Messages

2521

Hawaiian Letters & Lawsuits Forum / Re: Free Baitpapers

« on: December 13, 2011, 08:17:40 AM »

Any thoughts or information why this one photographer's image is at the center of so many letters?

I have thoughts! If you look at Hawaiin Art Networks site, you'll notice V.K. Tylor is the only photographer offering his images for sale for as little as 10.00, whilst other offer their images starting at around 45.00 and up... Plainly these other photographers have some morals and like to make their money in a more honest fashion.. Vincent K. Tylor on the other hand, knows he can make much more by sending out demand letters, hoping recipients cave into the extortion type threats.

I can't help but wonder if the other artist under HAN umbrella are aware of this?? Perhaps I need to draft an open letter to said artists...

2522

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Check out this iStock (Getty) photo on a "Free Wallpaper" site

« on: December 13, 2011, 06:54:53 AM »

The site claims that, "All images are property of their respective owners and are strictly for non-commercial use only."
But, everyone knows that in the event of a dispute the "owners" of the image don't care if the use was non-commercial or not.

S.G.

I'll have to disagree here, it's not that they don't care, they actually want people to use the images, otherwise they would be taking action to stop such use on wallpaper sites..IMHO

2523

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Resolution of Getty v. Advernet (A blow to Getty & Stock photo companies)

« on: December 13, 2011, 06:47:52 AM »

I will make my comments and observations AFTER I clean up the coffee from my monitor, keyboard and desk!, SG I hope you never leave us, you insights are truly enlightening and always spot on!

 

2524

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Picscout / DMCA question

« on: December 12, 2011, 07:31:42 PM »

Lucia is right on the money, robots.txt means nothing in the way of any laws that i'm aware of, it's just a set of directions/instructions, it is well known that picscout fakes/masks its user-agent along with ignoring robots.txt.

By faking /masking the user-agent it is nearly impossible to block the bot via htaccess, hence I have taken other measures, and as of now I have seen no sign of picscout in my logs.

I should also add that the items referenced by lettered now reside on my list of reading items...just as soon as I finish dissecting the DCMA 

2525

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: My 1st Copyright Letter

« on: December 11, 2011, 09:08:54 PM »

I can't believe they have now resorted to calling..time to go read up on the do not call specifics..

2526

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: My 1st Copyright Letter

« on: December 11, 2011, 09:06:39 PM »

Hell no! They have no business using getty pricing as there own, a phone call is rather unprofessional, demand they send you documentation by mail, don't give them your address, let them find it themselves...most importantly read the other posts regarding this...stand your ground, chances are slim they would ever file a suit for 1 images ( unless your in hawaii then it may be different)....rememebr they have to prove you are guilty, not just assume as much

2527

Hawaiian Letters & Lawsuits Forum / Re: Hawaiian Art Network LLC's list of Lawyers Used Thus Far

« on: December 11, 2011, 07:12:23 PM »

It would appear copyright troll Hawaiian Art Network found themselves a new attorney to send out their extortionistic type letters, this time they want $10,000.00 for 2 images!.. The additional money must be for the infringing of ones moral rights! as can be seen in this post:

http://www.extortionletterinfo.com/forum/index.php/topic,2409.0.html

Anyway I haven't been able to find much info on this firm as of yet...


"I always try to give my clients advice that is first and foremost practical...."
Gil Zvulony

Zvulony & Company Professional Corporation
Toronto Lawyers
28 FINCH AVE West
Suite 208
TORONTO,  ONTARIO
M2N 2G7
CANADA

http://www.linkedin.com/in/torontolaw

2528

Hawaiian Letters & Lawsuits Forum / Re: Hawaiin Artwork, LLC Files Lawsuit!

« on: December 11, 2011, 06:41:29 PM »

I have had a very large increas in the  pages read on my blog for about the last two months.  It went from 2500 pages to about 11000 - averageing from 350 to 400 each day. Didn't really know why but after checking the history now realize  that most of it is seaching images with the the direct names of my blogs. Someone has spent a lot of hours going through my site page by page looking for things. This might be a heads up to anyone else when they have a high increase in volume which they did not have before.

Thanks again.

That would be picscout the robot they use, which disguises itself, and is hard to detect..thus sucking your bandwidth that you pay for, and loading down your server too..

2529

Hawaiian Letters & Lawsuits Forum / Re: Hawaiin Artwork, LLC Files Lawsuit!

« on: December 11, 2011, 04:20:35 PM »

moral rights??? I'm not Canadian, but can a lawyer from Toronto practice in Alberta?? Look as some of the other posts, as they all have good info on how to proceed.... In the meantime rest assured I'll be a doing alittle digging into Mr. Zvolony...we'll see if he has any "morals" himself... 10k is almost laughable and already reflects on his moral value"....

2530

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Picscout / DMCA question

« on: December 10, 2011, 12:19:49 PM »

Basically what it boils down to is the movie / music have been on a mission filing suit for millions of illegally downloaded movies, music, and more specifically porn movies,  via torrent sites, they would base the accusations on IP addresses, two problems arise here. 1 most users have dynamic IP's which change frequently, and 2. an unsecured network allows anyone within reach of that network to download from that IP.

One case comes to mind is that of the 85 year old lady, who supposedly downloaded a slew of full lenght porn movies.. who's to say her network was not secure and i sat at the curb in front of her house and downloaded the movies??...another item to mention is the use of proxy's, with a little know how it is very easy to hide behind multiple layers..

My guess is Picscout is probably using static IPs, but sending out their dirty little bot behind a proxy, making it nearly impossible to lead back to them..

2531

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Picscout / DMCA question

« on: December 10, 2011, 07:13:52 AM »

While I agree this scenario is certainly plausible, I doubt Getty or any of the other trolls would go to far, and I could be wrong on this, but I think it is more of an automated system, and they would not go thru the trouble of actually sending someone somewhere or sending emails to "alert" someone they have a possible hit. I have since made it standard procedure to not have my images indexed, nor my pages cached by any of the major search engines. If nothing else it makes it a little harder on the trolls..

I'v been seeing this little gem and some variations popping up more and more on sites as people get wind of the troll activity, I don't know if it would help in a court of law, but I don't think it could hurt..

"With the exception of the main search engine bots, the use of data-mining/extraction software or bots by any company that is not collecting data for a search engine is strictly forbidden. In particular the use of Picscout will be treated as 'hacking' and as such will be prosecuted."


The links are below are a bit more in depth, again the problem would be proving picscout was sucking your bandwidth, the RIAA fiasco has made it difficult to use IP's as any sort of evidence..not to mention the issue with them being in Israel as well.

http://dcdirectactionnews.wordpress.com/legal-notice-to-getty-images-scanning-robot-picscout-is-not-authorized-to-access-this-site/

http://newsdata.info/terms/terms.htm

2532

Hawaiian Letters & Lawsuits Forum / Re: Free Baitpapers

« on: December 09, 2011, 02:24:02 PM »

I'm with you on this, when you put it all together, Hawaiian Art Network, Artist, Copyright Services International ( or whatever it's called, which just happened to be owned by the same owner as HAN itself), free wall paper sites by the dozen, several sites "selling" the same images, asking for 1000.00 or more for said images, when the photogrpaher himself sells the images for as low as $10.00 INCLUDING shipping!!, I really think they could be in a heap of trouble..

2533

Hawaiian Letters & Lawsuits Forum / Re: Free Baitpapers

« on: December 09, 2011, 01:50:33 PM »

Sorry to bust your bubble, but as I understand it, they would need to file suit where the defendant is located, in the 3 cases I have seen they are all located in the islands and the attorney is also from there as well.. I also notice that this attorney has a good amount of experience behind him, not the usual un-experienced , fresh out of school type.., which has me thinking maybe they use these other lawyers cause they're cheap, hoping to rattle people into just paying and saving on overhead.. there is one letter (not public) that someone from HAN actually sent, they didn't even bother having an attorney send it, perhaps they could find one in that state??

2534

Hawaiian Letters & Lawsuits Forum / Re: Free Baitpapers

« on: December 09, 2011, 08:32:11 AM »

Good point Scraggy, however most of the sites these images are available on offer free downloads, but it could be argued that the few that do sell the images, including Hawaiian Arts own site are in deed stepping on each other. I also think a judge would take into consideration the fact that his images on the HAN site sell for as little as 10.00..

http://www.hawaiiart.com/products/Hawaii-Hammock-Photograph.html

2535

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Picscout / DMCA question

« on: December 08, 2011, 08:30:31 PM »

Again great minds think alike...except I'm kinda brain dead..If this is how the law is interpreted, and say HAN, Getty or one of the other trolls brings it to court, it could be shown that they did collect the "evidence" from another country, and I was also thinking along the lines of my site being the copyrighted material... I'll keep plugging along and reading more, see if i can drudge up anything else starting with Chapter 12 as you suggest..my main problem is understanding all the legal jargon, it generally takes me 2 or 3 times reading it before the perverbial light bulb goes off..