Messages

76

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Question for Greg Troy

« on: January 12, 2014, 01:14:30 PM »

Thanks. That's very helpful to know.  Of all the solutions I have read here, I think I liked the way you handled it most.  I too believe in upholding the law and artists rights.  Also like you, I believe the negotiation should be fair, rather than an attempt to extort many times the actual value of an image.  I felt that you made a very honest attempt to settle with them at a fair price.

I do plan to fight back against BWP.  I have been laying out my own step-by-step strategy in dealing with them.  I know they are not Getty but many of the similarities lead me to believe that my responses to them can be tailored around successful past interactions with Getty.

At this stage, I have not planned to "out" myself just yet.  However, I believe that people do need to stand up to these practices.  I also plan to document and share at least portions of my experience for others to learn from.  I very much appreciated that you began a campaign of filing complaint letters to various authorities.  I have not yet experienced how or if BWP negotiates.  If it goes anything like Getty or other companies, I too will be threatening to, as well as following through with, send letters to the same authorities.  I plan to structure these letters very closely to the examples you and others have posted.  Any suggestions about specific wording changes you would make or things you have learned would be appreciated. 

77

Getty Images Letter Forum / Question for Greg Troy

« on: January 11, 2014, 09:23:52 PM »

Greg, I just finished reading all of your back and forth with Getty, all your complaint letters, and your 17 page forum thread about your experiment.  First of all, thank you for being so open and sharing all of that.  Now to my question.  Most people here say to offer as little information as possible.  It seems to me that in your initial letter to Getty, you offered a lot of information, including some background information on how you came to use the image that alerted them to you.  In retrospect, do you feel that you gave up too much?  Would you change that initial response after all the time you have spent here at ELI?

78

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Received a Complaint from BWP Media USA

« on: January 10, 2014, 03:02:52 PM »

First of all, thanks for responding Oscar.  I appreciate you taking the time.

Now, well, it happened today.  Almost exactly 8 weeks from my response to the claim filed with domains by proxy, I received a paper letter.  I was hoping I was in the clear because it took so long.  In fact, I almost posted earlier before receiving the letter as an update.

It does not include a pending docket number or anything like other examples I have seen.  It is just printed on regular printer paper like you would buy for yourself at the store.  It's even pretty crappy inkjet printing.  The letter advises to do all business via phone or email, no mention of paper.  It was not delivered certified.

It contains mention of a single "infringement".  Just a screen shot and a web address.  Nothing more in the way of evidence.  The first four pages are basically a copyright "tutorial" convincing me of why I should pay a settlement.  It does not suggest a settlement amount, which I thought was generally considered a good thing to ask for when demanding a settlement before a lawsuit.

Any progress or reports from anybody else who has received?  Are you waiting it out?  Did you respond past this phase?  I have a response almost formulated to send but I'm going to sleep on it for a few days to decide if I will even respond.

Has any of these gone to trial as far as anybody knows?  There doesn't seem to be any type of discussion of how serious these guys are anywhere on the net.  I check the Justia listings every day and watch the numbers of trials go up against LLCs.  I also saw Sandra Rose's impending lawsuit has made a bit of a splash in the new year.  Anybody have any helpful new info?

79

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Question

« on: December 10, 2013, 08:19:25 PM »

As Robert said, robots.txt is a file on the root of your server.  His point about the meta tag is a great one as well.  I forgot that I put that in my files as well.  In my case, I wanted to make sure all robot activity to my site, including Google, stopped so I used this variation:

<meta name="robots" content="noindex, nofollow, noarchive">

Also, there is a lot of information here about stopping PicScout and other robots that are looking to catch you infringing.  I suggest you look up some of those topics as well.  I used some of those techniques.  A user here named lucia highly recommends this specific piece of code - http://www.spambotsecurity.com/zbblock.php

80

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Question

« on: December 10, 2013, 07:50:48 AM »

Add a robots.txt to your site to block the Internet Archive.  I use the following snippet to block the Archive and other robots currently:

User-agent: ia_archiver
Disallow: /

User-agent: *
Disallow: /

This will get them to stop coming in the short term.  They took about a week to respond to my email.  They put up a bit of an argument so it was another three days after that before they notified me that they had officially removed my backup.

So definitely use the robots.txt if you need to stop it fast.  Then wait for the official removal.

81

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Today I Received my "Letter"

« on: December 04, 2013, 09:34:14 PM »

That's a really different and refreshing perspective, perplexed.  I found myself asking for quite the miracle in this situation as well.  It's not a position you see represented too much.

82

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Need an opinion on a letter I received.

« on: December 02, 2013, 09:37:05 PM »

Thanks, Greg.  I actually read all of those over the last few days.  Even re-read a number of them.  I think my confusion lies in that it seems from the threads you pointed out that Randy and CDL act alone but john makes me think that CDL is just part of a larger process with Sanders.  Any thoughts on that?

83

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Need an opinion on a letter I received.

« on: December 02, 2013, 08:08:42 PM »

I guess that is what confuses me a bit too.  I know what you are saying in the case of RIAA, MPAA, etc.  I know they need somebody technical to get the person's data to pass on to a law firm. 

I think where it breaks down for me is that the CDL seems to play multiple roles the troll process.  I feel like I have seen discussions here where CDL directly does the threatening of a suit.  Maybe it was in the discussion of this blog posting - https://web.archive.org/web/20120706131449/http://www.bitemybooks.com/2012/07/submitted-for-approval-of-midnight.html - that I saw that.  I don't remember.  Then I saw communications posted from Randy Taylor soliciting lawyers to join forces with him.  Does anybody know for sure what his role is?

84

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Need an opinion on a letter I received.

« on: December 02, 2013, 09:48:22 AM »

So are you saying they send in somebody different when there is a chance they don't know who they are dealing with?

85

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Need an opinion on a letter I received.

« on: December 02, 2013, 02:58:52 AM »

Here's a new question, john82.  In my research so far, everyone else seems to have received a letter from Sanders Law.  I have yet to receive a paper letter, but the DMCA complaint filed with my registrar was from an R. Taylor at Copyright Defense League.  Have you come across any other cases where CDL is involved?  Or is this merely a process?  Will R. Taylor file the DMCA to get my personal information and then pass it along to Sanders to send me a letter?  From what I have read on site here, it seems that R. Taylor is not an attorney of any sort.  I can't figure out why everyone else is receiving contact from someone at Sanders and I have, thus far, only received from CDL.

86

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Question About Finding the True Owner of an Image

« on: December 02, 2013, 02:53:31 AM »

After several hours and a lot more digging, I think I answered my own question.  It seems that extremely similar images, but not exact, from the same set are registered to both Clint Brewer/Splash News and PCN.  How the set is split is a mystery to me but that seems to be the case.

87

Getty Images Letter Forum / Question About Finding the True Owner of an Image

« on: December 01, 2013, 04:00:14 PM »

As part of my learning process, I have taken a semi-random image from a certain source.  (Note, I'm specifically being a little vague just for safety and anonymity).  I'm attempting to locate the original source for the image.  In a search I have found what appear to be multiple sources claiming ownership of the same image.  I'm wondering if there is any connection between these entities or how one might find the true owner of an image.  The image I am using has the following claims to ownership:

Clint Brewer, Splash News
Pedro Andrade/ KVS, Pacific Coast News
Corbis
BWP Media

What I'm wondering is, are there connections to any of these?  For example, I have seen that BWP often represents PCN - but are they the same?  Can BWP claim ownership of PCN images?  Is Splash News related to PCN or BWP?  Can Clint Brewer and Pedro Andrade both rightfully claim copyright to the image in question?  This information is gleaned from websites, photo credits, and the image metadata itself.  Some people here seem quite knowledgeable about these sorts of connections.  I did some searching here and on google and I am still confused.

88

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Need an opinion on a letter I received.

« on: December 01, 2013, 03:04:33 PM »

Wow, there is a lot of terminology that I have never heard of.  Looks like it's time to go find some answers and if or how any of those things apply.

89

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Need an opinion on a letter I received.

« on: December 01, 2013, 02:18:49 PM »

john82, I realize you have invested personal funds in this.  I'm curious, did you see examples of the strongly worded letters that were sent by lawyers to BWP?  I would like to know some of the inaccuracies they pointed out.  If you do have examples, I would be willing to reimburse you for a look at some of those.

90

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Terms of Service Prohibiting Crawlers and Bots?

« on: December 01, 2013, 02:15:59 PM »

That brings me to the question: how binding are any website terms of use then?  For example, most sites have something that says a little bit about browsing the site means you agree to the terms.  And by agreeing to the terms by simply browsing, you often agree that images are not fair game, text cannot be copied, etc.  I realize there are other laws at play, but isn't it kind of the same thing?  I mean, just because your bot didn't read or agree to my terms doesn't mean they aren't there and being enforced.