Messages

1

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Pixsy demand email

« on: June 30, 2018, 11:46:19 AM »

Thanks for all that you do Matthew!

Congratulations on having your case resolved.  My comments inline.

It's quite possible that Pixsy is playing some sort of "long game" here and will come back at me with this claim again or even a new claim. However, I'm hopeful this is the end.

That is paranoid thinking. There is no advantage for them to lie to you in this manner. If it is dropped and they told you, be happy and move on. It is almost as if you are asking for the to revive whatever case they had against you.

 My case would be an example that shows you're better off responding to the claim and acting in good faith. No matter who you are dealing with, don't let the threats of a bad actor control the actions you need to take when a claim of copyright infringement is made against you.

I generally tell people to respond and make strong arguments if there are facts that help your position. People who want to stay silent generally let the other side assume the worst. I have found that most victims have a very difficult time understanding this basic concept. They can't understand the concept of discussion, debate, and standing by your position to defuse the situation  vs. trying to beg and "convince" the other side to drop the case. Most of the time, people don't announce they will drop the case. They just quietly go away.  Nearly everyone wants the matter to be black and white which is almost never the case and leads to people foolishly settling when sometimes they don't need to.

The only actions I took were those required by law when a DMCA takedown notice is given. I wrote no more than a total of 10 sentences stretched across three emails. I made no mention in my emails of the claims I knew were false nor of the "solutions" Pixsy was offering because it's all irrelevant in a formal takedown process. My replies were a reflection that I "educated myself", knew the copyright holder's responsibilities, and knew my responsibilities. I think the rep from Pixsy knew (because I knew) the right thing to do legally and for their client was to move on and be satisfied that I promptly removed the image the user had uploaded to the website.

I would agree with your statement. Getting smart and giving informed responses go a long way to defusing any potential claims. They may never publicly admit it.  But having a good informed, educated, and firm response often goes a long way to "lessening" any claim and impetus to pursue certain parties.

I have seen so many people do absolutely dumb things like copy template letters from the Internet and send them in.  It does nothing except show the sender of that letter how lazy and uninformed they are. They think the recipients of the letter will sudden by stopped in their tracks by a widespread template latter. 

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Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Pixsy demand email

« on: June 30, 2018, 11:43:30 AM »

Hi All,
  Thank you for this thread. We are right now going through this same exact thing with these folks. So Zeke: did you say you recently registered your DMCA? We had one from years ago, but after being contacted by these... folks... I went in and noticed it had old info and updated it with new dbas and our updated address, and for some reason it does not show as being in affect until a couple of weeks ago as their rep pointed out, thus claiming it was not in effect at the time of the violation, and thus not legit. Apparently this was not an issue in your case? Any additional info on that landmark case mentioned by someone else a few posts earlier?
  In our situation, we host something similar to a blog/magazine with regular weekly/monthly columnists who submit periodic stories using our standard templates with their own photos and text. Much of it, including all the photos are provided directly by their news sources (government reps/departments, multi-million$ corps, Press releases, etc.).
 These Pix folks came up with one photo among thousands on our domain, taken by a small-time photographer, currently with a website (haven't checked how long it was up), that was submitted to our writer by one of the major corporations about 2 years ago. Perhaps they paid for the rights to it - perhaps their PR person stole it - we don't know for sure other than that it was provided by this major company.  Unfortunately the company was recently sold out to a competitor, so no one who would have had a clue is still there. It included a typical photographer embedded copyright logo/notice (which the Pix-folks claimed is a watermark), as do all photos we allow including those taken by the authors themselves, indicating the photographer, so no one thought twice about it.
  I told Pix this, and to go after these other folks. They responded that WE were responsible for pursuing any monetary assistance from them. I refrained from responding what I wanted to, but I have ignored their latest threats to refer it to their attorneys and tack on attorney fees, etc. 
  The Pix-folks claimed that the one on our domain was a copy of the one on the photographer's website, but the one on ours is actually a wider view and different dimensions and of much better quality, suggesting that it WAS in fact obtained elsewhere.
  Where would I find the previously mentioned info about the photographer needing to register the copyright within a certain time limit after the photo was taken?
  I'm hoping this will be the extent of their contact, but any other feedback on what HAS worked, and/or suggestions for future procedure or something I may be missing either for against us, would be helpful for us and many others. This is a great thread and I think it should be maintained and archived for future use.

  Thanks again.
  Mike

Mike,

As I said before I basically just followed what was suggested here: http://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/protecting-yourself-against-copyright-claims-based-user-content .  I basically responded with nothing more than a "thank you" for the notification and I notified them of my actions (removed image, account holder has been notified of the claim). Although you had the best intentions, it sounds like you may have responded with a lot more info than required for a take-down notification.

Regarding the DMCA registration, it never came up and I never acknowledged that I was following the procedure of a DMCA take down. They recognized my actions were following DMCA procedures though as they were the ones that first acknowledged the DMCA as the reason for dropping the case. I wouldn't get too hung up on needing to update your DMCA designated agent information. The fact that Pixsy was able to contact you to make a claim shows that that any discrepancies in the record was not a barrier for the copyright holder to contact you.

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Higbee Associates Letter & Lawsuits Forum / Re: Higbee & Nick Youngson Extortion Scam

« on: June 02, 2018, 04:47:31 PM »

With regards to the image you referenced, it falls under the Creative Commons 3 - CC BY-SA 3.0. Under this license (Creative Commons offers different types of licenses), you're not simply able to use the image freely under all conditions. Instead you're required to show attribution: "You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use". This is where I think most people are setting themselves up by failing to follow the terms of the license. 

This is one of the images Higbee is trying to extort money from:

http://www.creative-commons-images.com/highway-signs/d/domain-registration.html

It clearly states:  "The picture below related to the word Domain Registration is licensed by R M Media Ltd under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license which permits the free use of the image for any purpose including commercial use and also permits the image to be modified"

In my opinion, that makes any demand for cash laughable.  Higbee should know these images are being offered for free.  Do they do reverse image searches or look at a client's website?
...

Offering the images for free and them sending Higbee after them?  That is massive extortion and unethical as hell.  Wonder what the bar association would say?

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Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Pixsy demand email

« on: June 01, 2018, 11:26:17 PM »

I received an email from Pixsy that they discontinued their case against me! It's quite possible that Pixsy is playing some sort of "long game" here and will come back at me with this claim again or even a new claim. However, I'm hopeful this is the end. My case would be an example that shows you're better off responding to the claim and acting in good faith. No matter who you are dealing with, don't let the threats of a bad actor control the actions you need to take when a claim of copyright infringement is made against you.

The only actions I took were those required by law when a DMCA takedown notice is given. I wrote no more than a total of 10 sentences stretched across three emails. I made no mention in my emails of the claims I knew were false nor of the "solutions" Pixsy was offering because it's all irrelevant in a formal takedown process. My replies were a reflection that I "educated myself", knew the copyright holder's responsibilities, and knew my responsibilities. I think the rep from Pixsy knew (because I knew) the right thing to do legally and for their client was to move on and be satisfied that I promptly removed the image the user had uploaded to the website.

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Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Pixsy demand email

« on: May 30, 2018, 11:28:54 PM »

Yes, this is where I'm going with this. I definitely understand the need for the copyright owners and those working on their behalf to do what's in their best interest. But the tactics I argue that these "resolutions services" are using indeed includes misrepresenting facts. In the long run I believe the approach they are using is not in the best interest of their clients (they need a better business model too). I just can't believe these are legal tactics they're using to get compensation for their clients. I've known loan sharks (really) that were more honest in their approach than the initial documents sent my way.

My conversation via email with Pixsy has been brief so far since the initial email and the questions they are asking are reasonable for someone representing the copyright holder. I've made certain my answers are accurate, brief, and polite. Basically, I'm following the law of my responsibilities as the website owner. We'll see how this goes.

However, their duty to do that is owed to their clients, not you. If they were intentionallly misrepresenting facts to you in effort to extract money from you, there may be a cause of action under state law.

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Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Pixsy demand email

« on: May 28, 2018, 09:08:48 AM »

You will get more letters.. If you registered the DMCA agent after the fact, it's to late, can't remember the case at the moment, but it was ruled on in a believe the 9th Circuit.

You're absolutely right, I received my second letter.   

Yes, a DMCA agent is under more obligations and just registering alone to protect themselves from the action of the user. In my particular case though, I have a lot more of the law behind me to protect me against the claims, misleading evidence, and solutions being offered by Pixsy. The evidence and unauthorized use report Pixsy filed to my site contains so many errors and false claims that I'm not even certain they know which image they're claiming is being infringed. No matter what the image in question is, every single artwork he registered under his name with the U.S. Copyright office (via several group registration) was more than a year after creation and at least 6 months after the user of this image published their the image.

Here is my question, the "solution" being offered by Pixsy is a solution that in itself offers a license in direct conflict with the original license. The two licenses aren't compatible and I doubt the license being offered by Pixsy is even legally binding. Given that much of the document is misleading and the solution likely isn't even legal, why isn't Pixsy working on behalf of their client not held liable themselves for making false accusations. Has anyone attempted to make these "resolution services" accountable for their actions?

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Higbee Associates Letter & Lawsuits Forum / Re: Letter from Lynn Burke, Sanders Law

« on: May 26, 2018, 01:05:54 PM »

I really think it's not in anyone's best interest to use the "Google said it was free" defense. Even for images that have been labeled for reuse and modification, Google specifically says "Images may be subject to copyright". When you use an image it is on you to make sure you follow the source of the image and understand the license being offered for that image.

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Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Pixsy demand email

« on: May 26, 2018, 11:04:58 AM »

I want to thank everybody in this forum that has encouraged the best way to deal with claims of copyright infringement is to "get educated". After running websites for 15 years, I received my very first claim of copyright infringement and it was from Pixsy. I initially panicked but then Google searched and found places like this. After three days of reading about copyright laws, I've finally convinced myself that many of the facts and claims made by Pixsy were misleading, incorrect, and in some cases I would consider fraudulent.

One thing I did learn was that if your website hosts a forum, blog, etc and the copyright infringement claim is against content uploaded by another user...you may be protected by "safe-harbor" provisions in the DMCA as an online service providers. This does require you to be proactive and register as a designated agent for takedown notices with the U.S. Copyright office for a small fee. You'll also have to ensure that you provide the same contact information on your website. And that's exactly what I did. I found this article to be very helpful: http://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/protecting-yourself-against-copyright-claims-based-user-content

So, my response to Pixsy's email was quite simple. I notified them that I removed the image they claimed was being infringed; I told Pixsy I communicated to the user the image was removed; and I also told Pixsy that I notified the user that he/she may counter-file a notice against Pixsy's claim.  I suspect Pixsy will send more threatening letters my way but at least there is now an electronic record that I took all actions required by copyright law which should protect me from liability of the claims made by Pixsy. My response was no more than three sentences and I gave them only what was required by law.