Messages

961

Legal Controversies Forum / Why Do We Even Have 'Distribution' As A Right Protected By Copyright?

« on: November 15, 2012, 02:06:30 PM »

An interesting article over at TechDirt discussing distribution rights included within the copyright law which gives some food for thought.

If someone rents a DVD from Netflix, he isn't its owner—merely its possessor, or renter, or lessee. If he distributes the DVD to someone, for instance, giving it to his daughter, he would not only be stealing the copy from Netflix, but also, apparently, infringing the movie studio's copyrights. More strangely, the daughter, even if she was ignorant of the DVD's provenance, would herself be infringing copyright if she were to give the hot DVD to a friend. The tainted disk would afflict each of its subsequent owners, making them copyright infringers when they pass it on, even if they were uninvolved in the original sin of the theft from Netflix.

The fact that you can create such a legally poisoned copy is one of the larger flaws in the implementation of first sale

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20121112/03150921014/why-do-we-even-have-distribution-as-right-protected-copyright.shtml

962

Legal Controversies Forum / Re: Copyright trolls: “We don’t care if you did it or not, we just want your money!”

« on: November 15, 2012, 01:59:25 PM »

Here is the latest update on this case if anyone is following it.

http://fightcopyrighttrolls.com/2012/11/14/joinder-or-no-joinder-cant-have-both/

963

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Picscout sighting.

« on: November 15, 2012, 11:44:59 AM »

Great info as always Lucia!  Great to see you here again too!

964

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Claim from Masterfile Canada - Help needed from Oscar - Can pay.

« on: November 14, 2012, 12:25:06 PM »

I believe that all of that would be listed in the contract between the artist and MasterFail and you would have to request proof of claim from MasterFail. I'm sure that they will be just like Getty and refuse to provide any proof that they hold exclusive rights and are able to therefore collect damages on behalf of the artist. Again MasterFail recently lost a $6 million case against Chaga because the images in question had been bulk registered at the copyright office instead of registering each image individually as required by copyright law. If you want you can read about the case and the court filings here:

http://www.extortionletterinfo.com/forum/getty-images-letter-forum/oscar-michelen-defends-chaga-against-$6-million-masterfile-lawsuit/

965

P2P/BitTorrent Lawsuits Forum / Prenda Case Defendant Gives Copyright Trolls What for

« on: November 14, 2012, 12:10:03 PM »

In a very interesting twist as well as Prenda case development covered by both die troll die and copyright trolls websites today focused on an Arizona P2P case which has named eight defendants. The article was a very interesting read by itself but what grabbed my attention as well as the eye of the fight copyright troll site was the response by defendant David Harris to the trolls.

I will say right off the bat that I like David Harris, I like him a lot, not only does he show spunk and a strong will to fight in the response filed with the court he also lists his email address as [email protected] in the same document. Have I mentioned that I really like David Harris? In his reply to the charges filed with the court he states:

What we are witnessing is phenomenons evolving exponentially across the United States Federal District Court System. They are societal parasites, and they have gained enough popularity that the host has named them: CopyrightTrolls. This anomaly was spawned by the coupling of two sinister groups that have existed independently of one another for decades. Pornographers and corrupt lawyers.

In the instant case these parasitical mutants of society, the masters of exploitation and experts of deception, the epitome of greed has bolstered their arrogant delusions of being untouchable to the point that they have rendered themselves completely vulnerable to the very court system that they rely upon to execute leverage against there victims. Watch as the veil is pulled back exposing the bitterly ugly evil that is this Copyright Troll.

At this point I want to say I really like this guy. You can read the full articles at both websites at the following links:

http://dietrolldie.com/2012/11/13/eight-named-az-prenda-cases-set-to-backfire-doe-fights-back/

http://fightcopyrighttrolls.com/2012/11/13/an-explosive-mixture-of-emotions-and-reason-the-future-that-copyright-trolls-will-deal-with/

You can view the defendants full reply to the court on Scribd here:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/113103618/Harris-Answer-02144az

966

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Claim from Masterfile Canada - Help needed from Oscar - Can pay.

« on: November 13, 2012, 12:56:00 PM »

It is very hard for me to say what a judge would do as I do not have all the facts nor do I know anything about Canadian law. Based on what I know of US law I would agree with Robert where the court may look favorably upon you since you have been cooperative and have made good faith efforts to settle your case.

I would still contact Oscar's office to see if yours is one of the cases in which he can help/represent you and if not perhaps you can retain him to write a letter for you to be mailed by you on your letterhead.

I will think more about your situation and add to this post a little later.

Hi Greg, first, thanks for helping. Yeah, i admitted using their image, but not intentionnaly. They have a screen capture to prove it, hard to deny.... This is what you call innocent infringment.

Now, i AM willing to pay MF, i never said the opposite. My main goal is to set a reasonable usage fees for such a small image that has no impact on sales, because:
- the image is small (less than 5% of total visual)
- my client isnt selling anything (so money made out of that picture)

This is what i need to know: if i refuse to pay what they ask, and have proofs that i offered significant money (up to 1K$) but they refused it, what would a judge think if MF sues me?

THanks!

967

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: "Turn pirates into customers: a smart approach to the photo problem"

« on: November 13, 2012, 12:47:40 PM »

Thank you for posting this article Robert, perhaps we should start an ongoing list of decent and moral companies who treat their clients, contributors and potential customers with respect and understanding before demanding outrageous sums of money and threatening legal action. The first two that would come to mind would be Dreamstime from the article Robert posted and of course the Jack Daniels company with their absolutely amazing cease-and-desist letter ever where they actually offered to help the author paid to redesign his book cover which resembled the Jack Daniels label. They also did not even ask him to do anything with the books already in print. The world needs more companies like these two.

http://www.extortionletterinfo.com/forum/linda-ellis-lindas-lyrics-dash-poem-letters-forum/jack-daniels-sends-the-nicest-cease-and-desist-letter-ever!/

968

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Claim from Masterfile Canada - Help needed from Oscar - Can pay.

« on: November 13, 2012, 10:52:59 AM »

I think you would need to contact Oscar and see if he can help you, I know that there are certain circumstances in which Oscar can help people in Canada and his office can tell you for sure if he can help. You can read about contacting him here.

http://www.extortionletterinfo.com/2012-update-expansion-of-attorney-oscar-michelens-defense-letter-program/

Here are some other comments from Oscar about helping Canadian claims that may be of use to you.

Dear Madhatter:

You are really in the rabbit hole now, welcome! I have drafted letters for some Canadian clients but for their use on their letterhead as I cannot represent you in Canada.  I do not know if you are in jeopardy of being sued because I do not know what getty is doing with its Canadian claims. Canadian copyright law mirrors the UK law in that injunction only for innocent infringement means that you are not responsible for money damages if you infringed innocently but that you cannot ever use the subject images again.

OK, so every so often I get contacted by folks from Canada who want assistance with these trolling claims. There is some confusion as to when I can and cannot get involved, so I thought I would try and clear that up. If the claim is made to a Canadian entity or national from either Masterfile (which is based in Canada) or Getty's Canadian Office or which asserts claims under Canada's Copyright Law, then I CANNOT get involved.

A Canadian lawyer must be the one handling those exclusively Canadian claims.  But if a Canadian entity or national receives a claim from a US based company asserting infringement of US Copyright Law, then I can help them with their demand letter as US Copyright is Federal. So it doesn't matter where the recipient IS, it matters which law the letter asserts.

Obviously, if a lawsuit is filed in Canada, then a Canadian lawyer is needed. Similarly, if  lawsuit is filed outside where I am admitted to practice I would have to retain a local lawyer to move my admission into that state as has happened a number of times around the country.  Hope that clears up this jurisdictional issue.   

Hope this helps you out.  I not sure where you stand at this point since you have admitted to MF that you did it, perhaps some of the others will have suggestions for you but I think you should talk to  Oscar if he can help you.  Please keep us posted on your case.

969

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Petition the U.S. government to change laws to end copyright trolling

« on: November 12, 2012, 11:53:23 AM »

Patience and persistence my friend, I went through the same thing trying to get anyone to acknowledge me and my request for information from the SEC.  Remember this is the government and it moves slowly and inefficiently most of the time (regardless of who is in office) .  If this is something you want keep at it until someone takes notice.   Let me know when the petition is available and I will be happy to sign it.

Am having some difficulty getting started with this.  To submit a petition, one first needs a profile.

The profile process requires the White House to send you an email which lets them verify your email address.  Have been waiting for hours to get the email that was supposed to arrive in "minutes".  I checked with spam blockers and don't see anything.

Maybe our current administration has decided to make this harder because of all the petitions they have gotten with thousands of signatures to allow states to quietly secede from the union.

While I am losing faith in this government to get this web site working, I have not lost faith in our cause.  I will keep at it.  If anyone has any suggestions, I am all ears.

970

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Why are you on ELI? Why do you keep coming back to ELI?

« on: November 11, 2012, 11:00:41 PM »

@peeved
 Where and when are the meetings as I have an ELI problem too

@Mulligan
you did a great job expressing how I think a lot of us "regulars" feel, you certainly have a gift with words

971

Hawaiian Letters & Lawsuits Forum / Re: Attorney Larry Zerner & Vincent Tylor Extortion Letter

« on: November 09, 2012, 08:11:39 PM »

When Getty sent their responses to my complaint letters they were also full of errors including getting the name of my company as well as the amount of their claim.  Getty wants 875.00 and in their letter they said 8750.00    You would think they would at least proof read what they sent out, so I guess Timothy is a just a case of monkey see monkey do.

I don't think copyright troll and collection agent Timothy B. McCormack of Seattle would have time to correct the errors in the payment extraction letters coming out of the offices of other lawyers collection agents. Indeed, judging from recent postings here on the forum from other McCormack letter recipients, McCormack and his paralegal trolls like Ashanti A. Taylor still haven't bothered to clean up the mistakes in their current series of form letters.

I don't understand why the legal honchos at Getty Images don't get on McCormack's ass over these unprofessional form letters. If I were paying a big percentage out to some lawyer payment extraction collection agent and calling that person my "outside counsel," you can be damn sure I'd require that the letters going out were at least proofread to a professional standard that would pass muster with someone who had been educated to a seventh grade level, minimum.

But then several of the letters I received from Getty's minimum wage "compliance specialist" have also been riddled with typos and spelling errors, as well as legal representations so egregiously wrong that a tenth grade high school student with a low B average could see through them.

McCormack and the other copyright trolling bottom feeders certainly prove that you don't have to be educated or competent with the English language to earn a living in the payment extraction business.

972

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: An Experiment Against Getty

« on: November 09, 2012, 12:25:06 PM »

Thank you Oscar and this is why I have made this experiment public in the hope that others can see what can be done and join in the fight.  The more people we can get that are in similar situations to stand up and fight and send complaint letters the sooner we can reach a tipping point where these agencies will see the scope of this issue and take action.

This should be helpful to the many other folks who are dealing with the issue!

973

P2P/BitTorrent Lawsuits Forum / Judge Leo Sorokin spanks copyright troll Marvin Cable

« on: November 09, 2012, 12:08:02 AM »

Judge Leo Sorokin gave P2P copyright troll Marvin cable some serious butt hurt in his order denying ex-parte discovery recently. It appears the judge has had it with trolls using the courts to extort money from does. Here are a few of the key quotes from the order that are listed over on www.fightcopyrighttrolls.com. You can click the link to read the full article as well as the order, it is well worth it.

The Plaintiffs’ proposal — i.e., that the Court permits the Plaintiffs to subpoena the names of the subscribers and that the Court then leave it to the Plaintiffs to figure out the rest pursuant to informal communications — is unacceptable.

 

The Plaintiffs’ lack of interest in actually litigating these cases as demonstrated by the history of this litigation also weighs against permitting ex parte discovery.

The course of action the Plaintiff has stated it intends to pursue also suggests an improper effort to engage in judge shopping and evidences a disregard for the Court’s limited public resources.

…a bad faith effort to harass the third-party subscriber…

…the Plaintiffs have repeatedly said one thing and done another.

The Plaintiffs’ counsel has also repeatedly said to the undersigned, and to other judicial officers of this Court, that he intends to litigate the claims he has brought. Yet to date, counsel has sued well in excess of one thousand Doe Defendants in this District, and as far as the Court is aware, he has never served a Complaint upon a single individual defendant.

http://fightcopyrighttrolls.com/2012/11/07/judge-leo-sorokin-is-tired-of-troll-marvin-cables-lies-denies-ex-parte-discovery/

974

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: An Experiment Against Getty

« on: November 08, 2012, 08:51:46 PM »

I have been away this week and upon returning I have found a reply from the SEC to my request for information about the backdating of stock options by Jonathan Klein and other top executive officers. I did not get a yes and I did not get in no as of yet but it appears I had not provided quite enough/accurate information the SEC needed which I hope I have corrected with my reply. I am posting the reply and if you scroll down you can see my original request as well as the SEC's response.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/112637179/Request-for-information-from-the-SEC-in-regards-to-the-backdating-of-stock-options-by-Getty-images-CEO-Robert-Klein

I will keep everyone posted as to what I am able to find out.

975

Hawaiian Letters & Lawsuits Forum / Re: Attorney Larry Zerner & Vincent Tylor Extortion Letter

« on: November 06, 2012, 12:06:55 PM »

Mr. Zerner's extortion demand letter reminds me a lot of Timothy McCormick's original letters, very heavy handed with the "This is your one chance to settle before we file suit". I can only hope that we will see another Aloha come along and teach Larry and VKT a lesson, again we don't know the settlement in the Aloha case but it appears as if VKT is a slow learner.

Maybe we can ask Larry to do a blog on the chances of winning a lawsuit over seeded images?