Click Official ELI Links
Get Help With Your Extortion Letter | ELI Phone Support | ELI Legal Representation Program
Show your support of the ELI website & ELI Forums through a PayPal Contribution. Thank you for supporting the ongoing fight and reporting of Extortion Settlement Demand Letters.

Recent Posts

Pages: 1 2 3 [4] 5 6 ... 10
31
I stumbled across this Techdirt article from October 2018. It is about the Higbee law firm issuing a letter to Something Awful owner, Rich Kyanka, over a hot-linked Christopher Sadowski image that was uploaded by another party, not the letter recipient. What is included are the colorful responses of Mr. Kyanka.

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20181008/22025640795/stupid-law-firm-decides-to-threaten-something-awful-over-hot-linked-hitler-picture.shtml

The way the guy responded to Higbee law firm is funny and eye-popping. People know I can be outspoken and I have used my share of 4-letter words as I deemed fit but I don't hold a candle to Mr. Kyanka. 

The source article is here:
https://www.somethingawful.com/news/higbee-hitler/1/

A big takeaway is not to fall for the BS argument that you infringed if you hot-linked an image. You can. However, I don't recommend it simply because of the time-suck involved in an altercation like this. But that doesn't mean you cannot do an image-hotlink if you really want to.

However, if you read Higbee's employee's response, it is clear some of them are really clueless. If they even had paralegal training, I would be shocked. To her credit, she was pretty calm overall if terribly offbase.

The owner of Something Awful stood his ground and played other cards (albeit in a more flamboyant way than I would advise) in his responses.  There is something to be said for the "little guy" telling a misinformed person to piss off. It just so happens, he knew his shit too. He was on solid ground. Good on him, I say.

On a side note, according to LinkedIn, the Higbee employee named by Mr. Kyanka left the Higbee law firm in Dec. 2018, less than 2 months later after that incident. Probably a coincidence. She lasted barely a year at the Higbee Law firm.

32
Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Creative Commons Photos on Facebook, Twitter, etc.
« Last post by Matthew Chan on February 15, 2019, 01:56:02 AM »
Gollum,

Unfortunately, most of the ELI participants and knowledgebase are based in the U.S. Most of us have little specifics in the legal procedures of UK or other international cases. However, the general advice of removing the photo, checking into the copyright registration, and strategies for negotiating a settlement is largely the same.

Hello all,

My wife owns a tiny commerce site. She used one of Marco Verch photos for a newsletter (50 subscribers). A relative that manages our social media shared a snapshot of the newsletter in Facebook and Twitter where the Marco's photo can be seen (he didn't share the photo itself but a snapshot with the photo embedded). Pixsy is using that tweet to claim £450 to my wife. How likely is Pixsy brings her to court in the UK. They have 27 followers in Twitter.
It's pretty easy to go to Intellectual Property Court in the UK and also cheap (£50 if you claim less then £500 I think) so we are a bit scared.

What is your advise?

@aot Happy to collaborate with you in the documentary you are planning to make.
33
Everyone needs to make sure they click through the embedded links and read the actual letters and emails being shared.  They are very insightful and can give you ideas of how to respond and defend yourself.
34
They dropped it $50 from what number?  If the settlement offer was in the low hundreds, it is more significant than if it was a multi-thousand dollar number.

I used the URL Higbee provided and found the alleged photo would cost less than $200 to purchase through Getty. Higbee used the same tool to provide produce an estimated license fee of around 10 times that. They chose the large photo format and all digital media option to inflate the price rather than the small photo and commercial blog use they are alleging.

They did, however, drop their demand amount by about $50.
35
Up until yesterday for the last 10 years, our general stance is that class action discussions are a non-starter. A few lawyers have come and gone looking to the matter which resulted in crickets. However, respected DC lawyer Paul Alan Levy wrote this yesterday:

As I see it, Higbee is skating at the ethical edge here. If he does this on a regular basis, as it appears he does, he may will be leaving himself vulnerable to a class action claim from victims to his bullying who have paid him based on such misleading representations.

https://pubcit.typepad.com/clpblog/2019/02/consumer-warning-copyright-trolling-by-higbee-and-associates.html

Mr. Levy seems to be indicating there might be a class action claim possibility from those victims who have actually paid him, not those just being threatened and have not paid. That is the most I have heard from any lawyer.


The same thing happened to our company recently and a few others identified online. Has anyone else been asked to participate in a class action on this?
36
Higbee Associates Letter & Lawsuits Forum / Re: VFW local site
« Last post by Matthew Chan on February 15, 2019, 01:32:37 AM »
It certainly doesn't hurt that both the image and website is down. It does mitigate the issue.

Regarding your letter, it is unclear to me whether this is an early letter or a followup letter.  Most early letters threatening a lawsuit is a scare tactic.  However, later letters with these threats may hold more water depending on the overall situation and circumstances.  You have not provided enough info.

Looking at all this, I'm pretty confused about my next step.  I am a amateur web designer and I help local clubs, churches, etc.   One of the groups, a local VFW, received the dreaded Higbee letter.  It appears as though there was a photo I used from another veteran publication that I assumed was in public use (bad assumption).  The website has been defunct and not available for months now and I had hoped that would remove the violation concern.  The letter states that they will have to pay $2130 within 14 days or go to court.

Any advice?
37
Higbee Associates Letter & Lawsuits Forum / Re: Email from Matthew Higbee himself
« Last post by Matthew Chan on February 15, 2019, 01:28:12 AM »
Yes, it seems unusual that Mr. Higbee himself would email anyone directly on a lower level matter. I have not heard that. I mostly hear it is his subordinate clerks/paralegals or perhaps one of his associate lawyers that contact people.  What did he email you?

Just received an email from Matthew Higbee. Is this normal for them? I haven’t read anywhere that Matthew Higbee takes the time to email people. Not sure what to think of it. Thoughts anyone?
38
Higbee Associates Letter & Lawsuits Forum / Email from Matthew Higbee himself
« Last post by ccmike on February 14, 2019, 09:07:44 PM »
Just received an email from Matthew Higbee. Is this normal for them? I haven’t read anywhere that Matthew Higbee takes the time to email people. Not sure what to think of it. Thoughts anyone?
39
Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Creative Commons Photos on Facebook, Twitter, etc.
« Last post by gollum on February 13, 2019, 07:38:54 PM »
Hello all,

My wife owns a tiny commerce site. She used one of Marco Verch photos for a newsletter (50 subscribers). A relative that manages our social media shared a snapshot of the newsletter in Facebook and Twitter where the Marco's photo can be seen (he didn't share the photo itself but a snapshot with the photo embedded). Pixsy is using that tweet to claim £450 to my wife. How likely is Pixsy brings her to court in the UK. They have 27 followers in Twitter.
It's pretty easy to go to Intellectual Property Court in the UK and also cheap (£50 if you claim less then £500 I think) so we are a bit scared.

What is your advise?

@aot Happy to collaborate with you in the documentary you are planning to make.




40
Fantastic article. Thank you for posting the link Matthew.
Pages: 1 2 3 [4] 5 6 ... 10
Official ELI Help Options
Get Help With Your Extortion Letter | ELI Phone Support Call | ELI Defense Letter Program
Show your support of the ELI website & ELI Forums through a PayPal Contribution. Thank you for supporting the ongoing fight and reporting of Extortion Settlement Demand Letters.