Messages

331

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Getty in Germany

« on: April 03, 2012, 12:55:45 PM »

Never lie.

You are under no obligation to answer any questions put to you by a threatening lawyer, especially when they're fishing for evidence or statements to hold against on the very slim chance that this matter would ever go to court.

332

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Screengrabs lack of credibility??

« on: March 31, 2012, 11:42:51 AM »

I wouldn't want to try to build a defense solely on whether or not a Getty screenshot constitutes proof of infringement, but I would like to see the inner workings of the PicScout/Getty relationship thoroughly revealed.

Along the same line, what would happen if...

Getty presented in court their screenshot of page X showing image Y on Joe's website in March of 2011.

Joe then turns on his lap top and surfs to archive.org and shows the court page X of his website in March of 2011 and image Y is not there.

Does this constitute reasonable doubt that the image was ever on Joe's website at all?

333

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Screengrabs lack of credibility??

« on: March 30, 2012, 01:28:13 PM »

Shoot, using DreamWeaver I could phony up a screenshot to show a picture of my arse on Getty Images' home page. It would take about five minutes to do.

This is one reason I think the acceptance of one of Getty's and PicScount's fuzzy screenshots as proof of infringement that would hold up in court is problematic at best. 

334

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Got the letter ....A question and my plan....

« on: March 26, 2012, 10:32:07 AM »

I'd like to see just how a blurry PicScout screenshot would hold up in court as proof of anything.

If Getty ever took me to court, I'd want to uncover everything there is to know about PicScout. I'd take great pleasure in throwing some light on that highly questionable and deeply dark operation.

335

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Don't get mad, get even

« on: March 06, 2012, 07:19:34 PM »

Feasible but apparently a waste of time and money since according to a story in the Detroit Free Press:

http://www.freep.com/article/20120304/NEWS06/203040519/Filmgoer-takes-stand-on-costly-snacks-sues-AMC-Livonia-theater

"It's a loser," said Gary Victor, an Eastern Michigan University business law professor. He said state Supreme Court decisions in 1999 and 2007 exempted most regulated businesses from the Michigan Consumer Protection Act.

336

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Blogging and have questions. Contract with Blogger?

« on: February 19, 2012, 10:50:21 AM »

Why not tell her to use a bit of bold and indenting and other formatting instead of images? Then the potential problem is solved (as long as she's not lifting posts from copyrighted sites).

I stopped using all images on my blog when I got my letter from the ugly trolls at Getty, but blog traffic has continued to go up, which was my only concern when I adopted the "no more images" policy.

337

Legal Controversies Forum / Re: Copyright Trolls Everywhere!

« on: February 16, 2012, 09:52:19 AM »

This quote from the cited site ("Defendant strikes back" article) summarizes the attitude quite a few of us on ELI have about the copyright trolls:

Righthaven fell apart not by itself, and not even because of “good” or “wise” judges. Messing with wrong people is what predicated its downfall, messing with people who have dignity and do not succumb to frivolous threats, who are ready to fight back.

338

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: "Cease Communications" request

« on: January 31, 2012, 07:38:17 PM »

Are repeated hounding communications lawful, however, if Getty or one of the other stock photo companies claims exclusivity when in fact they do not have exclusive rights?

If a company knowingly claims and even reaffirms in writing that they have exclusive rights to an image when that's not true... could that be grounds for a countersuit from a demand letter recipient?

339

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Providing Proof of Infringement

« on: January 31, 2012, 07:33:35 PM »

If you're not comfortable handling the matter yourself after educating yourself with the wealth of material on ELI, then I'd recommend hiring Oscar. From what I've read here and on other sites, there are a lot of lawyers out there who would give very bad advice regarding an extortion letter from one of these companies. So if you do hire an attorney other than Oscar, do your homework first and make sure that person actually knows something about intellectual property law as it relates to image copyright on the Internet.

340

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: $600 (discounted from $780) for a 1.5" x 2" image on my web site

« on: January 31, 2012, 10:33:35 AM »

Offer them $49 and tell them they have two weeks to accept the offer.

341

Legal Controversies Forum / Re: Oppose Internet Censorship: Help Defeat the Stop Online Piracy Act

« on: January 20, 2012, 10:29:23 AM »

Unless millions of Internet users continue to tie up the politicians' phone lines, email boxes, and postal boxes with vigorous complaints, you can be sure the big companies who profit so much on the out-dated copyright laws will return again and again to our "lawmakers" with SOPA and PIPA clones until they get what they want.

Here's a link to a story that shows what could happen to all webmasters (as well as innocent users taking advantage of cloud storage) at any time if anything like SOPA or PIPA ever gets passed:

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/story/2012-01-19/megaupload-feds-shutdown/52678528/1

342

Hawaiian Letters & Lawsuits Forum / Re: Free Baitpapers

« on: January 12, 2012, 10:04:42 AM »

EVNL, thank you for sharing your story.

It's remarkable to me that there are men and women practicing law who have hardened themselves to the point where money is apparently the only thing that has meaning for them. I honesty don't understand how these people can ignore the genuine pain they inflict on others with their outrageous and perverted demands for settlements.
 

343

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Name for Members of the ELI Defense Team

« on: January 11, 2012, 09:50:29 AM »

Of the choice mentioned so far, I also prefer "Members of the ELI Defense Team."

IMO, this is a very serious business and consequently requires utmost professionalism. It'll take much more than a catchy name to get mainstream media attention, especially since so much of the mainstream media is owned by companies run by people like those at Getty.

I think we should concentrate on doing what's already being done so well here on the form: stick to our guns with facts and thoughtful ideas and commentary and occasional high-level sarcasm.

344

Legal Controversies Forum / Re: Copyright Trolls Everywhere!

« on: January 07, 2012, 09:53:19 AM »

I'm wondering how the trolls tracked down those derivative paintings. Boy, the internet sure isn't the wonderful place it used to be... paranoids with websites have to be chewing off their fingernails if they're not 100% positive every word and every image on their sites is 100% original work that they did.

345

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: A letter to my Congressman and my two Senators

« on: January 04, 2012, 03:24:21 PM »

Personally, I believe asking for help from government "officials" is about as effective as counting sand grains on a beach.

I would argue that time and effort yield better results by sticking to the Internet where each of us can spread knowledge about the copyright trolls and how to respond to them. The more noise we make in forums and on blog comment areas, the more light we shed on the legalized extortion these people are profiting with.

Looking to government for help when so many politicians are in the pockets of big companies is a total waste of time, in my opinion.