Messages

1

Riddick/Imageline Letter Forum / Re: Riddick and Imageline sued in Federal Court

« on: November 04, 2010, 11:48:12 AM »

yes, but you cannot navigate from the main page. the site is defunct with only working link, as far as I can see, "More" which leads you to initiatives which never appeared online. If you read the text there one can think, wow, there are half-dozen high profile projects in the making, but of all these things, you can only find with great effort some unfinished pages scattered all over place. I think he was never serious about this stuff, but instead he created these pages to impress the victim with big mouth. There was nothing real behind any of it.

2

Riddick/Imageline Letter Forum / Re: Riddick and Imageline sued in Federal Court

« on: November 03, 2010, 05:37:30 PM »

don't want to sound too smart, but in my post 1.5 years ago in one of many exchanges with Mr. Riddick on this forum, I accused him of maintaining shell site which for long period of time was defunct but always came with "Major web site upgrade coming in ......". I remember his answer back then was that his designer is sick and that new site will be up in few months. I knew he was not telling the truth because I was following his site since 2008 when he started to harass me with his emails.

I guess he thought that the first thing a victim of his letter would do is to check out Internet to see what kind of company he has to deal with. Although he didn't have a website, he decided to create a single web page, making illusion to potential victim that the site is just about to be reopened. I followed "works" on his site for 1 year and during that time message about upgrade changed several times, with different dates. The single page is the same though.

In the meantime, Mr. Riddick started cybersquatting company Islandview, buying among others 100's of silly domains for presidential elections in 2008. He did this rather late though and my guess is that this business went down the drain as well. I remember back then that he hired one of those online press release distributors, so his new venture would look serious enough (press release about his new company opening for business was published on many websites). However, anyone familiar with internet and domains, knows that this kind of business can be started with $1000, even less, so his big profile was more of a joke despite big words in his messages to media.

I am 99% sure that Mr. Riddick operates shell companies and that he does not have a single healthy, profitable business with physical assets. He does not own anything except maybe some copyright to outdated, ugly clipart, which certainly is not the reason to harass anybody.

Greetings to all Riddick victims on this forum and many thanks to Oscar and Matthew for their courage and effort.

3

Riddick/Imageline Letter Forum / Re: Embroidery Industry Consumer Alert - We listened!

« on: March 30, 2009, 01:53:00 PM »

dhall Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> While the small companies may not have the
> resources for personal legal counsel, the big guys
> do.

That's why George is not going after big guys. According to his posts on other forums and research from Imageline, Google is the biggest copyright infringer in the world via its Image Search function. BUT, there is no lawsuit against Google. Gee, I wonder why not go after the biggest infringer, why bother with family businesses and companies that barely make ends meet in a very competitive industry. Why don't you challenge Big G, George?

George, if you are "the largest developer of original vector-based clip art illustrations and designs in the country", how come you don't have a functional web site since September 2008. Isn't that strange? March has almost passed, and there is no major upgrade of your site as it states there for several months now.

Please let us know when it will be up, because it would help many people if they could see all your collections and take them down from web sites around the world. If people had insight in your protected artwork, maybe they would take images down by themselves. Or, do you intentionally hide your artwork from everyone and by not providing information to the potential infringer, you are hoping they would accept your indecent proposals.

4

Riddick/Imageline Letter Forum / Re: My Position on the Riddick/Imageline Issue (Oscar Michelen)

« on: March 10, 2009, 05:19:53 PM »

sorry for interrupting this discussion but I have a feeling George that if you sent a letter that you just posted instead of horrible threats in your first email to your victims, you just might have a much bigger success rate in reaching settlement with them. You would also skip being ridiculed on several web sites and skip having your picture as a dart board in embroidery companies around the US. What I see here is Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde type of personality, fair and polite in public and terrible and bully in private emails.

You are wrong on one thing George - aggressive techniques do not work. The result of your aggressive techniques is seen all over Internet and all it got you is resistance, condemnation and ridicule. Now, that people are organizing and creating rings there is no way back. Either will you change your language and try in nicely worded manner explain your situation (like you just did above) or you will do it hard way like you did so far. It's your choice.

And do not blame this site. This site is the last resort for many people who did not know how to deal with your obnoxious threats.

5

Riddick/Imageline Letter Forum / Re: Riddick's World

« on: March 06, 2009, 01:39:14 PM »

George P is great manipulator. If you read his comments on numerous blogs about copyright, it's hard to believe that it is the same person who wrote those ugly letters exposed on this site. He's like split personality - kind and rightful in the public and merciless and bullying in private emails that only victims can read. Now that he has been exposed to the public, he's trying more than ever to tone down his obnoxious letters by commenting any negative article about him anywhere on the Internet. The concept is pretty much the same - one time leader in graphics industry (yeah right!) ferociously protecting copyrights of his small company (that by the way does not have a functional web site for more that a year now) and writing angry comments about Google and Microsoft (which he never dared to sue for infringing his copyrights).

George P has a non-functional web site with a message "Relaunch in month xxxx" just for the victims to get impression that the company he is representing is real and exists. When a victim gets his extorting email, the first  thing victim does is to find out more about this company. After you eventually  enter Imageline's web site, the message about site being redesigned is posted. That gives you impression that the company had a web site for a long time and now it is redesigning it. WRONG! The site is defunct for more that 6 months now. The message is always the same - "Launch in..." it's just different month.

6

Riddick/Imageline Letter Forum / George P. Riddick - Survival Manual!

« on: March 06, 2009, 01:25:17 PM »

I am not a lawyer, but a survivor of George P's extortion tactics. He tried to extort money from me last year, but after I told him he will not get a dime from me I did not heard from him in 6 months now. We will see what happens next, but I am 100% sure that I will not pay to him anything because everything that happened was unintentional.

After you received the first letter from George p., the first feeling is probably shock and disbelief because you can hardly believe that any CEO of any legal entity anywhere in the world can use such language. After you settle for a moment, asking yourself question like which images, where, when, how etc. it's time to plan your action against mafia-like extortion tactics used by George P.

1) DO NOT PANIC - George P. is trying to scare you and rush you into settlement by asking you to pay substantial amount of money without proving that he is right. In most cases people assume he must be right by writing such letters, he must be sure of what he's talking about but it is not the case. As we have seen on this forum, many people have bought perfectly legal copies of clipart and still got extortion letters from George.

2) DO NOT GIVE ANY INFORMATION - Usually in his first email George is asking to identify yourself and send him your address, phone etc. No normal human being would give his personal information to a complete stranger via email, especially someone who is threatening to financially destroy you and your family. Just don't do it.

3) DO NOT SETTLE - This is the most important thing. Do not settle, because you do not know if he's right and he did not prove it. If you do, you may become victim of further extortion with further consequences for your business.

4) CONTACT OSCAR MICHELEN OR GOOD COPYRIGHT ATTORNEY - This is always good advice, especially if you are in the USA. As it has been explained on this wonderful site, people often give up because they are not informed about their rights. As you have seen in his letters, George is boasting with 100's of settlements so far (I doubt that very much), making word extorter his middle name. Explain your situation to your attorney in details and see that a letter is sent back to the extorter.

5) [DELETED to stop false information and untrue rumors]

6) REMOVE SUSPICIOUS IMAGES - this is just in case. George P. will usually not tell you which images are infringed. He will continue to push you to send him your personal information and threaten with extreme measures if you don't pay. If you legally bought these images, you can contact the company you bought images from and ask for the confirmation about copyright. If you don't know the source of your images, remove them just in case. Let you attorney know about any new details.

7) CONTINUE WITH YOUR BUSINESS AS USUAL - you have contacted your lawyer, maybe police or FBI, you have removed images and now you can continue with your business as usual. George may or may not come back. It is still unclear if he goes on with his threats or he retreats after you don't give in. I am sure there are cases with both outcomes. This is something we can discuss here on forums.

This is what I think you should do. I would like Oscar or Matthew or others who had similar experience to give advice on any of the above actions (maybe I missed something or said something wrong). I wish you all good luck against George. Do not give up, people like him just must not win.

7

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Why dont they go after Google?

« on: March 06, 2009, 12:34:52 PM »

4) Google's and Microsoft's lawyers are eating this kind of bullies and their arguments for breakfast. If you Google for "George P Riddick" you will see that George is notorious for writing extra long comments about copyright issues. I guess that's his way of getting into big league of copyright elite, by writing fantasy stories about his company being leader in graphics industry (did anyone see his images? you couldn't be leader with that product 20 years ago, let alone today). BUT, he never sued Google despite being angry with them and "proving they are breaking copyrights". He knows that if he dared to challenge Google, the best that could happen to him was to pay hefty legal fees after losing the battle. He just don't dare to challenge Big G, although "he has a strong case there."