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Messages - notarget

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1
I looked through the first 15 or so filings, searching for Pacer records. Four of them I couldn't find. But, of the 11 or so that I did find, all WERE for copyright infringement. So, something to examine to understand the profile of the folks he/his clients are filing suits against given that he's filing 5 or 6 lawsuits a month.

2
Matthew,

As always, I appreciate your fair and balanced engagement.

I am curious to know about these 72 lawsuits that Higbee's clients have supposedly had Higbee representation on. Is the data accurate? Is it misleading somehow? Everything I've read on our forum is that lawsuits by Higbee are rare. No, I'm not afraid. I'm just wanting to better understand this data. There are case name, case number, court code, case filing date, case status, and case termination dates for 72 cases filed between Jan 5 and Nov 27 of this year. Filing 6 to 7 lawsuits per month is certainly an aggressive enough rate to scare some folks.


3
I noticed this Google ad for a service that supposedly helps you fight back against Higbee (and others).

http://copyright-demand-letter.com/higbee-associates-copyright/

I counted 72 lawsuits that this website claims Higbee has filed this year. Their graphic claims that Higbee has a very high chance of filing a lawsuit.

After scaring you with this data, they want you to buy their service:

http://copyright-demand-letter.com/typical-prices/

For $1,499 they'll give you advice but won't represent you. Prices shoot up from there for more engagement.

Their disclaimer says this:

Outcomes are not guaranteed. This service is not a law firm. This is a referral service. This service is not yet available in all states and with all law firms. This service is not available outside of the US.

Their "About Us" page is essentially content free. It says nothing about who they are.

http://copyright-demand-letter.com/about-us/

Their WHOIS page has no owner info. (That info protected.)

Has Higbee really filed 72 lawsuits this year? What is this service not telling us?

4
My extortion letter from Higbee also asked for $15k. Yes, a good idea to include the words "Higbee" and "extortion" in relevant posts to help search engines to find us.

5
Gladiator and I exchanged a few private messages. Gladiator shared his Higbee claim number and the rough date when he got his extortion letter. Based on his claim number and mine, Higbee is sending roughly 150 letters a month. This assumes a simple number assigning process where each extortion letter bumps the count up by 1.

The good news is that I've been able to help someone. By posting enough of my story, Gladiator was able to find this forum and hopefully relax enough to look critically at the situation and not panic.

6
Higbee Associates Letter & Lawsuits Forum / Re: Higbee followup
« on: December 01, 2017, 07:50:31 PM »
It's been two weeks and I've not heard a peep from Higbee or his staff. I'd like to believe that they have figured out that I'm posting here and don't want to make waves. It might not be that hard to figure out who I am given the hints available in my posts. Or, maybe I'm dreaming.

My current thinking, if they contact me again, is to email Mr. Higbee, Mr. Adela (the intern), and Mr. Grecco (the photographer client), and make these points.

  • The images are hotlinked. You yourself make the distinction in your initial letter between the "infringing" webpage and the "infringing" file location. So, there's no case here.
  • Your offer to have your lawyers advise me re business insurance matters is an ethical violation given that you represent Mr. Grecco.
  • Does Mr. Grecco really want to pay to file a lawsuit given that there's no case and waste a judge's time explaining why your law firm is going after a blogger with a site that makes no money for hotlinking two images of the cover of a book associated with a review of that book?
  • I've spent a considerable amount of time researching this situation, posting about it at extortionletterinfo.com, and discussing my options privately with a couple of the senior members of the community.
  • If I hear from you or your office again (other than to tell me you've dropped your campaign against me) I will immediately file letters of complaint with the Bar Associations and Attorney General offices in my state and in all of the states in which you practice. And, that will be just my first action.

Thoughts?

7
Higbee Associates Letter & Lawsuits Forum / Re: Higbee followup
« on: November 21, 2017, 08:46:11 PM »
Greg,

Thanks for your engagement. Perhaps "acknowledge" is not the right word. Higbee's letter lists infringing webpages and infringing file locations. So, his software knows that where an image is hosted may not be the same as the supposedly infringing site. I've had no contact with them other than their letters so he hasn't said "yeah, you're right, you're just hotlinking the image."

I've got other questions I'll post to you in private messages.

Thanks.


8
Higbee Associates Letter & Lawsuits Forum / Re: Higbee followup
« on: November 21, 2017, 11:16:15 AM »
When I mentioned that Mr. Adela was an unpaid intern I was referring to this page:

https://www.higbeeassociates.com/interns/copyrights-internship/

"Copyright interns assist in handling cases prior to the commencement of litigation. This is an unpaid position that will provide a valuable opportunity for the student interested in a career in law to work with a fast paced national law firm."


9
Higbee Associates Letter & Lawsuits Forum / Re: Higbee followup
« on: November 21, 2017, 11:05:07 AM »
Robert and Icepick, you've convinced me to file a bunch of complaint letters. I have a couple of favors to ask.

1. Can you please point me to sample (and hopefully effective) complaint letters? I want to get a feel for the style of the letters.

2. Can you please give me some bullet items for points I want to cover in the letter? The most obvious one is that the two images were linked to and not hosted by my blog which he acknowledges in his extortion letter when he lists the infringing webpages (my blog) and the infringing file locations (Barnes and Noble). The second point is the concern you've raised re his conflict of interest. He represents photographer Michael Grecco and at the same time he is trying to give me advice re business insurance.

Also, I have to ask. What's the risk that going on the offense will increase the odds of his client taking this to court? Again, I don't believe Higbee has a case and I'm wondering if he might try to make a case that linked images are somehow an infringement. I'm willing to take that risk for two reasons: (1) Ignoring him for three years will be a drag. (2) I'd like to help others in the same boat who can follow my example but might otherwise roll over.

Icepick -- I'd be happy to send you a link to Higbee's initial letter if you like. I've posted the follow up emails on this thread already.

Oh, and I got a call from Michael Adela yesterday from Higbee's office. I let it go to voice mail. Michael sounds VERY young, VERY inexperienced, and NOT confident. He was very polite. I imagine he is one of their unpaid interns learning some lessons about our legal system.

10
Higbee Associates Letter & Lawsuits Forum / Re: Higbee followup
« on: November 18, 2017, 10:52:17 PM »
Matthew,

Thanks very much for the tough love and for the reality check. I really appreciate it. I sent a little cash your way. Have some drinks on me!

I've changed the voicemail greetings on my landline and cell phone to be the computer voice that reads my phone number. So, no identifying information. If Higbee doesn't engage in caller ID spoofing or call from a pile of numbers then I'll block his number. And, I'll add to this thread if anything of interest happens. And, yeah, I can switch to an unlisted number if I get tired of this.

Thanks again, Matthew.

Life goes on.


11
Higbee Associates Letter & Lawsuits Forum / Re: Higbee followup
« on: November 18, 2017, 01:26:36 PM »
One thing I'm starting to wonder about is whether Higbee will continue to harass me for the next three years. I don't believe he has a case, I have ZERO interest in giving him any money, I'm not afraid, and I need to start thinking about how to make him go away. And, I'm in no rush to take any action.

Sure, I can screen calls and, if I accidentally answer one of his calls, I'll tell his rep that I'm recording the call. I'll put him on speaker phone and record via my cell phone's recording app. (I'm in a one-party consent state but he's in CA which is a two-party consent state so I'll let him know I'm recording.) If he somehow doesn't hang up I'll listen and not offer up any information.

Thoughts on how I might proceed to make him go away? Yes, I might pay for that 30-minute phone call if he annoys me enough.

Thanks!

12
Higbee Associates Letter & Lawsuits Forum / Re: Higbee followup
« on: November 17, 2017, 12:13:21 PM »
Here's email #4:

Subject: Case Manager Introduction

My name is Michael.  I am a Claim Resolution Specialist at the Law Firm of Higbee & Associates.   My job is to help resolve copyright claims without them having to go to court.  I will be calling you soon to talk about a letter the law firm sent you involving a potential copyright claim by Michael Grecco Productions, Inc.   If you have not received it, I can provide you an electronic copy.

I am not one of the attorneys.  I have about 14 days to try and resolve this claim before the claim gets escalated to the attorneys.  The claim gets more stressful and expensive when it gets moved to the attorneys— my goals is to not let that happen to you.

Here are a couple of things that can help solve this potential problem:

First, if you have a license for the image that was purchased prior to the image being used, please let me know and provide it to me via email.

Second, most business liability insurance policies covers this type of claim.  Please contact your insurance provider.  If they say they do not cover this type of claim, I will be glad to have one of our attorneys review your policy to see if they are wrongfully denying you coverage.  It is in both of our interests to make sure your insurance provider is not denying you coverage that you paid for.

If you did not have a license or proper business insurance, we can talk about how to come to a reasonable resolution.  I will call you soon.

In the meantime, feel free to email me or call me on my direct line at 714-617-8363.

Thank you,

Michael Adela
Claims Resolution Specialist

13
Higbee Associates Letter & Lawsuits Forum / Re: Higbee followup
« on: November 16, 2017, 02:34:36 PM »
Robert,

Thanks for the engagement. At this point I'm going to not respond and I'll continue to post the letters I receive here. That way, if there are folks who are afraid of Higbee, they can get a reality check here.

I assume that, if someday he decides to have Grecco actually sue me, that I will have ample time to respond.

14
Higbee Associates Letter & Lawsuits Forum / Re: Higbee followup
« on: November 15, 2017, 07:11:33 PM »
p.s. Here's something I'm scratching my head about. Higbee brags about having an A+ rating with the BBB. And, he's right as you can see here: https://www.bbb.org/sdoc/business-reviews/lawyers/higbee-associates-in-santa-ana-ca-100071532
But, he's got 3 positive reviews, 1 neutral review, and 4 negative reviews. In what universe does half the reviews being negative earn the business an A+ rating? The BBB site has an explanation of how they determine the rating which makes no sense to me. And, yes, I do get that resolving complaints improves one's score but there are some supposedly resolved complaints that haven't been confirmed by the customer.

15
Higbee Associates Letter & Lawsuits Forum / Higbee followup
« on: November 15, 2017, 07:01:13 PM »
I originally posted here:

http://www.extortionletterinfo.com/forum/legal-controversies-forum/got-an-extortion-letter-from-higbee-asking-for-$15k/msg21589/

But this forum has lots more traffic so I thought I'd continue here.

I've gotten two more emails from Higbee, three and seven days after the first one.

Here's letter #2.

Subject: Ignoring this Problem Will Only Make It Worse

This is a follow-up to the letter and email that we sent you regarding the unauthorized use of copyrighted materials owned by our client, Michael Grecco. We want to work with you to resolve this in an efficient and fair manner.

Ignoring this problem will likely result in a dramatic increase in costs and stress.  Please call us or go to our secure online Resolution Center and either make a payment or let us know why you believe you do not owe money for using our client’s work.

And, here is #3.

Subject: There is Still Time to Save Money & Reduce Stress

We mailed you a letter and sent two follow-up emails about the unauthorized use of our client’s copyrighted materials. It is our client’s hope that this matter could be resolved without incurring more costs than his have already incurred. Yet, we have not heard from you.

US Copyright Law provides strong protection for owners of copyrighted material. If he is forced to file a lawsuit to resolve this matter, you could be liable for damages that are many times more than what my client is now requiring,  as well as his attorney’s fees -- not to mention your own attorney’s fees. It simply makes no sense to ignore this issue, especially, when our client is willing to work with you on resolving it.

If we do not hear from you within about one week, we will recommend that our client consider simply filing a lawsuit.

Please call us or go to our secure online resolution center and either make a payment or let us know why you believe you do not owe money for using our client’s work
--------------------

I've done some research and here are the issues I see with Higbee's claim.

1. I have an <img src="xxxxxxxxx"> link so I'm not even hosting the image.
2. His extortion letter acknowledges that I'm not hosting the image since the infringing file location is listed as being on a Barnes & Noble server. Does Barnes & Noble get the rights to use every book cover image they host and display?
3. The image in question is the cover of a book referenced from a blog article about said book. Does the publisher (who I imagine is happy that I'm promoting the book) own the rights to use the image or does Mr. Grecco?
4. The photographer's image is only part of the book cover. I'm not sure if that negates his claim or not.
5. There are literally millions of hits for that image in a Google image search.
6. It seems to be a bit of a gray area but using an image of a book cover in a book review strikes me as fair use, especially since my blog is a small one that doesn't make any money.

I'm not particularly worried about Higbee taking me to court except for the nuisance factor. Plus, there's no money in the corporation running the blog for him to get.

I've ignored Higbee so far. I'm posting info here anonymously in the hope that others who get the same extortion letters don't just roll over and pay. There's strength in numbers!

Thoughts on how I should proceed? Thanks.




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