Messages

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Higbee Associates Letter & Lawsuits Forum / Re: Receive extortion letter from Matthew K. Higbee today - need advice

« on: May 22, 2018, 08:02:09 AM »

Appreciate the update. Personally I'm not sure if the 3 year filing deadline is from the date of first infringement or the date they discovered the infringement. Someone who knows more than me can clear that up.

Has anyone been tracking Higbee's filings noticed if the volume has gone down in the last few months? The small sample impression I'm seeing from posts on here is he is rattling cages with threats but I haven't seen a lot of posts about being sued so maybe he is being more selective in what cases he spends money filing on.

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Higbee Associates Letter & Lawsuits Forum / Re: A new twist on Higbee

« on: April 08, 2018, 09:35:28 PM »

Appreciate the update. It sounds like you are in the stage a lot of us are at or have been through which is the post 15 day lawsuit filing threat. Higbee is crazy but I do think the longer you go without hearing from them the more time is on your side. I’ve seen some posts about him coming back on someone after a lull but I don’t know how common that is.

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Higbee Associates Letter & Lawsuits Forum / Re: NY Supreme Court Disqualifies Higbee lawyer: Virtual offices not sufficient

« on: April 04, 2018, 08:15:29 AM »

I want to send the defense lawyer that achieved this a Christmas present and a big LOL singing telegram to Higbee's main office.

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Higbee Associates Letter & Lawsuits Forum / Re: Receive extortion letter from Matthew K. Higbee today - need advice

« on: April 03, 2018, 08:20:56 AM »

And from my limited experience the impression I have from Higbee is everything up to the template lawsuit and 15 day threat is probably a standard script they run on everyone. There seems to be more variation for what happens after that based on the facts of each case.

My 15 days passed a long time ago, and not a word from them since. I agree communications with them during the script phase probably don’t go very far because they just follow the script and aren’t even listening most likely. If the person I’m talking with isn’t listening then I just stop wasting my time talking and deal with it in court if necessary.

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Higbee Associates Letter & Lawsuits Forum / Re: Receive extortion letter from Matthew K. Higbee today - need advice

« on: April 02, 2018, 08:39:09 AM »

Many people have received the template lawsuit with the 15 day threat. Many people have also not had a suit filed against them in the 15 days. Read up on here about your particular plaintiff that Higbee is representing because some are more aggressive than others and how far they push depends on the specific facts of your situation. Ongoing infringement is likely to generate a lawsuit while other facts usually reduce that risk.

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Higbee Associates Letter & Lawsuits Forum / Re: New Higbee / RM Media / Nick Youngson case filed in Arizona

« on: April 01, 2018, 09:58:53 AM »

I completely agree but I'm also thinking that someone who got a Higbee letter (more than one most likely) and was negligent enough to leave the images up anyway probably is not going to be presenting a vigorous defense, or any defense for that matter. If he didn't want to spend 5 minutes to remove the images and avoid the problem I have a hard time seeing this guy spend thousands of dollars on an attorney. And while any minimal pro se answer may be enough to technically trigger the discovery requirements, unless there is an attorney on the defense side holding Higbee's feet to the fire with sanctions etc. for non compliance most judges aren't going to jump in until the defense brings the issue to them to rule on. Just my practical take.

Whether the defendant is sympathetic or not, the case is a good opportunity to short-circuit the line of RM Media letters and filings. If defendant files a responsive pleading, Higbee has to roll out a fair amount of discovery quickly. If they do, then it gives the chance to find out about ownership, backing, assignments, etc. If they don't and they decide to drop the case, there are still mechanisms to keep the matter alive -- counterclaim, declaratory judgment, etc.

Of course, any lawyer calling them to offer pro bono or "low bono" assistance here would have to paint the big picture to ensure that the case gets that far. Any ideas if EFF or another organization would back this?

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Higbee Associates Letter & Lawsuits Forum / Re: New Higbee / RM Media / Nick Youngson case filed in Arizona

« on: March 29, 2018, 09:44:05 AM »

Yeah, looks like a continued infringement case where they did not take the images down. Fits the pattern of that first RM filing in California I think it was.

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Higbee Associates Letter & Lawsuits Forum / Re: New Higbee / RM Media / Nick Youngson case filed in Arizona

« on: March 23, 2018, 09:17:53 AM »

That's interesting. But unless the defendant has a competent attorney to enforce compliance from Higbee I wouldn't expect much to come out of it.

Could you tell from the complaint any unique facts that led to filing a case? Did they leave the images up? Was it a lot of images? Were they up for a long time? The RM filings are sparse and selective last time I checked.

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Higbee Associates Letter & Lawsuits Forum / Re: New RM Media Ltd / Nick Youngson Websites: WeBuyPics.com & AlphaStockImages.com

« on: February 28, 2018, 09:18:21 AM »

I could have the wrong guy, but the fancy new RM Media website lists Paul Clunes as their licensing guy. One of the top results that comes up is a Paul Clunes Townsend (also in England) who may or may not be the owner of a pub. Certainly an interesting cast of characters in this operation. Higbee goes from expungement lawyer to copyright troll and pub owner goes to photo licensing guru.

https://www.facebook.com/thekingshead

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Higbee Associates Letter & Lawsuits Forum / Re: Higbee & Assoc. Lists RM Media Ltd in Nick Youngson Template Lawsuit

« on: February 08, 2018, 02:24:48 PM »

Might be old news but didn’t see it mentioned elsewhere, looks like Youngson & RM have gotten other people involved. No idea who they are or if they are also in England. http://rmmedia.ltd.uk

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Higbee Associates Letter & Lawsuits Forum / Re: Higbee response to my email

« on: January 17, 2018, 09:43:34 PM »

I often wonder about the outcomes of many of the earlier Higbee posts also. I know people wouldn’t want to share the outcomes in a format tied to their username, but since Higbee is such a volume troll maybe someone can start up a google shared doc (or anything) where people can share outcomes anonymously. That would be good info for everyone dealing with Higbee now and in the future.

Did you actually go to court?

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Higbee Associates Letter & Lawsuits Forum / Re: Higbee Case Study, Sadowski v. Bowling et al

« on: January 03, 2018, 10:27:28 AM »

That is one of the reasons I'm amazed at how many settlements he even gets, primarily for cases filed in locations that he would have to travel to or that his client would have to travel to. Like that weed place he filed against for the Youngson guy in England, if I was a defendant in a Youngson suit I would be sitting that out until trial and force Youngson to show up + Higbee to pay some local attorneys to show up for trial. In Higbee's dream world he may get his legal fees in a judgment but I don't see clients getting travel fees as part of a judgment and that is out of pocket up front, so force their hand.

Once he files the pressure kind of shifts to Higbee for these far away cases after he loses on Summary Judgment because a trial date becomes inevitable, and that is the last thing he wants I'd wager.

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Higbee Associates Letter & Lawsuits Forum / Re: Service to "fight back" against Higbee

« on: December 27, 2017, 05:17:57 PM »

I can't prove it, but when I first looked into some of Higbee's cases I got the impression he is probably being fed cases from https://www.imagerights.com/recovery or other comparable outfits because I really doubt all these people were suddenly finding this expungement attorney to do copyright work as much as he found lead sources. For those leads I'd wager the client has no involvement in any decisions and probably knows next to nothing of the details. They just wait for their check.

I see it more of Higbee selling "options" to his clients...in other words he's not making the decision, but selling the idea to the client who then agrees to move forward..He is a money hungry slob, and could probably care less about his clients at the end of the day, so what does he care if he files and loses..

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Higbee Associates Letter & Lawsuits Forum / Re: Service to "fight back" against Higbee

« on: December 26, 2017, 07:59:54 PM »

I wondered if Higbee is involved in that operation so he either gets the settlement money directly to himself or he has a stooge charging outrageous fees for this non-representation against him. Either way, he gets paid.

And in normal attorney client relationships it is always the client's call to file a suit, but if you look at the power of attorney Higbee uses and some of his cases I'm still very skeptical that his 'clients' are all making the decision to file and paying the filing fees. I very much believe in the volume operation (not all his clients are volume filers) Higbee is under the impression his clients are assigning these decisions to him and he advances filing fees and expenses as he sees fit. Unless someone can convince me that guy Youngson in England agreed to pay $400 out of his pocket to file a case in California where he will likely never show up for trial and lose by default if the defendant doesn't fold before trial. Or why one of Higbee's clients filed a lawsuit after agreeing to a $1,000 settlement to gain a confidentiality clause that no judge would give. A lot of Higbee's moves indicate to me that he is the decision maker, not the client.

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Higbee Associates Letter & Lawsuits Forum / Re: Higbee claim for a shared YouTube video thumbnail + video title

« on: December 19, 2017, 10:25:51 AM »

$15k for a thumbnail? Maybe the easy settlements are drying up for Higbee as the word gets out about him so he is trying to get more from fewer people. Let’s keep this site in the top 5 search results for when people search this clown after getting his letters.