Messages

451

Hawaiian Letters & Lawsuits Forum / Re: Recording Copyright Extortion Collection Telephone Calls

« on: June 03, 2012, 03:29:07 PM »

I would also prefer to inform people they are being recorded.

452

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Copyright Services International / Hawaiian Art Network

« on: June 03, 2012, 08:46:33 AM »

buddhapi
I'd thought about that way of looking at things before. But by the same token, it also occurred to me that it can be useful to point have a record that shows that Carner is participating in discussions about the  "Photo-posts-at-Webshots->stuff appears on wall paper site-> Photos representatives sue mopes"  path.   In my view, ethically and morally, a photographer whose business model results in his own enrichment at the expense of the mopes in this scenario is being rewarded for unjust enrichment-- and I don't think copyright laws should permit this enrichment. (Whether current copyright laws make this enrichment lawful I cannot say. But I don't think such a situation would be fair. )

Having him engage in such discussions in public means afterwards he can't later claim to have been unaware of this path exists.  This means going forward, if he doesn't want to be seen to be unjustly enriching his business, he ought not to permit his company to get involved in any suits involving images that were listed previously listed at Webshots or places that permit similar practices. Moreover, he should advise his clients that if they list images at places like that, he will not spend his company time or resources sending out DMAC's to places like Go Daddy or pursue lawsuits against "mopes" for any image that has been listed at a site like Webshots.

My hope-- of course- - is that courts will also not reward this sort of practice and will not levy fines against businesses who are duped into believing the images are free and then unknowingly use them (i.e. become "mopes" in this scenario.) If courts act as I hope, I suspect Carner's company will follow the practice I advise because doing otherwise will hit his company in the pocket book.

But-- I also think-- making sure Carner has been made aware of that a business model appears to include a "Photo-posts-at-Webshots->stuff appears on wall paper site-> Photos representatives sue mopes" path at least means that -- in future-- judges might consider the fact that the company representing phographers is aware of the path. Also, it could make congress-critters aware, and that might influence modifications of copyright to prevent the possibility of unjust enrichment of photographers who might be tempted to exploit this path.

453

Hawaiian Letters & Lawsuits Forum / Re: What is Glen Carner's Official Position on Vincent K. Tylor?

« on: June 03, 2012, 06:54:16 AM »

Those images don't display for me. Are they gone? Of is it a mac thing?

454

Hawaiian Letters & Lawsuits Forum / Re: Free Baitpapers

« on: June 02, 2012, 06:47:54 PM »

The idea behind the phone call / email is to not make it a fight but to attempt an amicable resolution before the issue of copyright is ever even mentioned.  I think you guys have become so entrenched in fighting back that you never considered that there may not need to be one in the first place.

The difficulty is that a phone call of this sort results in asymmetry of power.  The person who answers the phone has absolutely no clue about the situation at all.  At least when I got my getty letter, as vague as it was on my infraction (no indication of uri, no link to actual image etc.), and as ridiculously extortionate the demand was ($875 for a tiny, blurry image deep in comment on a blog post with many, many comments), I had time to do a little research to figure out what they were talking about before responding.

Had I gotten a phone call, I wouldn't have had sufficient information to say anything other than, "I don't know what you are talking about. Could you elaborate?"

As a matter of principle, I don't believe in giving out any information to cold calls. Irrespective of the entire image trolling/enforcement/collection (pick your word) issue, if someone calls, I do not confirm my name. I do not confirm whether or not I own a particular domain name. I do not tell people my birth date and so on. 

Maybe other people do and maybe your motive is to get a mutually satisfactory resolution. But the fact is I would be unable to know what sort of resolution was satisfactory to me during a cold call from someone I had never heard of before.

455

Hawaiian Letters & Lawsuits Forum / Re: What is Glen Carner's Official Position on Vincent K. Tylor?

« on: June 02, 2012, 05:29:03 PM »

Glen--
I want to see if we disagree on what constitutes seeding or whether we disagree on some facts. So here are two questions:
1) Did I incorrectly diagnose that VK Tylor photos are or were available at Webshots?
2) Do you think it impossible or difficult for high resolution images made available on Webshots to be downloaded nearly for free?

I think his photos are quite beautiful by the way.

456

Hawaiian Letters & Lawsuits Forum / Re: What is Glen Carner's Official Position on Vincent K. Tylor?

« on: June 02, 2012, 04:58:05 PM »

Are you accusing them all of seeding?  Ridiculous.

I'm not accusing them of intentionally seeding. But as a practical matter, the way Webshots operates facilitates access by people who run wallpaper sites.  So, I consider this seeding.

 I suspect when they first sign up, photographers don't know how easy it is for material to get from Webshots to a free wallpaper site. But once a photographer knows it can happens and is happening, and the photographer begins making substantial amounts of money suing people who got the images off the free wallpaper sites I consider the the behavior to be intentional seeding.

Now: I've answered your question. Could you elaborate on why you think my idea is ridiculous?  My impression is you are suggesting that if the client list of Webshots is famous, they somehow can't be accidentally seeding. I would suggest that is a ridiculous notion and will assume that is not what you are suggesting.  But that leaves me entirely unable to guess any sane or rational reason  what you think is ridiculous about the notion that offering images on Webshots is seeding. 

If you start with the fact that the images were used in the same way most things are on the internet, what alternative does Mr. Tylor have?

Goodness! He has many alternatives.  Here is one: If he wants to sell an individual photo at a premium price for limited distribution and still sell over the web  he can make them on the web as thumbnails (or at least small versions) only.  Then only those who fill out a license and pay the full fee would be permitted access to the full digital version. 

Here's another: He could just live off the money he makes from Webshots and recognize that some unlicensed work will also occur in parallel, and not sue the pants off people who honestly thought they were using free images.

I'm sure if you got a little creative, you could think of other possibilities.

My alternatives would not require Tylor (or any similarly situated photographer) to abandon his collection because of unauthorized copying. It would only recognize that if he elects to make a particular high resolution image available practically for free in an environment where unauthorized copying by people who will advertize them as "free" occurs then he will not be able to collect from people who obtained the images them from the "free" sites. (Or actually, what I have in mind is he would not be able to collect fees for use that occurred before he sent a C&D letter informing them of their error.)

(BTW: Does trying to resort to rhetorical questions that suggest your client has no other option than to operate that the way he is operating work in court? Because it tends not to work at blogs of forums?)

Should businesses now have free reign to use his work for profit with no compensation for the artist because because they did not take the time to learn or care enough about what should and should not go on their websites?

Let me respond to your argument by rhetorical question with my own rhetorical question:
Once a photographer knows that the method of sale at Webshot guarantees that his images will be represented as being available for "free" by "free wallpaper sites" and he knows that people are duped into believing these images are free and -- knowing this--  he does not one thing to remove the image from Webshots, but instead, continues to collect revenue from Webshots  should he be permitted to reap excess financial rewards -- and extract price levels a customer would never have paid-- by suing or threatening to sue people who unwittingly used the images?  And suing multiple people?

 Why should the this business model not be seen as "baiting"? 

So now my answer to your rhetorical question is: I don't think businesses should have free rein. I think Tylor should be permitted to send a C&D to these businesses informing them of their error. Once the business has  been made aware they images are not free, they should either have to take down the images or negotiate a fee for continued use.

This is not giving businesses free rein and presumably you should know that.

None of these things are acceptable to myself or Mr. Tylor.

Maybe it not acceptable to you or Mr. Tylor. But you claim you want to know what other people think.  I'm telling you my opinion of how the law should stand.

At what point does the infringing party have ANY responsibility in what they do with any images they find on the internet?

I believe several people have answered this before. 

At the risk of being repetitive, let me repeat: I think the infringing party has responsibility when they profit directly from the image or, in the case of indirect profit, when they have good reason to even suspect that the images belong to someone else.

The former-- direct profit--occurs if the infringing party is doing something like selling the image itself. For example: If I were to upload Mr. Tylors image to CafePress and sell mugs with the pretty pictures, I think I should be liable for infringement even before Tylor sends a C&D and I should be liable even if I thought the use was "free". How much I should be liable for might depend on the image, the mugs and so on. But in this case, the image itself forms my product. And I should be liable. 

The latter- indirect profit-- occurs when someone uses an image to 'decorate' their site. For example, they might use a pretty picture as a background. In this case, though it is a business use, the business is not really making a profit from the image. Because images used in this way are fungible-- the cost any business would pay for such use is miniscule.  Business people know that free images do exist, and -- whether you like it or not-- there is no easy way to verify an image is free. (Oddly enough, there isn't even an easy way to discover an image is copyrighted!)

So, businesses who come across "free wallpaper sites" actually have no reason to suspect those images are not free.  And there is little way to check.

In my opinion, they have little to no ethical or moral responsibility to pay the photographer for any use prior to receiving a C&D letter informing them the photographer owns the image. None.

That means-- in my opinion-- with  respect to the Tylor situation: because he earns revenue on his images through a venue that makes it easy for "free wallpaper sites" to get them for free, and they appear on "free wallpaper sites" and he knows they appear on "free wallpaper sites" and he knows the people exhibiting his images actually have been duped into believing they are "free", I think the businesses who are duped by these "free wallpaper sites" should not own him anything unless they are sent a C&D and refuse to take the images down. 

In some other situations where a photographer does not earn revenue making high resolution images available for free on the internet, an infringing party might have good reason to suspect the images belong to someone else at an earlier point in time and a business might have responsibility for display prior to getting a C&D letter.  That these other situations may exists-- and almost certainly do exist-- is irrelevant to my opinion of what your Mr. Tylor is morally or ethically due for use prior to his sending a C&D.

(Note: What he is legally due may or may not align with copyright law. But it seems to me you are asking my opinion of what is fair, not what is legal. Anyway, I'm an engineer. I'm not going to tell you my interpretation of what copyright law permits you.)

I don't simply use any image I find on the internet,

What you, a person who makes your living selling images and whose bread and butter is knowing copyright law would do if you wanted to use an image is not particularly relevant to what my view on whether VK Tylor should be permitted to extract from people who-- partly due to VK Tylors business model-- were duped into using his images for free.

I as well as Mr. Tylor feel strongly that the use should be compensated wither the business owner cared enough to ensure that they could use the image or not.

Sure. You two feel strongly that people should go to great trouble to do something almost impossible-- check if an image advertized for free is really free. But evidently, my suggestions your client take action to inadvertently seeding you seem to view with utter incredulity! 

My opinion of you and Mr. Tylor is low because you elect to follow the business model you seem to have elected to follow. 

Most the businesses you criticize for using your images would have looked for other suitable photos had the images not been represented for free-- and the fact they were represented as free arose as a direct result of your business model. Instead, because as a result of what appears to be a 'Webshots->free wall paper sites->sue the mopes' business model, they are being sent letters demanding fees these they would never have paid and which, quite honestly, I think are exorbitant given the rather limited incremental value these images garner websites where they are used as decorations. (Albeit pretty decorations. But lots of pretty decorations exist.)

That's my opinion. Feel free to respond by posing additional rather loaded rhetorical questions (whose answers you will probably not like) or telling me how you and your client "feel" or telling me what you find acceptable or not.  But I don't "feel" my opinions need to be adjusted to be acceptable to you or your client or make you and your client "feel" good. So, we might waste less time if you refrained from sharing your feelings with me and just stick to discussion what you do think might be fair and I'll tell you what I think is fair.  It may turn out that we can't see eye to eye-- so be it. I won't lose any sleep over it. But I will write to my congress critter when people are considering modifications of copyright law. And you can bet that I'll express what I think is fair.  You can do the same.

457

Hawaiian Letters & Lawsuits Forum / Re: What is Glen Carner's Official Position on Vincent K. Tylor?

« on: June 02, 2012, 08:32:56 AM »

I'd just like his official position on artists who make their images available nearly for free on Webshots, knowing they get picked up by wallpaper sites who advertize them for free and then suing the unsuspecting people who got them from the "free" wallpaper site.

http://www.extortionletterinfo.com/forum/getty-images-letter-forum/free-baitpapers/msg4501/#msg4501

He can leave Tylor's name out-- just comment on the practice. 

As long as Han represents artists who operate like this I"m going to have a low opinion of HAN.

458

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Matthew Chan's First 10 Questions For Glen Carner

« on: May 31, 2012, 11:04:54 PM »

Glen

I can't begin to explain the irony of you accusing VK Tylor or whoever of that because you will not meet a more aggressive protector of his copyrights who flys off the handle at the first sight of unauthorized distribution.

I think when you have an artist who is filing a lot of collections, you need to sit down and look at what might be happening. We discussed Tylor on another thread, and I googled my own observations about availability.  I wrote it up here:

http://www.extortionletterinfo.com/forum/getty-images-letter-forum/free-baitpapers/msg4501/#msg4501
I know you may not agree with me, but I have pretty much convinced myself that by showing his pictures on Webshots. Tylor has created a path that results in people advertising his images as "free wall papers" all over the web. In my opinion, Tylor should get no more than a nominal $1 from anyone who posted any image that Tylor distributed through Webshots.  He can scream all he wants. 

But as I said on another thread: There has to be a mechanisms that prevents photographers from putting huge, high resolution images in locations where they are easily obtained by those who distribute them as "free wallpapers" with the photographer then going after those who thought they were using images that were free. I think that mechanism has to be that the photographer who wants to charge a lot for his high quality images can't also distribute high resolution ones practically for free over the web.

459

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Glen Carner's First 8 Questions for Matthew Chan

« on: May 31, 2012, 10:40:33 PM »

I'll give it a go! (I'll skip the ones that don't make sense for someone who just reads and sometimes posts.  For example, on 1 I've seen too few for my answer of "no" to be very meaningful. )

#4 - Do you make any distinction between a person downloading a song for personal use or a business using an image to make profits?

Absolutely.  I think photo-companies absolutely do need to figure out how to get something like pinterest to pay them. I think given Pinterest's business models, I think they should be paying some sort of subscription fee already.  Same for Tumbler.

I think differently about a hobby blogger who ran an image accompanying an opinion when commenting on a news story compared to a company who uses a pretty image to decorate a business site.

BTW: In some instances when I read letters presented here, I think the the small business owner who got the letter should pay something. However, often the amount requested is ridiculous given the image. When the amount demanded is 10 -100 times what the image ought to cost, I tend to side with the letter recipient not the photographers representatives.

#5 - Do you have any suggestions on how "for profit" use can be compensated after the image is already being used if you disapprove of the current law and method?

This is difficulty for me. If I were permitted to play god and decide how much should be assessed, it would depend on where the image appeared and a number of factors that may well be irrelevant to copyright law.

#6 - I have heard you mention $200 for innocent infringement claims as a settlement amount.  If a specific photographer agreed to only ask for this amount in the recovery, would you support that?

Depends on the image, where and how it was used and what steps the photographer has taken to prevent his images from being easy to rip off. Some images that have been discussed should settle for $5-- which is probably 5 times what anyone would every if they knew up front. Others $200. 

Some whose quality might merit $200 should get an order of magnitude less because the image is appearing on massive number of "free" sites and-- whether the photog likes it or not-- he's lost control.  Whatever the system is, the prices can't be such that anyone has an incentive to put full size images in locations where a site visitor who didn't even register or log in can copy and later upload to a free site. (Some of the Hawaiian images fall in the latter category.)

#7 - If you could change one small thing that about how agencies collect money retroactively for commercial use, what would it be?

I don't know if this is "small", but I think agencies should provide proof of valid (and appropriate) copyright and proof they have a right to pursue the case either as owner of the copyright or as exclusive agent. This proof should be provided with the first contact letter. (It would be acceptable if to save postage, the proof was in the form of a link to a page with all necessary information.)

When requested, they should also provide proof that some customers actually have purchased that particular image for display in a similar medium and listing the distribution of prices paid for various periods of display.

460

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: How is this different from PicScout?

« on: May 30, 2012, 04:54:25 PM »

<blockquote>In theory the bots won't be able to break into an .htaccess-protected directory. This gives the developer time to research the images well and make the best effort to clear all images (and other content, for that matter) before actually "publishing" the page. That would work, wouldn't it, Lucia?</blockquote>
It should. Make sure the images are in the same protected directory as the web page. This minimizes the potential for screwups.  The default for wordpress is to store the images in their own directory-- and blog posts and pages are protected differently.  But you can protect the images-- you just need to remember to do so.

It's best to protect stuff during development for all sorts of reasons.  Even aside from copyright-- you probably don't want competitors snooping around. (Ok... I know for lots of sites this is a silly idea. But really, it's best to protect during development.)

461

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: How is this different from PicScout?

« on: May 29, 2012, 01:38:03 PM »

Moe--
I don't know if the legal solution you seek is feasible.  I think it's likely impractical and prefer to simply focus on what is required to keep a particular bot out of my images.  With that in mind, I think there are a few things worth clarifying.

If you want to use technology to keep picscout or the public away from something on your server, you need to learn the difference between robots.txt and .htaccess. robots.txt is sort of like a suggestion.  "Bad" robots won't obey it. Some robots won't read it. Some robots aren't programmed to let you tell them "I mean YOU".  As far as I am aware, there is no law requiring anything to obey it. (That said, should you ever wish to pursue some legal theory that the bot should not have violated, I'm sure placing "stay out" language in robots.txt is wise.)

.htaccess is completely different from robots.txt more like a lock. (Unfortunately, it can also be a bit difficult to handle and you can lock yourself out too.)

1) If you images are in a directory that is password protected by .htaccess, picscout, other bots and people aren't going to load those unless it discovers your password. As far as I am aware, piccout's bot is not programmed to try to hunt down passwords, but getting access by hunting down a password might be illegal. (I think it is in fact.)  If you monitored your logs, saved them and picscout tried to guess your password, you might be able to get proof.  If you had sufficient proof, maybe you could get a judge to get them for hacking.  But I don't think picscout does this.

2) There are other ways using .htaccess to keep picscout out of a directory. You can limit display to only certain IPs (like your own, your company's and so on.) If you do this correctly and thoroughly, picscout isn't going to see those images. If you do it incorrectly, picscout might get in anyway and likely their getting in would not be illegal.

3) If you put images in a .htaccess protected directory and them display them in a publicly visible web page, those images will only display to people who have permission to view the images. Other people and picscout will see broken images.  You will rarely want to do this because site visitors will be by your broken web page.

4) If you create a password protected (i.e.  private) web page which displays images in unprotected directories, people and bots (like picscout) will be able to see the images if they guess the image urls.  This may be possible depending on how you have your server set up. It is wise to set things to not display the directory contents for directories with no index.html file.  Otherwise, the bot will find the urls and see the images even though your web page is "private".  Their viewing these images will not be "hacking" because your making the web page "private" is not the same as making the image "private". (Note: some services may be programmed to let you keep your whole micro-blog somewhat private-- as Facebook does. But that's because the service just applies the same level of privacy to each thing individually.)

If you are worried about picscout, don't imagine that posting pictures on a "private" web page necessarily means the pictures are private. If you really  want images to be private you need to make the images private as well.  To do this: password protect the images-- not the web page. ( Better yet-- password protect both. See above for the problem associated with protecting the images but not the web page.)

As I wrote, given current laws I don't know if it's possible to device a legal mechanisms that will "get" picscout if the load your images. But if it is possible, the method is going to require you to understand the difference between things like "robots.txt" and ".htaccess"

462

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Getty Images/Memorial Day Welcome Home surprise...

« on: May 28, 2012, 10:28:20 PM »

Who owns the site-- your wife or the non-profit? 

463

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: HAN / Copyright Services International Settlement Notification Phone Call

« on: May 28, 2012, 10:26:55 PM »

There is greater potential for information-gathering by this informal kind of communications vs. a traditional business letter or from a collections lawyer HAN typically uses.

This may be one of the main advantages for the troll.  Also, people receiving a call are likely to speak first and google later. Many getting email will google first and then respond. Moreover, if taping is legal, the person calling may tape. It's unlikely the person receiving the call will also do so.

It would be useful for everyone to understand that they if they get a call out of the blue with any sort of revelations that make them nervous, they should do what you should always do when you get weird calls: give out very little information.  Avoid  confirming your name-- certainly if they don't know your name, do not volunteer! I don't when I get wrong numbers.    If a stranger called me, I don't give a name, address, age or anything. Not to be melodramatic, but it might be an identity thief!

This is a general policy. Even apart from copyright trolls, you shouldn't be giving out information to strangers who call you up.   

If the call turns out to be from an legitimate agency (police, FBI, person with a real gripe etc.) they'll eventually come to the door and give credentials. I mean... seriously!

464

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: How is this different from PicScout?

« on: May 27, 2012, 06:07:53 PM »

The other difficulty is even if the judge thinks image scraping and ignoring robots.txt violates something or another, you still have to prove they did it.  Many people just don't keep access logs forever-- and if picscout spoofs user agents and uses a range of IPs they might not be able to prove the access was picscout.

465

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Getty Images and scented trees update.

« on: May 26, 2012, 10:28:51 AM »

Lucia, you must be a player! Freestyler? Ultimate?

No. I'm a mechanical engineer with ph.d. My area was fluid mechanics. I know what the Bernoulli effect is and I know why ridges and dimples are put on things.  I knew that was just wrong.  (Bernoulli's principle is involved in Frisbees. It just not why the ridges are there.  If you go to this page:
http://a2asimulations.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=5

Look at the images of Level flight , climb and Stall. Notice the frizbee image on page 4 of the MIT article you sent looks like "climb". At this angle, the air flowing over the top of the airfoil is faster than the air below and so the pressure is low. That permits lift.  On a wing, if you incline more, the boundary layer will separate.  Boundary layer separation results in that big recirculating region that looks like a "bubble" on the image called "stall". This screws up lift and interferes with the Bernoulli effect you want to occur.   The ridges on the frizbee inhibit boundary layer separation. Bernoullis is involved, but it's not caused by the ridges. )

Thanks for the physics lesson, what do I know anyway? I got the wrong impression from reading stuff like this: http://web.mit.edu/womens-ult/www/smite/frisbee_physics.pdf

What they say is right. But... you just went a bit too far.

Anyway, Lucia, getting back to our core topic, I'd like to personally thank you for all the knowledge you've shared with the forum about protecting our server from bad bots.

YW. I have to get my plugin out. I had a few people testing because I want installation to be easy. The plugin will be for WP, but when it's available others can use it too. (It's only useful if you use Cloudflare for content delivery. But that's free.)

I block Copyscape-- absolutely. I block any and all crawlers that have bad manners and I even block some with good manners who don't do anything useful for me.  I have nothing against SEO services, but they just suck my bandwidth to sell info to other people. I block them.

I do try to not block useful bots, but when in doubt, and it's new, I block.  If I permit a bot, I try to first look up it's true IP range.  So for example, if it claims it's from google but it's not, I block it.  Huge numbers of googlebot spoofers come out of brazil! They aren't google.

If you are using php scripts, I strongly recommend ZBblock to catch lots of stuff. You can easily add all bots, IPs useragents etc you don't like to the customsigs.  But the fact is, Zaphod who write ZBblock keeps track of a lot of this.
http://www.spambotsecurity.com/forum/

It's not especially useful for static sites though. (You can organize to use it on static sites-- but by making the site dynamic. If your on very cheap hosting you might not want to do that.)

But you could organize things to better identify bad bots who visit by adding ZBblock to your bot trap. I have a dynamic robots.txt. Heck, I even ban bad bots who visit robots.txt!