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« on: August 18, 2013, 03:09:53 PM »
Greg,
While what you said sounded really nice there are a few problems with your solution. First is for copyright infringement one must make a protected image/article publically available. You don't have to make any money from this availability, it's just the fact of dilution of the copyright holders value. While the company I paid to create my web site put copyright images on it they didn't make these images publically available. As such they are not guilty of any copyright infringement. By the definition of what constitutes copyright infringement Go-Daddy should be the one Getty sues as only Go-Daddy (which is who hosts my web site) can make the files/images there publically available. However, Getty doesn't seem to sue anyone with a lot of money like Go-Daddy. Even though I pay for a web site and someone else puts copyrighted images in the sites directories it's the actions of Go-Daddy that actually makes the images publically available not me. At any time Go-Daddy can cut this thread and then nothing in my web site's directory will be publically available.
Actually if you put a copyrighted image file in a directory that can be addressed from the internet is copyright infringement. This image file does NOT have to be displayed anywhere and even if there is no way it can be seen by anyone one on the internet does not matter at all as far as the law goes. If the file is in a location where it can se found with a robot (even if it isn't viewed) it is copyright infringement. So if you get Getty's demand letter you not only need to remove the code from your web pages so the image can't be loaded you also need to delete the image file from the server and all servers that have any sort of internet access.
I went to see a bankruptcy lawyer a couple week ago to see how bad it could be. He said I had to have an attorney to represent my company as Glycomeds was a company at the time of Getty's notice (so I couldn't represent my own company myself even if it had no money and I couldn't terminate the company to avoid the infringement). He said they would sue me in Washington State and claim they have jurisdiction and as I wouldn't have anyone one there to speak for me the judge would go along with it. As Getty has in-house paid attorneys this action would cost them nothing but $150 filing fee. As no one would appear it would upset the judge and he would go along with what Getty said - My company made millions of dollars over the years through the sole use of their two images. All in all the bankruptcy attorney said he would expect the judge to award fines and penalties of six or seven digits against my company.
The next step would be for Getty's free attorneys to petition the court to include me as a defendant as I am the head of the company (I am the company Manager of the LLC - there is no CEO or anything else). Next they would sue me directly in Washington State (I live in Arizona) for mismanagement of company funds for my personal benefit. They wouldn't have jurisdiction but unless I hired an attorney to contest jurisdiction I would again lose. I could file a motion with a simple one-liner "I contest jurisdiction" but Getty would argue the Federal case brought me into their Washington jurisdiction. This would be very difficult to defend for free, for if I sent a letter to the court explaining I didn't live or work in Washington this letter would automatically give them jurisdiction over me...
As soon as I would be accepted into the case Getty would move to freeze my bank accounts so I could not transfer any money out of the country and without me being there at $500 a flight to Washington, the judge would agree. The court would then seize my personal bank account as that is all I have and after they had received all my money (about $150) from my bank the court would send me notice of the pending freeze of my assets. I know this is exactly how it will go for a fact, as this has already happened to me over a credit card account in Virginia three years ago. Even though all the money in my bank account came from a protected source, Social Security, the court still took it. It cost me $3500 for a Virginia attorney to get my money back and my account unfroze. The real problem was every month when the Government deposited my SS into my bank account the bank automatically sent all of this protected money to the court as they were under a court order to retrieve all funds. I eventually got my account released but this didn't stop the suit and now the Virginia court had actually jurisdiction.
It gets worse. We bought our home in 2002 for $120K. It's now worth about $50K but we have nowhere else to go or live (parents, children, etc). I can't pay all of the bills (credit cards are out of sight and killing us) and make house payments so my wife has a job to make the house payments. Once Getty gets me in their Washington court they will also include my wife as we are married and Arizona, where we live, is a community property state. Then Getty will file a suit against us for about $125 in Washington State court, equal to the Federal copyright fines and fees plus all their trumped up attorney costs against me and my wife (probably well into the seven digit figures by then). While I am bankruptcy proof my wife isn't as they can attach 80% of her wages. Without her income we will lose our home.
According to the bankruptcy attorney it doesn't stop there but you have the general picture. He said after all the dust settles we can file bankruptcy but we have to wait until Getty runs out of things to do to us which could take up to five years. For this it will cost them less than $250 plus some time from their free in-house attorneys. What they would get for their $250 would be a great case to flaunt publically, scaring more poor people into paying them extortion money for fear of loosing everything or just pay Getty $2000 and everything will just go away...
The bankruptcy attorney said for me to wait until everything is over and then we could file bankruptcy for $700 (his fee) plus $1200 Federal filing fees...
Thanks for every ones help and kind words.
Roger
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