Messages

1

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Question to Oscar About Strict Law

« on: April 11, 2009, 01:27:58 PM »

Excellent commentary, Oscar. You are making this web site a more enjoyable read for me, and, no doubt, many of the people who find themselves in the middle of this kind of "mess", as well.

2

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

« on: April 02, 2009, 07:45:43 PM »

Hello Larry,

I apologize for the length of this answer to your earlier posting this afternoon in advance. I truly am trying to get you to understand where we are coming from, and to keep as many small embroidery companies out of crippling litigation as we can.

Some people apparently think the exchanges posted on this web site are a complete waste of time. I started out feeling that way, but have since changed my mind. If small embroiderers are comfortable watching a level-headed debate take place in this fashion, rather than through direct one-to-one conversation, then that is fine with me at this stage of the game. We are spending most of our time on far larger, and more toxic, infringing fish right now, anyway.

I think you are sincere in what you are trying to do here, and I applaud you for that. I also think the entire issue (using clipart to produce embroidery designs) can get very confusing on occasion. Here is where you need to be ultra careful with both your logic, and in the decisions you make going forward with your business.

Rushing to judgment can be very dangerous these days, and no place is more dangerous turf than today's turf in the "digital world", in general, and on the Internet, in particular. Here's what I mean:

1. We never licensed Jupiter Images/Clipart.com to use any of our Imageline clipart illustrations and designs on their Internet display and distribution website, let alone provide any of them to others. Not in 2001 and 2002 as you referenced, and not now. Never. I could not see anything in what you wrote above that indicated that you actually downloaded the designs we identifed to you privately as ones owned exclusively by Imageline, Inc. that you had said you downloaded from clipart.com. You should check that out very carefully.

2. You and others in your industry probably do not realize the confusion that results even from some of your simple terminology and questions. Here is what I have learned from the embroidery industry in just a little over three months. You refer to embroidery designs generically to mean both the hard goods that you produce (either by hand or through the help of a computerized machine), as well as the digital files that are produced by computer to make the embroidery machines "stitch" a particular design in tangible physical form.

3. As you probably know by now, Imageline invented the electronic clip art industry with joint ventures with IBM, Lotus, Microsoft, WordPerfect, Apple, Harvard Graphics, Xerox, and others back in the early 1980s, when the IBM personal computer was first announced. I can tell you first hand that although Imageline never did, some developers of electronic clipart would, indeed, let their licensed digital files be used to produce physical embroidery designs, such as a design stitched onto your sister's sweater or your son's baseball cap. However, I know of no reputable clip art developer (copyright holder) who allowed their digital designs to be converted to embroidery digital design formats and then be re-distributed or sub-licensed, as we in the software industry call it.

4. I do not know for sure, as I have not yet spoken to Ms. Woods or the executives I know at Clipart,com's parent comany about this particular issue, but I could tell from her comments about "CDs" and "re-distribution" (as you have described them) that Ms. Woods probably did not understand the exact question she was being asked by either you or XXXXXX. I think she was saying ..."sure, you can make as many embroidered ball caps as you want, and even sell them to others, but you cannot display, sell, or re-distribute ANY designs in digital formats".

5. I know this is NOT what you or the rest of the small (and large) embroidery designers and digitizers wanted to hear, but I am almost certain that it is the truth. Check it out more carefully yourself.

6. Take a look at Bernina, Great Notions, Amazing Designs, Dakota Collectibles, EmbroideryDesigns, Cactus Punch/VSM Group, Embroidery Central, and some of the other "big boys" in your industry today. Have you noticed that they are now selling their digital embroidery designs to the print market and general Internet market as "high end clip art"? Several of them call the images "Printables". What clip art developer is their right mind whould allow anyone to convert their digital files to another electronic format and then allow those converted files to be used to compete directly with their own original designs that look almost identical? I will answer this for you. They would not.

No wonder so many people rushed to judgment and got themselves into an uproar against Imageline for our sincere, and admittedly aggressive, efforts to help clean up this mess (we call it a "piracy epidemic") that has infected your entire industry with tainted goods for years.

If I thought Imageline was claiming ownership to someone else's work (1), or was accusing people who had a legitimate license of infringement (2), or was charging end user infringement settlement fees that were out of proportion with common industry practices (3), I would get very angry myself. But none of those three scenarios is what we have here, Larry.

The host of this web site jumped to all of the wrong conclusions about Imageline right away. Apparently he thought he had "discovered" another Getty Images, Masterfiles, or Jupiter Images he could pound on, and criticize, in his own self-interests. What he forgot to tell all of you in the embroidery design industy was the truth. We have explained all of this to him several times and he hasn't seemed interested in listening to a single word we have said. Why? We are still not sure.

I think Oscar Micelen now realizes we do not go after end users (only those we find distributing our exclusive goods to others). I truly believe that is why his tone towards Imageline has changed and I have had several productive "conversations" with him, even if some of them were online and shared by others.

I do not feel the same way about Mathew Chan, but you can make your own judgment as to whether he has helped you at all or simply tried to sensationalize this entire issue. What you end up paying to either Imageline or lawyers (or both) will probalby help you make this decision.

I hope this e-mail helps clarify a few things for you and others, Larry. Please send me evidence if you, indeed, find that clipart.com, or any other large company for that matter, actually licensed you any of the artwork Imageline has identified to you as proprietary. All of our digital artwork is registered with the U.S. Copyight Office, so it wil not take us even an hour to verify any of the statements we make to you as 100% truthful.

 Be sure to ask others if they can do the exact same thing for you. And especially XXXXXX, if that is who I think it is!

Thank you for trying to clear things up and educate others in your industry as well.

George Riddick
Imageline, Inc.

3

Riddick/Imageline Letter Forum / Re: If you don't like the responses, don't post!

« on: March 30, 2009, 07:31:10 PM »

Dear Matthew Chan,

I have told you several times before exactly what I thought about your skills and your appitude at being a "quasi IP lawyer" and a "quasi investigative reporter". Need I say more?

I have been contacted directly by several people in the embroidery design industry who do not agree with you, Matthew. They have read the most recent posts and encouraged me to keep posting my views as to how the infrmation and communications was so poorly handled regarding this issue from the get-go.

You have criticized me unduely ever since I told you I thought you were, indeed, guilty of copyight infringement of Getty Images from what I learned by reading your own story. You never posted those comments. I wonder why?

Your comments to, and criticisms of, me are completely uncalled for. I did not take a "swipe" at anyone. I actually like Oscar. I simply told this anonymous lady/gentleman the truth.

Oscar has handled himself like a true professional lately and given these people some very good and valuable legal and pactical guidance.  Honestly, I cannot see what value you bring to this debate at all.

You do not own any proprietary graphic arts content that I am aware of, you are not a lawyer, and you are not an embroidery designer or digtizer. Please do us all a favor and monitor the web site, not make comments about things when you have abolutely no clue as to what you are saying.

BTW, what are you telling people your new theories about Imageline might be now that we have filed four (4) new federal copyright infringement lawsuits after you assured your audience we wouldn't, or couldn't, file any?

George Ridick
Imageline, Inc.

P.S. I personally think these embroidery industry folks are smart enough to hear both sides of a debate such as this and make their own choice and decisions. They need you like they need a hole in the head. Discussions were much more productive while you were MIA ove rthe past few weeks. You are simply pushing them into further legal trouble with your super-senstive and non-sensical responses.

4

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

« on: March 30, 2009, 05:23:01 PM »

I usually do not respond to people who are unwilling to identify themselves. If there is a reason for this bizarre behavior, please tell me. I have never experienced anything quite like this before.

As you can see, I try to answer every question that is asked of me politely by people secure enough in their convictions that they are not afraid to let others know who they are and how they feel. I find your kind of "complain, but hide my true identity" behavior in an intellectual debate of this magnitude, unconscionable.

Just so you know, I have indicated this displeasure to both Oscar Michelen and Mathew Chan, as well. I believe anonymous posts are unhealthy for a truly beneficial exchange of information in a forum such as this one.

Three things in your e-mail today got my attention, however, so I decided to make an exception and respond.

First of all, you ask two very good questions. First, I have tried hard to contain the majority of my comments on this forum to the embroidery industry, and not a single embroidery design company has indicated to me that 'Google image search' was the origin of the Imageline proprietary digital illustrations or designs identified on their web sites, or in their software products.

Second, we just doubled the size of our vector-based digital archives in early March of this year, and are working as fast as we possibly can to get our new web site up and running. Our lead developer on this project has taken ill, and that has caused us some delays, as well. Be assured, we are as anxious to publish some of our new announcements as you are.

Last, it is precisely your use of the phrase "indecent proposals" that drives intelligent people trying their best to learn away from this forum. How would you know any of our proposals are "indecent" if you do not know all of the facts. In fact, in a recent post I sent to the owner/operators of this web site, I carefully explained how our "per end user" settlement numbers, and global releases, are lower costs, and provide more peace of mind against future claims, than anyone else in our entire industry ... and by quite a margin, I might add.

Again, please consider, and encourage your business associates to do so as well, identifying yourself so that this exchange of copyight information can be more useful to everyone in the embroidery design business.

Thank you.

George Riddick
Imageline, Inc.

5

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

« on: March 29, 2009, 12:01:58 PM »

Small "mom and pop" shops are the backbone of our society. I have spent almost my entire career running them and defending them against the larger companies in their industry who routinely take advantage of their size and inability to fight back.

As my last sentence in the earlier post states clearly, "Your furture depends on the success of our mission more than ours."

I applaud you for coming forward, posting your comments, AND hiring your own experienced attorney to give you professional advice. However, there are challenging times ahead for all of us who would like to see digtial piracy eliminated, or at least significantly reduced, in the embroidery design industry. Some of these challenges are quite complicated.

Unfortunately, you are now in a very dfficult position, but don't simply take my word for it. Ask someone who you can trust.

You see, you are likely going to be dragged into any litigation that involves whomever granted you these improper licensing and distribution rights, as well. Is it better for you to resolve all of these potential liabilities now with a settlement (and full release of you, your business partners, your company, and your end user customers) now, or later through the courts? Some people have made what we consider to be the obvious smart choice when faced with this same delimma. But many have not. Some have apparently gambled that Imageline is "bluffing" about our legal resources and our resolve. Obviously, those people do not know me very well, and did not believe me when I said earlier "we do not bluff".

Before I go on, let me state a few things that apparently have gone unnoticed by many of the embrodiery design companies we have contacted thus far this year. We want you to have all of the facts straight so you can make the right decision for you and your company.

1. We are the largest developer of original vector-based clip art illustrations and designs in the country, and the pioneer of the entire industry from some 25 years ago. We have millions and millions of dollars invested in our digital archives. Imagine how we felt when we found that over 95% of our own digital images we found posted online in a detailed survery we conducted last year were pirated. Less than 5% were properly licensed.

2. How can anyone stay in business with those kinds of alarming statistics?

3. We know the copyight laws as they pertain to the digital "visual arts" industries, which includes digital embroidery designs, better than any software or content development company we know, as weel as most of the people up in Washington who work on these copyright issues all of the time.

4. We have NEVER licensed a single company, big or small, the rights to sub-license or distribute via CD/DVD, or the Internet, a single one of our proprietary designs for use as digital embroidery design files. Anyone who has told you otherwise SHOULD be held acountable for ALL of the downstream damages they have caused. We will not be the only ones to lose based on the discovery that our copyrighted digital artwork has been stolen. You wouldn't if you were in our shoes either.

5. We are not talking about simply a handful of digital designs here. Our researchers have found thousands of our digital images in embroidery file formats and all we had to do was announce our intentions to enter this market in 2009 for them to start pouring out of the woodwork. It is shameful.

6. We have not pursued anyone who wasn't continuing the "cascading infringement cycle" in the market by displaying and allowing our protected images to be downloaded by their customers, or bundled into sets on CDs, DVDs, memory cards, and now even USB drives. No "end users".

7. In order for us to be properly, and fairly, compensated for the obvious market damages we have sustained, we need your help. We do not need for all of the small embriodery design companies to unite, put your heads into the sand, believe someone who claims she drew our designs herself, criticize the few that have tried to help us, make up excuses, and/or refuse to cooperate with any of our efforts to clean up your industry, as your own leading embroidery industry companies have refused to do for many, many years. Don't you ever wonder why?

8. Please discuss this with your attorney. In order for you to go after someone who may have defrauded you, and told you that you could sub-license and further distribute proprietary digital designs owned by Imageline, you must be able to prove your damages. The way this has happened for us in the past is that companies who we caught in the act of copyight infringement worked with us to resolve/settle their infringement activities. We worked together to release all of their end user customers, who are all potentially liable as well, and then their attorneys took those damages, plus any other legtimate costs they incurred, right back to the software or Internet company they claimed had misled or defrauded them in the first place. We have found nothing else that works better to protect you, the small business owner, AND your end users, who are also likely now liable for additional damages that continue to accumulate in every single case we have investigated and are now pursuing aggressively.

9. If you are one of the many small businesses in the embroidery design industry who believe what hapened in the earlier post happened to you, then please have your attorney contact Imageline right away. We are in the process of filing a number of very large federal lawsuits and you will need to decide whether you want to be on the side of the company trying to reduce digital piracy or the companies trying to profit from it.

10. Please make sure your attorney understands that you are a dealer, a re-seller, and/or a distributor, not simply an end user, Several copyright defense attorneys we have spoken with recently have not had this important distinction explained to them clearly and concisely by their new clients. Those kinds of lawyer/client misunderstandings do no one any good. The truth ultimately comes out. It always does.

While Imageline, as a small company, and I, personally, as Imageline's primary executive officer, have had to suffer a lot of sharp criticism, "badwill", and marketplace harm, based on some of the "less than accurate" posts made onto this forum, and onto the Yahoo Embroidery Groups, as well, over the past three months, I do see some benefits now, with more and more people putting all of their cards squarely on the table, minimal expense to all sides, and people now choosing which side (copyright protection or piracy) they really want to be on when this "war" escalates. And if you've ever battled sophisticated "digital piracy", especially delivered over the Internet, you will know what we mean when we say "war".

We do not lose this kind of "war". Never have in over 20 years and don't plan to start doing so now, when the stakes for all of us are higher than they have ever been before.

Thank you for listening. I hope we can work things out.

George

George Riddick
Chairman/CEO
Imageline, Inc.

griddick@imageline2.com

6

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

« on: March 26, 2009, 11:31:22 AM »

Embroidery Industry Consumer Alert

You asked us to take another look at our overall approach towards trying to reduce digital piracy in the embroidery design industry. We listened.

Although our new approach does not excuse anyone for unlawful conduct in the marketplace, we are now going to direct more of our focus on where we have discovered 95% of the infringing embroidery designs over the past four months of intense research, investigation, and documentation.

The most surprising thing to everyone we have talked to about this new focus thus far is the fact that the top nine (9) embroidery industry design developers, publishers, and re-sellers are all heavily engaged in copyright infringement activity and appear to have been so for many years. No wonder small embroidery firms do not have a clue what is legal and what is not.

Yes, names you thought that you could trust, like Bernina, Great Notions, Dakota Collectibles, Amazing Designs, OESD, Oregon Patchworks, Cactus Punch, Embird, Ann the Gran, Embroidery Library, Adorable Ideas, Artistic Threadworks, Embroidery Central, Brother International, Hirsch, and others, have been actively engaged in digital piracy and have collectively distributed tens of thousands of infringing embroidery designs into your targeted markets. Some of your own designs probably came from them as well.

In most cases, they have claimed they owned the copyrights for these pirated designs, themselves. Thus far, we have not found a single company who was willing to stop the infringing activity and notify their customers that they, too, were potentially liable.

As some of you have suggested, we are also carefully evaluating any and all major clipart software CD/DVD publishers and web site operators who may have misled you as to whether or not you could use Imageline’s copyright-protected digital illustrations and designs to produce digital embroidery design files for commercial distribution.

We invented the software category for digital graphic arts content (including clip art illustrations and designs) back in the early 1980s and we know practically everyone in this industry fairly well. We will notify you of our findings over the next few weeks.

We have led the charge against digital piracy in our industry for over twenty (20+) years. We have never lost a battle to digital pirates and we do not intend to start doing so now.  We will reduce and disclose the piracy epidemic that has swept across your entire embroidery design industry during this decade.

Your future depends on our success on this mission more than ours.
Perhaps you can help us.

George Riddick
Imageline, Inc.

7

Riddick/Imageline Letter Forum / Re: What if 'Terms of Service" or "Usage" change

« on: March 12, 2009, 12:00:48 PM »

Good question, Joe

Clearly, a question like this should be asked to an experienced attorney who deals with software licensing and such.

Imageline has never changed its terms of service in its End User License Agreements (EULAs), nor has it ever authorized anyone else to change their license as it applied to our orginal illustrations and designs. That would seem to make this question moot for the purposes of this forum as it pertains to Imagline, but I do not mind throwing in my "two-cents" worth if that might be helpful.

I realized in December last year when we first started our reserach into the embroidery design industry that there would be a need for quite a bit of education to bring some of these embroidery designers, publishers, and digitizers up to speed on the typical "do's" and "don't" of "visaul arts" copyights. I have sent over 25 years dealing with these issues. I have tried to spread around some of that "hands on" education, but much of my advice seems to have been overshadowed by the personal smear campaigns we have found on this web site and within some of the Yahoo and Google chat and blog groups recently.

Generally, we find statements such as "all rights not specifically granted in this license agreement are serviced exclusively by the holders of these copyights". In the one case we were involved in quite a few years ago where something like this did come up, I am fairly certain that was the way the courts determined this important issue, as well.

Again, check with your attorney. I find the question intriguing myself.

Clearly, many, many people in the embroidery design industry, including the largest publishers of them all, determined that they had rights to convert digital clip art files to digital embroidery files and then market, distribute, or trade the resulting digital files. We clearly disagree as that pertains to our copyight-registered artwork, but there are a slew of clip art developers and publishers out here that may feel differently than we do at Imageline.

Sometimes you need to simly apply 'common sense' and 'logic' to these questions, along with legal guidance. Have you noticed how many embroidery design publishers are now promoting print versions of their embroidery designs and competing openly and aggressively against the clip art developers. What nut would encourage them to do that with an open-ended, unrestricted, commercial licensing agreement?

Please be sure to inform everyone on here of your findings. Many of the problems we are all dealing with here trace back to this particular issue. Thanks again for bringing it up for discussion on this forum.

George

George Riddick
Imageline, Inc.

8

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

« on: March 10, 2009, 01:33:53 PM »

Hello Oscar,

We are not that far apart in our views. We both fight hard for the lowest level of “victim” in our system, people who often do not know how to best speak for themselves. In our case, it is the individual digital graphic artists, designers, cartoonists, digitizers, programmers, and animators. In your case, it is the unsuspecting “end users” of copyright-protected visual content.

I tend to agree with you where truly innocent actual “end users” are caught using content they had no idea was protected by registered copyrights for their own personal use. We have consciously chosen not to go after such end users over the years. 100% of our compliance and enforcement efforts are against those people who either publish our content, pretending it is theirs, or re-distribute the pirated digital content to others, sometimes in the dozens, but more typically in the hundreds, and even thousands, over the Internet.

It is also very common among these embroidery companies to offer digital designs that they did not have to pay for (such as those “borrowed” from Imageline) as incentives for people to subscribe to their monthly services, in which case tens of thousands of end users could end up with the unlicensed Imageline designs in a matter of months, if not weeks … or even days. What does that do the perceived market value of our designs?

So, do you now see what our dilemma is? How do we stop the cascading damages caused by the people who have contacted you because we contacted them? The most valuable thing we offer them in our current settlement agreements is a complete release of them, all of their business associates, all of the advertisers and sponsors, as well as the hundreds, or thousands, of their end user customers who are now using our copyright-registered digital designs against the copyright laws of this country. And have potential future claims against the original infringer, as well.

In short, our settlements give these dealers, distributors, and counterfeiters what even a court order typically does not. Peace of mind that they will not be brought into additional copyright infringement related cases down the road, and the satisfaction of knowing that they can put this chapter behind them and begin anew. Most people we settle with become our friends. In some cases, we even end up doing some business together. In spite of what you hear from people who are still trying to dodge us, and deny their wrongful acts, we try hard to be fair.

The truth is, Oscar, that when you consider the extent of the unlawful distribution we typically have to deal with, our settlement offers are extraordinarily reasonable. We will likely never get much of this “toothpaste” back in the tube. The damages have been done and will show up where we least expect them to for years and years to come.

As you will soon find out if you have not done so already, the vast majority of these embroidery infringers, re-publishers, and distributors, will tell you that some software company or web site operator gave them authorization to distribute the digital designs they create from our proprietary property. We have found in 98% of the cases we have reviewed that it is actually the original infringer who has misinterpreted the license agreement they agreed to follow. Why does all of that kind of licensing rights analysis appear to be a little self-serving to me? Of course, we pursue anyone would actually try to grant such rights to third parties, as well, as we have NEVER given anyone that authorization in our 25+ years in existence.

Think about this, Oscar. What if we decided to listen to you and Mathew and took ALL settlement offers off the table and turned all of these cases over to the attorneys who specialize in this sort of thing. Can you honestly tell anyone they would likely get a better deal and not spend significantly more money in the legal process, even with you offering a reduction in your hourly fees? Remember, these are distributors, not end users. You tell me what you suspect the average judge or jury would do to someone who distributes other people’s property into their markets for profit, and in volume.

What is the purpose of forestalling all settlement talks? I simply do not get it. If the theory is we will not follow through, I have told you this consistently. Yes, we will. We changed our policy several years ago and we now follow through on every single case that involves a dealer, re-publisher, or distributor, just as you have said you would do, as well, if you were in our place. Mathew would too if his e-books were what was being stolen and re-distributed.

The letters that Mathew posted online were ALL sent to these re-publishers, dealers, and distributors. I admit I became quite agitated that they did not have the courtesy to even respond to our serious claims. Our sense of urgency was necessitated by the fact that ongoing infringing activity among their end user customers was continuing in the marketplace, even after they had removed our designs from their own web sites. You should understand that kind of frustration. None of those we contacted are actually end users, but I get the feeling that they may have positioned themselves to you and Mathew as such. This includes the young lady in New York we talked about you possibly representing, as well. I’d be happy to provide some more details to you here if you think that would help.

Further, the anonymous and even identified embroidery industry participants in your interactive discussion forums are ALL Internet-based distributors, dealers, resellers, and/or re-publishers, as well, from we can tell.

Before I forget it, I would like to compliment you on pointing out to me the anti-piracy objective of your instructions to remove web pages from the Archives.org historically mirrored web sites. I honestly had not thought about that rationale. I think you would agree that the correct procedure for someone who has been officially noticed that these infringement issues could easily end up in the courts is to remove all old web pages that include infringing designs from all known sources, and then retain electronic and/or print copies of these web pages in their business files as potential evidence that could be needed during discovery. Don’t you agree?

And, finally, please remember this. Unlike truly innocent and unaware end users, these people who are re-distributing and sub-licensing other people’s work as their primary business model do not respond to anything other than very aggressive communications. You know that. I could show you hundreds of techniques we have used over the past 15 years or so, and the aggressive ones are the ONLY ones that get anyone’s attention these days, short of filing a federal lawsuit without giving any notice at all.

What exactly is it that you and Mathew are trying to get me and Imageline to do, Oscar?  Drop all settlement offers? File hundreds of lawsuits? Ignore the cascading infringement activity that still place in the embroidery marketplace due to original infringing activity of those we do pursue? Ignore infringing activity? Stop producing new copyrighted work altogether? Contribute all of our work to the “public domain”? Why have you decided to aggressively attack me, personally, and treat our small graphic arts content development company that has stood up for the little guy for all these years as the “bad guy” here?

Again, I was very pleased to learn last night that you feel the exact same way about people who use other people’s property to distribute wares to their customers, and pretend that it is their own, or that they have somehow secured such distribution rights.

Please let me know if I misunderstood your position in any way. I don’t think that I have.

Have a pleasant day.

George

George P. Riddick, III
Chairman/CEO
Imageline, Inc.

9

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

« on: March 10, 2009, 12:23:16 AM »

Oscar,

I am VERY pleased by what I read on this post tonight. You truly handled these questions, and my aggresive tone, professionally. I appreciate that. I do not believe we are anywhere near as far off on our philosophies as I originally concluded. I love the Internet, and e-mail, but on ocasion it has led to an extended mis-communications from my experience.

Thank you for taking the time to post your reponses. It is very late tonight, but I will show you tomorrow where I think we mis-communicated and I'll bet we both we will feel a little better about what we are trying to achieve.

George

10

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

« on: March 09, 2009, 01:04:53 PM »

Please do not threaten me, Matthew. I suppose you prefer for your victims to simply lay down and let you "rant and rave" about them and their integrity and you cannot handle it when the spotlight is turned your way. That is a clear sign of your inexperience and immaturity, as well. Most true journalists I know have a strong backbone, and thick skin, and do not threaten people who are simply telling their readers the truth.

Cutting off people with opposing points of view is the quickest route to isolation of both you and your web site participants from my experience. I certainly would not handle things that way. Like I said before, neither you nor Oscar seem to know what to do with someone who does not fit into your "adoring fans" classification.

That's certainly one way to make yourself out to be something you are not.

Respectfully,

George Riddick
Imageline, Inc.

************************************************************************************************************************************************************************

PLEASE REMEMBER IT WAS YOU AND OSCAR WHO DECIDED TO POST OUR PRIVATE E-MAIL EXCHANGES, NOT ME. I AM SIMPLY FOLLOWING YOUR LEAD. STAND TALL, MATHEW. IF WHAT YOU SAY IS TRUE, YOU HAVE NOTHING AT ALL TO FEAR.

A note of clarifcation to Oscar and Mathew.

I will tell you straight up, Oscar, I am really frosted at you. There is no way this “mass confusion” and “mass dissemination of false information” could have spread like wildfire like it has done throughout the embroidery community had you not gotten involved and mislead these people by giving legal advice to a large diverse group of people through a public forum.

How can you honestly look anyone in the face and say that your advice of "DO NOT SETTLE" and "DESTROY ALL OLD ARCHIVED FILES" is NOT legal advice? I think it is shameful. You can be as pleasant as you want to pretend to be now, but the damage has already been done. This is not the way a professional attorney would have handled this mess, in my humble opinion.

Now we even have Mathew threatening me, and vowing to cut off my posts, for trying to tell your readers, and followers, the truth.

You rushed to judgment and practically everything you said publicly about me and Imageline was flat out wrong.

You owe a whole slew of people a huge “I’m sorry”. Perhaps you and Mathew should consider refunding any money they have given to you to try and at least be fair.

If I wasn’t directly involved with this, I would think I was watching some sort of bizarre science fiction movie, or perhaps a comedy. What you have done to this embroidery design crowd is shameful, in my opinion, and I am putting that as mildly as I can.

What are you trying to do here? Fabricate an exciting story? Incite a riot? It is almost as if you stood on the balcony with your arms around your first lieutenant, Mathew Chan, gave an impassioned speech about the evils of all things Riddick and Getty, and others in the western world, whipped the crowd into a frenzy, and then retired back to your parlor to play “spades” and drink vodka with your legal buddies.

Don’t you realize that these embroidery designers and digitizers take every single word that you and Mathew utter as complete gospel. All you see on some of the Yahoo and other embroidery chat groups that have now picked up this ball is 'Oscar said this' and 'Oscar said that'. The terms Oscar, RICO, Chan, FBI, extortion, conspiracy, “innocent” infringer, piracy, archive.org, and jail time seem to go hand in glove in the embroidery world these days.

It is my view that what you are doing now, and have done for some time now, facilitates and encourages ongoing willful copyright infringement in the marketplace. I read this morning that if an embroiderer simply returns a counterclaim “excuse” letter to their ISP, they can re-post their infringing embroidery design files without any further risk. What? It was attributed to some “united” legal advice the embroidery group was now getting.

Who ever told these people their distributors and the web site companies that host, display, sell, and download their infringing design files are protected by the DMCA “safe harbor” provisions. I have never heard such nonsense in my life.

I wonder where the embroiderers in the southwest and midwest got the notion that if they could just figure out how to make more than $200.00 on a design they infringe that they could do no worse than break even if they were sued. What?  Yes, and according to one post, the more you steal the better.

I wonder who is giving these people that notion?

For all I know, you and Mathew are sitting up there and doing absolutely nothing these days. But your name is used routinely out here in the public where wide scale infringing activity continues every single minute of every single day. Perhaps your time would be better spent if you concentrated on going after the top seven (7) embroidery design companies in the country. You would find that each one of them run regular, well-organized, well-funded, copyright infringement operations, and schemes, and have done so for years. No wonder all of these small embroidery companies and individuals are totally confused.

I have told you already that 95% of our anti-piracy efforts (and discoveries) involve these large publishing and embroidery design companies (not small embroiderers), but I think you feel more like some kind of hero by completely ignoring that reality and making yourself out to be “the champion of the little people”. Perhaps you are putting a bit too much Getty into your tea these days.

I also found out this morning that some of these people are now copying a picture of me that your “professional” cohort, Mathew Chan, has allowed to be posted on your web site, and are using it as a dart board. What does that have to do with your stated mission, Oscar? You are turning your web site into a circus.

Are you proud of yourself, Oscar? Is this what you worked so hard to achieve in your career. Would you teach any of your students to do their important legal work in this manner? It may take several decades to build up a good reputation in your field, but I can assure you in only takes a couple of months, or perhaps even weeks, to completely destroy one.

To summarize my thoughts, I am shocked by what I see coming out of both you and Mathew ... or at least many of your loyal followers and readers are presenting it that way.

Please set the record straight and tell these people the truth.

George Riddick
Imageline, Inc.

11

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

« on: March 08, 2009, 09:54:10 PM »

Hello Oscar and Mathew ... and any embroiderers who might be listening

I am really not used to debating subjects of this significance through a public forum like this, but since the editors of this site continue to post statements that are not accurate about me, personally, and about the way Imageline conducts its business, I feel in this case I have little choice.

Oscar's statement earlier today that Imageline routinely demands that people turn over their embroidery designs as part of all of our settlement discussions is simply not true. If you read the post below, you will find quite a few other things that Oscar and Mathew have told people seeking objective straight-forward advice that simply are not true.

It is also vitally important, in my view, that you understand that everyone we have approached in the embroidery industry, and in other industries as well, is a "reseller",or a "publisher", or a "re-distributor" of embroidery digital design files. Not simply an end user who made a design to embroider on a sweater for her uncle's retirement party.

By distributing unlicensed digital property, you can be held liable to not only Imageline, but to every single end user who downloaded the unauthorized design files from you (once they are discovered), whether that was a standalone sales transaction, as part of a "design pack" or "design set" as your industry refers to bundles, through a web site promotion or contest, or for free. In fact, we suffer even greater marketplace damages when our unauthorized digital designs are given away for free.

I think it is a disservice to you for Oscar, who knows better, to compare your cases to those "end user" cases he handles for the Getty Images letter recipients (such as Mathew's own case), or to compare your potential infringement liabilities to the statutory damages applied to college students and other casual end users as part of the RIAA's (recording industry) infamous anti-piracy campaigns. Imageline is the only large volume copyright holder we know who concentrates 100% of its anti-piracy efforts on these resellers and other middlemen ... not end users.

In other words, if you distributed one of our proprietary designs (regardless of whether or not you knew it was ours, or equally important, certainly not yours, in the first place) to 1,500 people over a 2-year period, the average infringement penalty you would pay Imageline under our standard settlement rate chart would be less than $5.00 per end user infringer. We release all 1,500 end users, and you, in our typical settlement agreement. Compare that to the $1,300.00 per end user infringer Mathew claims Getty is trying to charge him.

I have NEVER seen or read about a judge awarding the lower end of the statutory scale in a "distribution" case like the ones we pursue. And Oscar cannot name you any either. What he has told you is misleading. Ask a competent IP attorney who you know, or perhaps one that has done work for one of your friends or business associates. Doesn't the embroidery industry have associations that provide this kind of advice and related services to its members? That's always a great place to start.

Finally, I must explain to you one more thing. I asked Oscar politely to explain this to you and he has thus far chosen not to say a single word about it. It is VERY important and relevant to you. These claims are over and above any infringement claims that might be made against you.

There is a relatively new section of our copyright laws in this country which originated from the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (if you call October 1998 "relatively new", that is). In Section 1202 of the DMCA there is language that pertains to exactly what most embroidery designers and digitizers do to Imageline's proprietary digital vector files without any authorization from Imageline, whatsoever.

The second paragraph of Section 1202 essentially says you cannot remove any copyright markings, codes, or references that are embedded into the original digital files of a copyight owner. The first paragraph of Section 1202 states that you cannot apply your own false markings on any digital design you make from a copyighted image that belongs to someone else. Most of the infringed embroidery designs we have discovered thus far are marketed by the embroidery design "digitizer", "distributor" or "web site operator", who claims they own the copyrights to all of the designs on their web site and in their products. These statements and actions are false and misleading and have severe potential consquences.

Both Section 1202 provisions call for mandatory damages of between $2,500.00 and $25,000.00 per altered or falsely identified design. And the district court judge typically does not have the same decretion here as he/she has with standard copyright infringement damages. Why you have not been told this critical information by anyone other than me before now is a complete mystery to me. Be sure to ask your attorney.

I am sorry for the length of this e-mail, but if we do not point this out to you, then who will? Below is my answer to Oscar's post this morning.

**********************************************************************************************************************************************************************

Dear Oscar,

Overall, I think you did a really nice job on the document you prepared yesterday and submitted for posting to your “extortionletter” web site. Your advice for people caught in difficult situations going forward is clear, soft-spoken, and unambiguous.

I must take exception to your characterization of me and Imageline, however. While you seem to have approached the Getty Images issues with a well thought out plan, thorough research, and well-informed commentary, it is my view that your web site editors (presumably Mathew Chan) and you, personally, overreacted to the entire embroidery controversy, and did not handle this situation professionally at all. You know that this is an accurate, and fair, assessment now that some of the true facts are surfacing for the very first time among some of your readers and affiliated “informers”.

Why do you think the i-reports were forced off of the Internet? CNN knows when someone completely fabricates a story.

I never once questioned your “abilities”, Oscar, and I really do not appreciate the fact that you are now claiming publicly that I did. Your “motivations”, on the other hand, where Imageline is concerned anyway, are very much in question in my view. Imageline has fought for the “underdog” for its entire existence, and we have never once had any claims filed against us, copyright or otherwise, that were substantiated.

We have never yet had to file a lawsuit against anyone who was smaller than us, nor even close to our size, for that matter. It is your comments, such as “DO NOT SETTLE”, that lead to unnecessary lawsuits being filed, Oscar, not our aggressive attempts at trying to reach a settlement that both parties are reasonably satisfied with and participate in structuring. Don’t you think it is a bit self-serving for you to claim that business people are not smart enough to work out creative settlements among themselves on occasion?

We just seem to have a huge disagreement on one major fact. We believe that the correct way to curtail digital piracy is through strict and consistent enforcement of our current copyright laws in this country, and settlements that reflect the total extent of the unlawful distribution that has occurred, and release all truly innocent participants in the process. You apparently believe that the best way to achieve that objective is to look for legal loopholes (i.e. registrations issues) and to not hold re-sellers accountable for their unlawful actions. And then lobby to try and change our existing laws. Am I correct in this assumption?

In fact, we tried very hard to make the “slap on the wrist” resolution you seem to support work back in the early 2000s. Remember, we always deal with resellers and middlemen, not end users. We found, without a doubt, that all that approach did was further encourage those who might be inclined to infringe to repeat their actions time and time again. That suggestion (ask people nicely to take down the infringements and then go away) simply does not work with people who are making money by distributing the pirated goods. I wish it did, but it does not and we can prove it. Not many small copyright owners can, as they do not have the field experience that we do here at Imageline.

I am not sure either you or Mr. Chan is used to someone who might question what you are doing over the public “cyberways”. As a matter of fact, from what I read this morning, Mr. Chan has apparently once again reneged on his promise to his readers and decided NOT to post the e-mail response I sent to him over the weekend. Don’t you believe your audience deserves to hear both sides of this debate, Oscar? I sure do.

Anyway, here is where I believe both you and Mr. Chan made some very serious errors in judgment when you first learned about these disputes between Imageline and certain members of the embroidery design community:

1). You made the false assumption that Imageline might not own the images we identified as infringing.

2) You made the false assumption that these embroiderers were “end users”, and not “dealers” and “distributors” making money off of their infringing activities and subjecting hundreds, if not thousands, of their end users to potential liability for copyright infringement claims down the road, as well.

3) You made the false assumption that Imageline did not have professional legal representation that it uses in cases where settlements are not likely or possible.

4) You made the false assumption that there was some kind of “conspiracy” going on between Imageline and small embroidery companies, and totally criticized and defamed a very nice, intelligent, and honest young lady in the process. This was, and still is, shameful.

5) You made the false assumption that Imageline images could be obtained legally by these people from other sources, such as www.clipart.com, and others, and would therefore help support their claims of “innocence”.

6) You made the false assumption that Imageline did not register the bulk if its proprietary illustrations and designs with the U.S. Copyright Office.

7) You made misleading statements that our actions were more egregious than Getty Images, Jupiter images, and Masterfile combined, after questioning some of those companies as it pertains to criminal offenses and RICO violations. I wonder how often those misleading statements will come back and bite you, and potentially prejudice some of your current and prospective clients?

You continuously led your readers to believe that their actions will be considered “innocent” by the courts, when the fact is they are all engaged in the design and production business and either knew, or certainly “should have known”, that their actions were illegal. That is why the “non-willful” range for what you call “innocent infringers” goes up to $30,000.00 per independent infringement, Oscar, and is not somewhat “fixed” at the “exceptional” rate of $200.00, as you seem to imply in many of your postings.

And the thing that has us most concerned down here at Imageline is:

9) You seem to advise these readers to go out and destroy evidence from archive.org, their cache files, or wherever, that their web sites, indeed, once displayed and distributed infringing materials, and you give them this advice AFTER they have received official notice of copyright infringement from Imageline, and presumably others as well. Isn’t that encouraging people who are not yet even your clients to destroy evidence, Oscar? Last time I checked, even lawyers were not allowed to do such things in this country.

In closing, let me tell you this directly rather than you deciding to post yet another erroneous, unsubstantiated, anonymous comment from one our your readers who has been caught infringing and distributing stolen property.

I am pleased that some of these people might hire you, or a competent intellectual property lawyer in their own communities, as their legal representative. We ALWAYS advise this. We are almost always better equipped to discuss these violations, and their potential consequences, rationally with someone who understands the law and takes the time to truly understand the facts behind each of our claims. Did I tell you we have never had a claim thrown out of court for being frivolous and/or mis-represented?

I don’t dislike you, Oscar. This is not personal. Nor do I think you are not an excellent attorney. I do think Mr. Chan is misguided, totally obsessed with his own personal issues with Getty, and out of his league, and I can assure you I am not the only one who feels this way, as well.

I am simply trying to tell you that you rushed to judgment in these embroidery cases, and I think, consequently, both you and Mathew have done a real disservice to a group of people who may not know any better, and could really benefit from SOMEONE telling them the truth.

Again, I appreciate the mild manner in which you worded most of the substantive part of your posting on www.extortionletterinfo.com last night.

Perhaps we will be able to figure out how to work together to resolve some of these disputes in a friendly and professional manner.

Sincerely,

George

George P. Riddick, III
Chairman/CEO
Imageline, Inc.