$9,000 for 1 image! Photo Attorney Extortion Letter by Carolyn E.Wright law firm

[Oscar Michelen]

It will be very expensive to independently register each image, so the stock photo industry would not likely do that.  Instead what they are doing is spending lots of money lobbying Congress to allow compilation registration to serve for registration of the individual items contained in the compilation. Once that passes, Getty could register its entire catalog at one time as "the Getty Catalog Compilation", paying a single fee to the copyright office and instantly get protection for all of its millions of images. 

[Bekka]

Quote from S.G.
"Furthermore, I have viewed collections of images registered in bulk on the database.  Each image had a separate document and number, within the collection itself.
But, I'm wondering if this is always the case?  Are collections sometimes registered in bulk, but without documents or descriptors for each of the individual images in the collection?"

How do you view the images on the US Copyright site?  I could only find the registration paperwork, but could not verify the image.

[Katerina]

Oscar had mentioned that "what they are doing is spending lots of money lobbying Congress to allow compilation registration to serve for registration of the individual items contained in the compilation. Once that passes, Getty could register its entire catalog at one time as "the Getty Catalog Compilation", paying a single fee to the copyright office and instantly get protection for all of its millions of images." What do you think, how likely this will pass? And what can we do to prevent or dispute this? If this happens, this will tie a knot on innocent infringers' neck......And almost no way to get out of this. This will double or triple their earnings from infringements.
Also, I was thinking, and it was written somewhere here in the forum, about what if to make MF or Getty to put copyright sign on every single image they have in their collections, and require this sign to be remained on the images even if their clients pay for license and use it on their website.  Well, yes, it can prevent many potential infringement (which is probably not what they are looking for, as I can see), which can be good.  But this will also eliminate the state of innocent infringement then, as you cannot say "I used it because I didn't know" as there was a copyright sign. This can give MF the power to ask for full $150000 for willful infringement. What do you guys think? We all have to think in advance of what effect our actions can have in future....

[photographer]

As you can see there is no watermark on his own image.  That's not going to help his case.

There is also no copyright information stored within the blog image. Someone should download it and take a screenshot as evidence.
There is no way of identifying the blog photo as his own and normally this isnt an excuse but it means there is no willful removal of copyright info and so will negate that part of the case.

I would also get the defendant to check his professional status. It doesnt appear that he is a full time professional and that might have an influence on the amount of damages awarded (if any) although I am not a lawyer and this might be complete bs.

I am not condoning any copyright theft, indeed I regularly send out demand letters myself but there are times when the amount demanded by others is just ridiculous which makes it more difficult to those of us who like to reach reasonable and where possible, amicable settlements (and get on with our business).

PS meant to add if the image was uploaded to the blog first and then registered as unpublished/published later....

[MikeD]

http://www.flickr.com/photos/digicana/257006413/  (copyright notice on the bottom middle)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/digicana/3824421125/ (copyright on the bottom right)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/digicana/257006414/ (no copyright)



Ryan McGinnis, photographer from Nebraska, is really inconsistent.  I almost wonder if he puts his copyright notice on the Flickr image right before he sent out his demand letter so that can tack on additional damages, but does not watermark his images up until that point.

One thing is for sure, that picture of Lincoln, Nebraska is easily worth $9,000, it's a classic, one that could never be replicated.

[MikeD]

http://planetwaves.net/pagetwo/photo-by-ryan-mcginnis/

Ryan is making a lot of enemies.

[Bekka]

One thing is for sure, that picture of Lincoln, Nebraska is easily worth $9,000, it's a classic, one that could never be replicated.

I hope you are being facetious about this....LOL!

[newzshooter]

According to Ryan's profile page, all of his work is registered, he doesn't give anything away for free and if you don't have much to spend, go somewhere else.
He's pretty well up front with everything. Watermarks are not required by law. I don't use them very often, I hate them, I want people to actually view my image, not some artsy fartsy copyright notice. If you aren't bright enough to read the copyright notice on the page, the popup or in the exif, that's not my problem.

[cspears2838]

ok - I just received my demand letter from Evan and Carolyn.  They have a screenshot of a photo that was in an area of my site where users can upload photos.  The (c) was not readable as it was a white (c) on a white background.  As soon as I got the letter I took down the whole area of the site that has user uploaded photos.  As of right now I can't determine whether or not the photo existed on the site, for how long or who posted it or when.

They want $12k.  I told them I could track down the user who posted it if they gave me the date the photo was on my site or the photo URL. 

I recently registered a Copyright notification agent for our site - I also have a DMCA take down notice form on there.

What do you think I should do? 

Thanks,
Chris

[Matthew Chan]

It appears Carolyn E. Wright of Photo Attorney is back after a long quiet period. This time someone is attacking ELI's Document Library on Scribd trying to remove, suppress, and hide her $9,000 extortion letter on behalf of photographer, Ryan McGinnis.

http://www.extortionletterinfo.com/forum/getty-images-letter-forum/carolyn-e-wright%27s-photo-attorney-extortion-letter-taken-down-by-scribd/msg5639/#msg5639

[Hejira13]

What was the outcome of this case? Was Ryan McGinnis paid anything? or?

Wondering because Carolyn E. Wright's law firm is behind a new claim for even bigger dollars - between $25,000 and $600,000 for four images that a fan posted to the fan-run JoniMitchell.com website. The pics were taken down immediately the situation was raised.

Les Irvin, who runs that site, has posted to http://jonimitchell.com/justice.cfm and it would be good to know what happened with this earlier case.

Thanks very much for any information or insight.

[Matthew Chan]

Les Irvin needs to get his eyeballs onto our website and forums ASAP!  Send him an email and send him our way!

We have lots of info on how Photo Attorney works and who they are.

[Hejira13]

Gotcha. Sounds a good course!

Thanks 

NB for the record, Leslie J. Burns is who's signed the letter in this case

[Robert Krausankas (BuddhaPi)]

ahhhh Leslie Burns, one of my favorite trolls!!... jonimitchell.com appears to be offline, but something tells me, this will be a different case than a typical "stock image" we're dealing with a celebrity, we don't know exactly what the image is or who took it, which will all come into play.. I wonder if a user posted the offending image on said site, and if there was a registered agent?? probably not, most people don't do any homework on the legal pitfalls, they just jump right in.

[Robert Krausankas (BuddhaPi)]

Also worth noting that the 9k "case" was actually only a demand, not a "case" as no papers were ever filed..People get "demand letters" and automatically assume they are being sued..