complaint letters sent to the attorney general's office (which by the way I did include in my letter )and used to our advantage in fighting Getty.

That's just my thoughts on the matter and I look forward to hearing the opinions of the rest on the matter.

I firmly believe , this is one reason why Getty hardly ever files suit, not only do they have weak cases, they are also afraid of getting called out..without filing suit, they can continue to fly under the radar and send out letters. As we all know a certain percentage of recipients, get freaked and pay, thus keeping the trolling machine alive.

In this article from the website FightCopyrightTrolls.Com Judge Wright actually calls copyright troll Leemore Kushner and her P2P Malibu Media lawsuits an extortion scheme.   Hopefully the more the courts call out these trolls on what they are doing the fewer cases will actually be brought and extortion letter victims will be able to tells these trolls to pound sand and drop dead without fear of legal action.

I realize that the percentage of actual cases are very few but people like Judge Wright calling the trolls out on what they are doing will reduse the number even more.

http://fightcopyrighttrolls.com/2012/07/04/judge-wright-is-so-right-copyright-trolling-is-essentially-an-extortion-scheme/

1347

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Class action suit filed against “Getty Images Master Delegate” in Israel.

« on: July 06, 2012, 09:31:21 PM »

Very good artice and thanks again for posting the corrected link, I agree it misses the point but I love how it does points out that you are opening up the opportunity for similar suits against trolling companies worldwide.

Again, thank you so much Ian!  Keep us updated on the progress of the case!

Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law has written a short piece on our lawsuit.

www.cardozo.yu.edu/(S(3clvkj55pdnihx55tjbmxc3x))/MemberContentDisplay.aspx?ccmd=ContentDisplay&ucmd=UserDisplay&userid=10556&contentid=24754&folderid=524

It misses the important point that Marot Images owned no rights to sue at all , but it's still pertinent to the behavior of copyright trolls in the USA.

Professors Alex Stein and Gideon Parchomovsky (Penn Law School) wrote an article “The Relational Contingency of Rights” that will soon appear in the Virginia Law Review.  This article demonstrates that legal rights afford no meaningful protection against challengers who can litigate more cheaply than the rightholder and who can use this advantage to force the rightholder to give up her entitlement.

These challengers include large companies that acquired portfolios of copyrighted photos available on the Internet. Those companies retain attorneys at a sharply discounted fee, who aggressively sue unsuspecting fair users of those photos.  These un-meritorious suits virtually never go to trial because of the high cost of defense.  The companies offer lawful users of their photos an opportunity to avoid this cost by paying the company a lesser amount in a settlement.  To put an end to this extortionary practice, Parchomovsky and Stein have proposed a number of measures that include punitive damages.

This proposal has now been taken to court in Israel.  An individual who refused to surrender to a pressing settlement demand filed a class action for over $10M against an Israeli company associated with a multinational copyright giant, Getty Images.  If successful, this action might prompt similar suits against copyright trolls across the world.

The link to the article - “The Relational Contingency of Rights” is above.

1348

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Carreon's Butthurt proves to be too much as he drops suit.

« on: July 06, 2012, 09:25:21 PM »

@ Regulars

I have made a suggestion for this to be possibly covered on one of the new ELI Factor shows Matthew will be doing but if you all are serious about this I would be willing to help in anyway I can.  What would you think about trying to arrange a conference call where we can throw out ideas and discuss it in real time.  It will be an issue to find a time where all who want to attend are able and I would suggest final and actual  "Call-In" arrangements/information be handled via PM.  We would not want to post the call in number and time so Getty could sit in and listen in claiming to be a user name on the forum.

Let me know what you think and if enough are interested I will try to arrange it.

S.G. I remember that post. 

Somehow I thought the financial component that Moe brings up might have changed the picture a bit.  If we can figure out how to make this important enough to raise real money, and some of that money is sent to ELI because it handles the "education component", I thought that might change Matt's mind some.

However, Moe and I have not solved the issue of how to make this important enough to enough people that they donate money to be used only in this fight against Copyright Trolling.  We still have work to do, but it would be helpful to know how Matt would feel if we had Oatmeal type donations.

1349

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Carreon's Butthurt proves to be too much as he drops suit.

« on: July 06, 2012, 09:10:26 PM »

I think that it is a great idea while I tend to agree with S.G. that this is not the same issue but if you are serious about trying to raise funds for a suit against Getty or a major trolling player you might see if April has some ideas or input.  I have no idea on how you would go about setting up the account(s), getting the word out etc but she might be a wealth of information.

@Matthew
Perhaps this might a topic to throw out ideas for an ELI Factor Show.  If we could get you, April and Oscar along with the regulars we could bounce out some ideas and could find out how feasible they are along with what would stand the best chance of going after Getty for.  Just a thought.

Not just a win for Oatmeal, but a big win for charity.

I keep trying to wrap my brain around how we can use charity fundraising to put a big Butthurt on Copyright Trolls everywhere, but alas my feeble brain can't seem to get me there.

Anyone have some ideas?

1350

P2P/BitTorrent Lawsuits Forum / Judge Wright Calls P2P Lawsuits an Extortion Scheme

« on: July 06, 2012, 08:52:43 PM »

In this article from the website FightCopyrightTrolls.Com Judge Wright actually calls copyright troll Leemore Kushner and her P2P Malibu Media lawsuits an extortion scheme.   Hopefully the more the courts call out these trolls on what they are doing the fewer cases will actually be brought and extortion letter victims will be able to tells these trolls to pound sand and drop dead without fear of legal action.

I realize that the percentage of actual cases are very few but people like Judge Wright calling the trolls out on what they are doing will reduse the number even more.

http://fightcopyrighttrolls.com/2012/07/04/judge-wright-is-so-right-copyright-trolling-is-essentially-an-extortion-scheme/