Messages

241

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Cyber Liability Insurance

« on: June 23, 2012, 01:08:08 PM »

http://memes.icanhascheezburger.com/2012/04/30/advice-animals-memes-business-cat-and-a-health-plan-for-each-one-too/


MrNiceGuy's question is certainly valid and worthy of discussion. This trolling thing is getting uglier every day and there's scores of asshats out there who will be enticed to jump in and try their hand at the trolling business when they graduate from lousy law schools and pass the bar with the lowest score possible, after which they will still get to add the term "esquire" to their name.

Having said that, and since the ELI community has been going gaga over memes lately, here's an interesting issue for us to ponder: Are internets memes subject to copyright and trademark laws?

http://www.quora.com/Copyright-Law/Are-internet-memes-subject-to-copyright-and-trademark-laws

I hope I'm not being a total buzzkill again. 

242

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: ELI Recommended Reading of Copyright Infringement Case Rulings

« on: June 23, 2012, 12:01:22 PM »

Excellent, Matthew. I approve of this message. This could be a sticky post, it's an excellent resource and we don't want it to get buried in the memefest.

Not that I don't love the memefest! 

243

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: My Analysis of Corbis vs. Nick Starr Case Outcome

« on: June 23, 2012, 05:28:55 AM »

Nice work breaking it down, Matthew! Especially this brief and accurate summary:

It is safe to say the ONLY parties that won were the attorneys on both sides.

Carolyn Wright shows a lot of cheek claiming this as a win. I bet Corbis and the photographer didn't take home that winning feeling.

244

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Cyber Liability Insurance

« on: June 22, 2012, 08:39:20 PM »

Liability insurance is a necessary evil to those who want to operate a business, but it has a huge downside: it feeds trolls.

This is why a lot of the extortion letters include suggestions for their victims to drop into the fetal position and hand the letter over to their respective insurance companies.

Liability insurance has caused at least one Ivy-League-educated doctor friend of mine drop the medical career to go right back to Harvard to get an MBA — so he could get paid as a hospital CEO instead of paying to deliver babies and save lives.

Having said that, I don't have a suggestion for you or anyone about liability insurance, MrNiceGuy. Sorry about it.

245

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Cyber Liability Insurance

« on: June 22, 2012, 08:10:25 PM »

Yes, what Oscar said. As usual!

Also, you could try hiring the same copyright trolls who are trying to hose you and maybe even put up some free bridal baitpaper on your site. That seems to GUARANTEE they won't come after you any more.

246

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: FunnyJunk Attorney Charles Carreon is a Tool & Dumb Extortion Lawyer

« on: June 22, 2012, 07:57:18 PM »

Inman deserves to make that much. He works his butt off and he's really funny. Good on him for earning himself some serious coin.

247

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Getty Images Extortion Letter with Sales Tax

« on: June 22, 2012, 07:40:32 PM »

MrNiceGuy, you're right about the NEXUS rules. The rules can vary though:

Here are Here are some cases in which a business might have a sales tax nexus in a state:

• If the business has a physical location in the state
• If there are resident employees working in the state
• If the business has property (including intangible property) in the state
• If there are employees who regularly solicit business in the state.

Source: http://biztaxlaw.about.com/od/glossaryn/g/nexusdef.htm

I really don't know how it works in Texas, but in California they would care. For instance, San Diego made a mistake and overcharged tax for a period of time before they were slammed with a class action lawsuit for enacting a tax that had not actually been qualified by the required percentage of the voters.

Then they had to LOWER the state tax for a while to "make up" for the extra revenue. They actually tried asking if they could keep the money (ha!) for something else that was nice and noble, but Southern California voters are quite the penny-pinching demographic and of course, they said NO.

In spite of all this sales tax rollercoasting and what are among the highest sales tax rates in the nation, California is skating on the very edge of bankruptcy, as McFilms noted earlier. They have some really nice public golf courses, though!

248

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Introducing Atlanta Attorney and Collection Lawyer Evan A. Anderson

« on: June 21, 2012, 08:45:26 PM »

Actually, Buddhapi, I think the last name is Andersen with an "e" as in "extortion":

http://www.lawyers.com/Georgia/Atlanta/Evan-A.-Anderson-37289559-a.html

Worker's comp? Is that like when you do a face plant when you're working a desk job?

249

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Introducing Atlanta Attorney and Collection Lawyer Evan A. Anderson

« on: June 21, 2012, 08:37:26 PM »

Let me guess ... Charles Carreon School of Law, magna scum laude?

250

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: A puzzling situation

« on: June 21, 2012, 03:32:49 PM »

To me, that's like saying I cant post pictures of my car I have for sale.  Or that I can't take family pictures if one of these puzzle boxes happen to be in the background.

Or you can't show pictures of a t-shirt with licensed image on it when you advertise the t-shirt for sale.

Oscar explained the first-use concept well; it would be silly to suggest you can't put a picture of a used t-shirt on a classified ad website without infringing because you're not copying the image, you're simply selling the shirt that you paid for to another end-user, so Lucia would quite correct about that.

Regarding the pretty flowers image that someone "stole" from Lucia, I think it's quite nice, and I think what Lucia says about her reaction to finding someone else using it without permission is totally credible.

I don't think anyone here would accuse Lucia of being a copyright troll! 

251

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Another recipient of letter from Ms. Wright & Mr. Andersen

« on: June 21, 2012, 03:22:52 PM »

This case is a bit more "controversial" than most. It seems the "photographer" has been a bad girl and a bad real estate agent who has gotten her hands severely slapped int the past.

The mystery of the copyright transfer to this LLC is being untangled. We have also uncovered new changes in the Photo Attorney operation. They have done a better job going underground.

This story looks to be way bigger than a copyright extortion case.  Way bigger. Trust me.

Robert and I are comparing notes. Stay tuned.

Oooooh! Can't wait to hear. Using a Delaware LLC to mask extreme copyright trolling by a "well-respected attorney"?

My tuner is stuck on this channel like it's a hurricane report!

252

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Getting our message to the main stream media

« on: June 21, 2012, 10:20:44 AM »

I'm in, April. I've got research on wallpaper that would fill a chapter with ease.

253

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Another recipient of letter from Ms. Wright & Mr. Andersen

« on: June 21, 2012, 10:19:22 AM »

It's not so much "weakness and fear" as it is determining the best strategy. I don't plan on sending them a dime. I've spoken to two attorneys already, and both have suggested that ignoring them is an option. It's probably not worth Ms Wright/Mr. Andersen's time and money to litigate, and the letter is simply a scare tactic. However, the same attorneys have also suggested that I could have them pen a response, which shows that I have representation, which further signals that litigation would not be an easy path for them to pursue. I'm inclined to do the former. The site in question is a side business, and I'd just assume shut it down versus paying these ambulance chasers. 

aimiyo, I suppose it depends on the definition of "published."  If one knew the URL, one could access the page.  However, nobody could get to that page via the navigation on my site. This was intentional because the page was under construction and I did not want anyone to see it. They even had the URL / path to instances of the image on the server, which I have no idea how they obtained, since a user would be unable to find this. I sent the name of the LLC to Matthew. No photographer name was mentioned in the letter. You say the pattern sounds familiar...you've seen photo rights transferred to a newly-formed LLC for the purpose of sending extortion letters in that entity's name?

Justaperson, they got into your server using a very rude crawler bot from a company named PicScout. If you use the search bar at the top of this forum page and search for PicScout, you'll get lots of good information and debate about the "merits" of this "copyright complaince technology" which is basically a crude search for evidence to be used against you in an extortion claim. They have lots of clients in the stock photography industry and brag about how many people they hose with their blunt weapon of espionage.

In case I haven't obviated it by now, I have my crosshairs on PicScout in a big way. The whole mess began when their electronic gill netting became very cost-efficient as a form of intrusive surveillance on unsuspecting webmasters.

PicScout may be legal at this time, but in my vain and proud opinion that law needs to be reformed as well so it is NOT. This is America, dammit, we have civil rights and I'm not done using mine yet.

254

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: A puzzling situation

« on: June 21, 2012, 10:08:46 AM »

Question:

If what PuzzleGuy says is true in that he has licensed these to sell and the manufacturer has confirmed they have a valid license to print these and Getty still insists he infringed does that mean if Getty was caught with a copyrighted image on their website, uploaded by somebody who didn't actually own the copyright, their agreement with the photographer would also then not remove their liability to damages or have I made a connection that isn't there?

I think your question is valid. Since copyright law is a form of strict law, maybe PuzzleGuy (or Getty, in the hypothetical case you presented) would still be liable. When I wrote that I don't know how you can be liable, I forgot to clarify that I understand that current law DOES make one liable, what I actually meant is that I think the law is wrong and needs to be reformed to avoid these abuses.

I like Oscar's explanation comparing copyright law to trespassing. Regardless of what led you to trespass into someone's private property, you would still be technically trespassing. This is why it's moot to argue that someone convinced you that the image in question was in the public domain or free as wallpaper. You still infringed and that's the end of that.

However, there are defenses that would help mitigate the damages, including the innocent infringement defense. I also think the rules could be different if there was fraud involved, as is suspected with the HAN/VKT images. Even if it can't be proven that they seeded the images, one could argue that there is bad faith in their lack of diligence when it comes to protecting VKT's copyright.

Carner claims they've sent scores of letters to the free wallpaper sites, but has yet to name even one. I offered him the address of one single ISP, SoftLayer.com, which could take down a dozen free wallpaper sites with one single DMCA takedown request. To the best of my knowledge, every single one of those websites is still up and running. Maybe Carner is too busy trolling APS in a ridiculous and frivolous lawsuit. I use the word "ridiculous" with full intent, as that the word Carner himself used to describe the seeding theory.

If and when it is determined how those VKT images reached epic and epidemic levels of distribution through thousands of free wallpaper sites, it may be Carner and VKT who will be ridiculed as they print "Aloha State" license plates in their matching orange jumpsuits.

It must be noted that if indeed Carner and VKT or any of their minions seeded those images, they did an amazingly good job. I think it would be hard to do even if you didn't have to be sneaky about it, especially in such astounding numbers.

255

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Collection phone calls from collection lawyers

« on: June 21, 2012, 07:03:11 AM »

After this previous post I realized I hadn't read all of the HAN complaints Matthew posted on Scribd. This other one lists the contents of another VKT lazy boy bulk registration named "Hawaii 2006":

http://www.scribd.com/doc/92173058/Hawaiian-Art-Network-vs-MND-Events-Complaint

Thanks for posting those, Matthew! Those are very helpful as we reverse engineer the perverse scheme HAN and VKT have been weaving.

Darn it, where's Glen Carner when we need him? We forgot to ask him about mass registration of massively distributed wallpaper images. Surely he has an opinion on the topic.