Messages

376

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

« on: July 30, 2012, 04:11:10 PM »

Thanks! Any publicity is good. 
No one seems to have a "definitive" set of instructions or guidelines to lock out Picscout bots, etc.
There is no definitive set of instructions to lock out Picscout bots. Such a thing will never exist. As long as someone makes a file publicly accessible in some way, a bot can get to it. 

What I am trying to do is broader.  But I do block many avenues that would image bots cause big problems for blogs.  But for those willing to go through the outline will be able to dramatically reduce the amount of scraping-- and that will interfere with Picscout tine eye etc.  But it's not going to be a short outline. It's a systems of a lot of simple things -- many of which are useful to do anyway-- all implemented together. And then a few "biggies" that no one does that draw everything together.

Nothing I have done can compare to what Lucia is doing technically...

Part of what I've been doing is collecting information. I am now collecting "kill" logs from 9 domains-- only 2 controlled by me.  (Initially, I only collected mine. Now, I hunt for the public killed_log.txt files and suck in data.)
 
That means I'm starting to be able to search to find patterns. Robert-- have a look at

http://bannasties.com/BanNastiesScripts/ShowDetailsWhy.php?Why=image&Days=90
That's a whole bunch of "things" --- probably mostly bots-- who asked for images in ways that the web admins thought was "suspicious". Many are from my sites-- because I am very suspicious of lots of stuff and created lots of special blocking "rules" for things that look like image scraping. Most of the other guys run forums and have no images but run ZB Block with with the default rules only (or rules that they need for their site.) So any search with Why=image in it is going to find more reports from me than anyone else.

I'm actually hoping I can get people to start using ZBblock   publish their killed_log.txt somewhere public so I can collect more data.   There are lots of ways to block. But someways of blocking help us build collective intelligence. Other ways don't.

(If anyone wants to install ZB block somewhere I'd be happy to help out. I'd ask them to also put their killed_log.txt somewhere readable so I could have my script collect data.  I'd love, love, love if Matt started using ZB block. But there is a somewhat steep learning curve-- and you need your audience to understand what's going on while you are implementing it. I don't think he'd be happy with the program if he just loaded it up and didn't have someone used to the product there to know to figure out what to do if someone does get blocked.  Some times the author can't anticipate which "rules" will be incompatible with certain software-- though relatively few boo-boos happen. )


and some users like Lucia have a worldwide audience
Yep. I have a worldwide traffic-- and quite a bit. So I am reluctant to just block Israel. I also so see scraping from other countries.  It's a blog which automatically build decent self-linking structure and "pings", so it attracts lots of "stuff".  And I have a lot of internal links (Google page ran 6) so  a lot of services end up pointed at me. I may be ideally positioned to detect patterns, new bot user agents, new IP ranges and so on.  So, I'm really trying to get this collective intelligence goings.


On getting my info out:
I got the new domain so that I can co-locates all the stuff I have learned and organize the information in a systematic way. If you visit the link to the "outline" now, you'll see one of the items in the outline is now a hyperlink. See the 'blue' here: http://blog.bannasties.com/controlling-exploitative-bots-aka-nasties/

My server logs show it is being crawled... (This is going to get crawled. Lots of people search on the really boring looking stuff on some of the articles I robo-post.)

I'm going to be filling in the "how to" parts first and the "why" articles will be posted later. 

377

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: GETTY IMAGES CONTRIBUTOR AGREEMENT

« on: July 30, 2012, 01:26:15 PM »

4.8 Confidentiality. “Confidential Information” means any information that is designated as confidential or, information that by its nature or circumstances of disclosure would reasonably lead a recipient to believe that it is confidential. Confidential Information of Getty Images includes art direction and information posted on the Contributor Website as well as any username/password issued to you to access the Contributor Website and any other restricted online areas. Confidential Information of you includes your earnings. A Party that receives Confidential Information (the “Receiving Party”) from the other Party (the “Disclosing Party”), agrees not to disclose such Confidential Information to any third party or use any of the Confidential Information except as necessary to perform its obligations under the Agreement. The Receiving Party agrees to return all Confidential Information to the Disclosing Party upon request. If a Receiving Party is required by a competent legal authority to disclose Confidential Information, the Receiving Party shall provide the Disclosing Party with prompt notice prior to disclosure so that the Disclosing Party may seek judicial protection. The Receiving Party may also share Confidential Information with its professional advisers under an obligation of confidentiality for the purpose of obtaining professional advice

First: It does seem Getty can't disclose the photographers full earnings. But presumably, each photographer may  have numerous photos. So it's not clear to me that Getty cannot disclose the amount collected for a specific image.  Lawyers would have to tell me how to interpret that.

That said, it appears that they can disclose information "as necessary to perform it's obligations under the Agreement". It seems to me that demanding penalties for copyright violations is one of Getty's obligations under the agreement, as is negotiating the amount of the penalty. So, I would think they can reveal how much is collected of that photo during negotiations about a penalty.  Once again: I need an attorney to say for sure.

I certainly don't see how the confidentiality agreement precludes Getty either a) showing anyone the contract itself, b) showing anyone the records proving a copyright owner had entered the contract or c) showing indicating the person who signed the contract submitted the image -- even though that is probably just an entry in a database. 

378

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: GETTY IMAGES CONTRIBUTOR AGREEMENT

« on: July 30, 2012, 01:09:22 PM »

In your hypothetical of a photog who submits 1,000 of his 2,000 images, this applies:
that you submit to Getty Images.
Using this wording, Getty only gains rights over the images submitted and has none over the images not submitted.

Getty may still have a problem however because some copyright holders may be very sloppy in their submissions and submit the same images several places.   I don't know what happens in court if a defendant can show that the photographer granted exclusive licenses to multiple parties.

379

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: An Experiment Against Getty

« on: July 30, 2012, 01:01:24 PM »

Who is your Congress critter? 

Someone may be able to start a online petition and get signatures. To do that, we need to first figure out what concrete changes we would like to see made.  I imagine we might want to see specific requirements:

• for contents of demand letters,
• for behaviors during negotiation. ( Those demanding $$ should be required to show proof of registration and proof that they are the proper party.)
• penalties if they hire a collection agency when no judgement exists.
• • requirement that the company inform people if they have conceded no copyright violation. (For example: my last letter exchange was in January.  Sam Brown stated ".... is still under review in our department".  I think it's about time they respond to my previous letter either providing the evidence I requested or telling me they have dropped the notion of escalating this if I don't pay.
  
  I for one would like to see demand letters be required to include the copyright registration number if it exists or state that it does not exist if it does not. They should also be required to provide proof a licensing contract exists listing the relevant clauses pertaining to the image in question.
  
  I think the law should state that if monetary demand is requested prior to provision of copyright registration information or evidence that a contract is in place the person who is accused of copyright violation should be automatically granted 50% of financial amount requested even if it turns out the person demanding the money had a valid registration and a copyright infraction occurred. These moneys could, of course, be deducted from whatever a judge grants the entity demanding the payment for the infraction. (This would mean that if Getty requested $800 for an images but did not provide copyright registration information that really is only worth $40 and then filed, the judge could give Getty whatever is the minimum the infraction warrants -- which could be $200--  and then simultaneously award the plaintiff $400. In that case, the plaintiff ends up with $800/2 - $200 = $200! Getty ends up out of pocket on this!)
  
  Also: in the event that a knowingly false information is provided, a company would be penalized for fraud.
  
  Moreover, if the case goes to court and the registration either does not exist or is flawed, the recipient should be granted twice the amount requested in the demand letter.
  
  I think this would protect author and copyright owners interests just fine. They could still send out all the letter they wanted. They could send take downs with difficulty at all. They could still also negotiate for  penalties.  They would just need to provide some paper work before requesting any money.
  
  But that's just me.

380

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: An Experiment Against Getty

« on: July 29, 2012, 10:51:24 PM »

If cases were to go to legal proceedings, are represented photographer would have a registration prior to filing."

Did they write "are" instead of "our" in a formal communication to an attorney? Of did you mistype when posting to the blog?  The former would be rather amazing lack of proof-reading in a business matter. (The latter...well.. blogs and forums... I'm pretty much a typo queen when entering stuff in these boxes.)

381

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

« on: July 29, 2012, 10:30:38 PM »

Speaking of which....
As you know, picscout is a bot of sorts.  I'm finally set up to start explaining steps people can take to control bots.  When I got my getty letter I could see that all image scraping bots were absolutely raping my site on a daily basis.  I thought I'd be able to control things quickly, but the more I did, the more I realized that if you try to focus on image bots only, you will fail. You have to block things much more broadly. Otherwise, you leave big holes because any bot can change IP ranges or user agents.  ( I also realize that if you have a copyright violation on your site, there is absolutely nothing you can do to prevent it from being found. But it's still good to avoid permitting numerous bots to race through every image in your wp-contents/upload directory loading an image a second on a blog that's been posting more than 10 images a week for 4 years!  And then returning an hour later to start right over!! Ouch!)

Anyway, I've got an outline up. I will be more-or-less following that outline, sometimes skipping sections. Early next week, I'm going to discuss setting up the dynamic robots.txt and then using it with ZBblock. 

I know everyone here will want to jump to "images" right away. But unfortunately, I don't think you can properly protect images until you have other things going first. 

And remember: You cannot fully protect publicly displayed images from a copyright right bot or human employed by a copyright agency. And really, that shouldn't be anyone's goal.  Ethics and the law say you should respect copyright.  But you can do things to slow down copyright and other bots-- and you should. Because letting them rip through your site costs you more in hosting costs-- and it can also make it more difficult to identify dangerous bots trying to hack into your site. (And bots are trying to hack into your site. I guarantee.)

382

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Possible reasons for class action suit against Getty in the USA

« on: July 28, 2012, 03:09:59 PM »

SG--
I believe scraggy was sued.  The statutory law or precedents may be different in Israel and Marot may not have the rights Getty has.  That happens all the time-- and the difference could contribute to his understanding that one might need a different fact pattern to prevail in the US.

383

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Getty Images and Complaints filed with the Washington State Attorney General

« on: July 28, 2012, 10:50:15 AM »

My predictions:

The people who wrote letters to Washington state will not get calls from the collection agency.

Three years from now, we will have evidence that almost none or almost none of these people were sued.

On opinion: Before writing the WA AG, all those people should write Getty and ask for proof Getty has standing to sue etc.   The complaint letters would all be better if the pattern was:
1) Getty sends letter.
2) Letter recipient requests Getty provide evidence of copyright, exclusive license and so on.
3) When Getty refuses to provide proof that then complain.

In this case, Getty would be required to explain over and over why they think people should fork over $1000 if they don't provide evidence of valid copyright and exclusive license.  But for some reason, people are skipping the step highlighted above. That's a mistake.   

Also: just glancing through, some of those uses were clearly commercial, clearly professional and while the people made mistakes, some of those people should offer Getty $200 for the use.  Others need to do a little research on their specific images to see whether they are public domain and so on. 

I think the trove of letters is useful to us for other reasons.

384

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Possible reasons for class action suit against Getty in the USA

« on: July 28, 2012, 10:34:50 AM »

Scraggy:
I love what you are doing in Australia where the evidence required for the class action suit was apparent and you filed.

And initially, the discussion in this thread about whether it might be possible in the US was interesting. But after a while, spending a whole lot of time on speculating about whether we could have a class action *if* numerous  hypothetical things happened is a waste of time *unless we have evidence some hypothetical thing happened.*  After page 3 of this series we alternate a) the discussions of counterfactuals with b) people saying this exercise is becoming pointless.   The reasons why it might be pintless are either a) the legal theory for an actionable offence is tenuous or b) we have no evidence that getty committed the office or c both (a) and (b) are true.

With regard to your counter factual:
1) I would suspect that *only* the people who were sent letters about the DK owned photos could particulate in "the class".

2) Whether the action is fraud would depend on whether Getty could present a colorable case that suggests they at least *believe* they have a right to sue. In your car example, it's not fraud to ask for money for a damaged car you *truly believe to be yours* even if it turns out there was a flaw in your title and you were mistaken. (I think SG hsa repeatedly made arguments that pretty much drive home this point. )

3) On this thread we have not seen even one single DK or National Geographic owned images.  (Robert and others have made this point.)

4) We certainly don't know anyone who got a letter about DK or National Geographic owned images *and paid*. (Robert and others have made this point.)

Whether or not I am correct on 1 or 2 might matter if we were law students required to prove our legal chops. But to use, it hardly matters because of (3) and (4).

I would still like to know from Oscar if he has come across a significant number of images from these two collections.

I understand why you would like him to answer this question as it  touches on issue (3).

I'm sure that if Oscar reads what you wrote and he has a glimmer of a recollection any DK or NG images are in the collections, he'll tell you. But I doubt if he is going to spend a weekened pulling out all the files, and sitting computer trying to see if the images are DK or NG.  I'm pretty sure he also can't just share them owing to attorney/client confidentiality requirements, so none of us can do that. 

In any case, most of us think-- based on what we've seen-- that the answer to your question is "No. He hasn't come across a significant number of images from these two collections."   

Unless someone does a heck of a lot of work that answer is not going to change.  And so that line of questioning just stops dead. 

If you want a better researched answer to that specific question, why don't you go here:

http://copyright-trolls.com/site/getty-images-public-record-complaints/

where you will find records Robert took time and energy to obtain there by making them accessible for research.

Download all the complaints , find the images involved and see whether even one is from DK or National Geographic.   That would
a) partly answer your quesition and
b) if you find and DK or NG owned images the people who wrote those letter will materially benefit from your efforts.
c) if you find and DK or NG owned images you'll be on your way to having evidence an honest to goodness class action suit might be possible.

After that, you can also go through the forum Matt has created  and  to see if you can find a single DK or NG owned image discussed in the forum at large.  Matt has uploaded lots of scanned letters so you can read each and compile the statistics to answer your letter. 

While you are doing this, you could assign a code number to each one and enter each case in an excel spreadsheet with heading  corresponding ot the first line below and entries corresponding to the second.
Case,    agency,  author,         copyright owner,      collection,   image number,   possible actionable offence, victim paid?, vicitim was sued?
1,       getty,    photog's name,    national geographic,   NG,         124xyz      ,    beats me! ,  yes, no

After doing that clerical task, you could compute statistics if anyone asked "How many of the letter are getty?" or "How many of the getty letters are in the Stone collection? , how many might have involved "tresspass to chattels" or whatever other actionalbe offence you think might support a class action suit. Only after you find several will you have a class of people who you could approach to create a class action suit. (And many of them might turn out not to be interested. So unless you find at least.. oh... 10, you probably aren't going to get a class action suit.)

I think the task will take you the full weekend, and I anticipate you will find the answer to your current quetions is: "So far, we have no evidence Getty sent a letter demanding money for a single NG or DK owned image."  But I could be wrong. And anyway, by collating, you might find something else.

Moreover, if by starting the clerical task of collating you do find *something concrete*, you should report that as soon as possible because finding something might inspire a few people to assist in further collation. (Or not.)

Other than that: as far as I can see, unless the brainstorming and talking leads to a specific volunteer taking on a specific research task (which will mostly involve clerical efforts) and those clerical efforts produce *evidence* that would be useful in a class action suit,  the brainstorming will just lead to people answering the speculations about "class action suit" by repeatedly explaining that you have no evidence to support the hypothetical path to a class action suit. 

So I would suggest that the one,  two or three people who are interested in trying to identify a basis for a class actions suits should sit down and think about what tasks this line of attack requires. Collect evidence is certainly one of these task.  Then one of those people should take on which ever task seems most fruitful to them. 

385

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Possible reasons for class action suit against Getty in the USA

« on: July 27, 2012, 11:08:00 PM »

 

I thought the topic of the thread suggested that brainstorming was invited.

I think it started that way. But somewhere around page 3, it seemed to become pretty obvious that no one has any information to come up with a candidate class action suit with even the tiniest hope of winning.

386

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Possible reasons for class action suit against Getty in the USA

« on: July 27, 2012, 09:34:40 PM »

Lucia, I'm suggesting that we have to set a goal for how we'd like to remedy the current "strategic litigation problem." The article quoted makes a suggestion that I find intriguing, so I brought that into the discussion.

Then I'll bite: I disagree. I don't think we need "to set a goal for how we'd like to remedy the current "strategic litigation problem."  I think what everyone on the Eli team is doing is higher priority that this and they would be foolish to divert their time and attention to this other issue. But if you want to make that your goal and work toward it, that's fine.

The fact pattern is exactly what's being discussed, one that could be grounds for a class action in the US. I think the discussion has actually been spirited and informative.

As far as I can tell, absolutely nothing about the fact pattern creates "grounds for a class action in the US".  But maybe you have some sort of concrete idea in your head but just haven't managed to elucidate it.  In my opinion, if you think the fact pattern exists, you should do some work to flesh out the issue and present it clearly. Then post precisely what  the legal complaint would be, what specific laws it violates (go find the statutes) tell us what characteristics make someone a member of the class with standing to sue and list the evidence you have that getty actually might be found liable if someone filed the specific class action suit.

Otherwise, quite honestly, if you can't be specific I find the discussion entirely hypothetical and I think people on the Eli team would be wiser to focus on more productive activities.

387

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Possible reasons for class action suit against Getty in the USA

« on: July 27, 2012, 07:46:17 PM »

Matt:

4. Class-action is a perfectly valid topic of discussion but a few of us don't care enough about it to spend time on it.  I am one of those people.

Me too.

SG:

If PicScout is "hacking" everyone, and people believe that, so be it.  But I don't.

I also don't think PicScout is "hacking" anyone.  Moreover, even if they are "hacking", none of the letter recipients has even one iota of evidence they are "hacking".  As far as I can tell, Picscout visits publicly accessible web pages.

Moe

Quote
Giving judges broad discretion to counter strategic litigation with punitive damages will not only deter strategic litigants, but will also motivate the innocent party to take her case to court. The introduction of punitive damages will radically reshape the payoff structure faced by innocent entitlements’ holders. Currently, they have no financial incentive to go to court. For the reasons we explained, from a pure financial standpoint, settling the case out-of-court always dominates litigation. However, once the possibility of collecting punitive damages is introduced, it will make sense for many innocent litigants to defend their entitlements in court.

In other words, make it more of a risk for the trolls to drag people into court with their fatuous claims and create an incentive for the victims to defend themselves instead of rolling over because of the economic considerations. The trolls already avoid actual litigation like the plague. The courtroom has not been very good to them. They've lost many cases and the few victories they have enjoyed have been pyrrhic at best.

I agree with Matt that the courtroom should be the last resort, but that may be the best venue in which to defeat the abuse of rights. Meanwhile, the media and public relations blitz continues to be as sound of a practice as eve

I'm a little puzzled. It's not clear to me if you are suggesting we write our congress critters to encourage they change copyright law so that it "[Gives] judges broad discretion to counter strategic litigation with punitive damages...".  or whether you are suggesting we should pursue a class action suit ( for something Getty might have done.)  But the two actions have little to do with one another.


Either way, here is my view: If you want to write your congresscritter to change laws, I would suggest you draft a letter-- maybe contact this law professor and see if he will help you draft the letter. Or maybe try to form an activist groups working toward changing these letters.   Then, periodically report what you've done. People will be interested. Likely, some will be happy to sign a petition and endorse your letter. Balls in your court.

If you want to pursue the class action, you do the homework to firm up whatever idea you have on this issue. That is: You do the legal research ( or hire a lawyer to do it). You dig up the fact pattern required to support your theory.  It's pretty clear you -- the person interested in pursuing class action-- are going to have to be the one identify the class who has been harmed and what tortuous behavior you are going to sue about.   

That's what Scraggy did. And I think that's great on Scraggy's part!  But I think in Scraggy's case, the fact pattern became evident so he could act. Having actual evidence to support a class action suit is necessary. Otherwise, I see no point in discussing a hypothetical class action suit about some vague hypothetical activity. 

388

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Recieved a demand letter today

« on: July 25, 2012, 06:35:07 PM »

At the scale you show the only similarity is the clouds and they don't look like the same image.  I think Getty would have a hard time winning a case where they are claiming that all photos of puffy clouds fall under their copyright.

If I were you I would super-impost the images just to verify they are not the same.  (I'd do it myself but the screenshot is small.)

389

Getty Images Letter Forum / LuminateBot luminate.com

« on: July 16, 2012, 11:01:55 PM »

Out of caution I am kicking a bot called "LuminateBot/1.0" off my site.   It's am image bot:
http://www.luminate.com/bot/

"The LuminateBot/PixazzaBot is a robot that retrieves product images, publisher images and related information in order to perform our service. If this robot is causing problems, or if you are not a publisher or merchant that is affiliated with Luminate please contact us and let us know. "

I'm not sure what their service is. But since I don't sell products, I figure blocking them can't harm me.  Merchants might want to look into this before making a decision.

390

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: anybody actually paying Getty or Masterfile now that they've failed in court?

« on: July 16, 2012, 06:05:44 PM »

When people first receive these letters it is quite natural for them to be entirely unaware of the law, the habits of these companies and their track record in court.  It's quite likely a number will not immediately run a google search to learn that these letters are common and that court rulings often go against these companies. So, I'm sure some will continue to pay.

Luckily though ELI exists and many can find information quickly. Currently, we have quite a bit amount of good information for Americans who receive letters. Less information exists for those in other countries-- but that will accumulate over time too.