Abuse of Copyrright Law by Copyright Trolls & Bullies

[copyrightextortion]

There are two types of people in this world.

1. Those who want to make money by protecting their work legally via copyrights

2. Those who want to share everything freely, openly and without any type of restrictions

I, myself belong to the latter type who loves to get educated (and educate others) via free research in libraries or web. If there's any copyright which I'd want to display on anything I produce or work, it will go something like this;

(0) PUBLIC DOMAIN. TO THE EXTENT POSSIBLE UNDER LAW, MR.ABC HAS WAIVED ALL COPYRIGHT AND RELATED OR NEIGHBORING RIGHTS TO THIS WORK.

My reasoning is simple; For every free input, there should be a free output.  However, not everyone will agree as they will come up with a gazillion reasons and logics to make money off of someone's FREE and public domain information. These money-hogs actually use (or abuse) the copyright law to extort money out of an innocent and a totally naïve researcher via threats to sue in the court of law for the lack of licensing, a modern term of paying to use their information or media. This reminds me of a James Bond movie slogan "License to Kill". Sometimes, too much law prohibits free spirit of innovation, research or movement of information across different mediums.

To avoid such copyright trolls, you can always include the following information at the appropriate section of a web-page or a book;

1. Title of the media or publication
2. Author's or Owner's name
3. Online Link Where found

If you have modified their work in any way (provided their license allows you to do that or you got their permission via mail), you can add the word "DERIVATIVE" or "BASED UPON".

For example, you need an image of a squirrel in your website or a book. If you use online research tools, you'd see hundreds of images related to squirrel which are licensed by greedy individuals or organizations ready to sue you in the court of law unless you pay their license fee. To filter out such money-hogs, there's a very useful online tool;

http://search.creativecommons.org/

Checkmark the "use for commercial purposes" and the "modify, adapt, or build upon" boxes. Select the appropriate website where you want to research (Be ware to avoid the ones mentioned below). And enter your search term "Squirrel". Select the image to extract the reference information as mentioned above before using it.

In the worst-case scenario, if you mistakenly (or innocently) used someone's licensed work and they request you to take it down, you can request further information to prove they are the actual owners of that particular item. If they cooperate with you nicely and professionally by providing you with the maximum information possible (which is verifiable), you should honor their request to remove their copyrighted work immediately. Otherwise, there's almost a quarter million dollars fine for using someone's copyrighted or licensed work without their consent. However, If that individual or organization starts off by threatening to sue you instead of a nice request, you got a copyright troll on your hands.

Unless they provide you all of the information (they may provide you part of it, but not all), simply ignore such threats. If such a troll happens to be an attorney, research about their respective bar association license number and file the complaint with the bar's administration. You can also file the complaint in the respective State's Attorney General's office and FTC as well. Trollish attorneys are usually relentless and use all kinds of legal jargon to prove you as some sort of a criminal in their letters by assuming you are guilty of a deliberate and a willful violation of their client's copyright or license.

I used to hate the "IGNORE" word. But today, I love it. It pisses the hell out of copyright trolls who are so desperate for our money and attention. There should be a provision to "criminalize" such an abuse of copyright law by trollish organizations, individuals and attorneys.  Let's rally our own Congressmen and Congresswomen to introduce such "Anti-Bullying" and "Anti-Trollish" provisions to the copyright law.

[Matthew Chan]

Without remarks to your other comments, I will comment on these  items.

IGNORING TROLLS is ENTIRELY LEGAL and LAWFUL actions.  Despite propaganda to the contrary, NO ONE is required to answer to the trolls. They can go pound sand if you choose it.  YOU don't go to jail for ignoring them.

You may face the minor possibility they will escalate the matter to lawsuit but it is perfectly acceptable to do so if you are willing to accept the risk.  Replying and NOT paying has its own set of risks.

Non-lawyers such as myself are able to speak out and endorse those ideas that lawyers could never publicly endorse.  They took an oath to conduct themselves in a lawyerly way.  The rest of us non-lawyers are not bound THEIR oath.

The thing I care about is people make INFORMED decisions and weight the pros and cons for THEMSELVES and what is good for THEIR OWN situations, and whether or not they can live with such decisions.

Otherwise, the troll lawyers can just shove it up their tailpipes.  Never be low-hanging fruit!  I don't buy into all their BS arguments.

Unless they provide you all of the information (they may provide you part of it, but not all), simply ignore such threats. If such a troll happens to be an attorney, research about their respective bar association license number and file the complaint with the bar's administration. You can also file the complaint in the respective State's Attorney General's office and FTC as well. Trollish attorneys are usually relentless and use all kinds of legal jargon to prove you as some sort of a criminal in their letters by assuming you are guilty of a deliberate and a willful violation of their client's copyright or license.

I used to hate the "IGNORE" word. But today, I love it. It pisses the hell out of copyright trolls who are so desperate for our money and attention. There should be a provision to "criminalize" such an abuse of copyright law by trollish organizations, individuals and attorneys.  Let's rally our own Congressmen and Congresswomen to introduce such "Anti-Bullying" and "Anti-Trollish" provisions to the copyright law.

[lucia]

For example, you need an image of a squirrel in your website or a book. If you use online research tools, you'd see hundreds of images related to squirrel which are licensed by greedy individuals or organizations ready to sue you in the court of law unless you pay their license fee. To filter out such money-hogs, there's a very useful online tool;

http://search.creativecommons.org/

Checkmark the "use for commercial purposes" and the "modify, adapt, or build upon" boxes. Select the appropriate website where you want to research (Be ware to avoid the ones mentioned below). And enter your search term "Squirrel". Select the image to extract the reference information as mentioned above before using it.

I think people should be very cautious even if they get images from creative commons.  In fact, creative commons org more or less says so. Their site has this warning:

Please note that search.creativecommons.org is not a search engine, but rather offers convenient access to search services provided by other independent organizations. CC has no control over the results that are returned. Do not assume that the results displayed in this search portal are under a CC license. You should always verify that the work is actually under a CC license by following the link. Since there is no registration to use a CC license, CC has no way to determine what has and hasn't been placed under the terms of a CC license. If you are in doubt you should contact the copyright holder directly, or try to contact the site where you found the content.

In other words: images returned by the cc 'search' may be copyrighted. CC hasn't checked whether the images are copyrighted. So CC is a good place to start your search-- images you find are likely to be available under CC, but things can go wrong. So if you find an image through that portal, you should hunt for the copyright 'owner' and ask to verify that they intend for the image to be in the public domain. 

The other thing to be aware of is that if you do obtain an images that claims to be available under CC, you should be sure to obtain and keep evidence that you obtained it that way-- just as you would keep track of licenses if you licensed a copyrighted photo. Otherwise, there is a risk someone who is not the copyright owner will have filled out a form and posted a fake CC license on the web. Should the real copyright owner come forward, you are much more likely to persuade them of your innocence if you can show that a CC license was provided with the photo and that you were at least acting in good faith. Should they sue anyway, you are much more likely to persuade a judge your infringement was innocent (which it will have been.) 

[Robert Krausankas (BuddhaPi)]

This:

"Otherwise, there's almost a quarter million dollars fine for using someone's copyrighted or licensed work without their consent."

a. it's not a "fine" it would be a "judgement" 2 different things.
b. any reasonable judge would not award this amount for an "innocent" infringement.
c. As Lucia stated CC is not entirely trustworthy.

[Jerry Witt (mcfilms)]

Robert and Lucia rightly point out that Creative Commons is not entirely trustworthy. However, I'd also like to point out that nearly all the other microstock companies also refuse to indemnify your use of the images.

So you could very well end up paying for an image and STILL not having the right to use it. That is why I advocate for tracking and documenting how you came to display an image, regardless of whether it was Public Domain or Licensed.

Also, keep in mind that most Creative Commons licenses require you to attribute the creator of the image. They also often have a share-alike clause that says if you use their "free" image in your book cover, your book should also be made available under Creative Commons. This doesn't sound like it would be a problem for the original poster, but you may want to consider it if you are writing the next great American novel or hired to build a web site.

And finally, although people recommend shooting their own images, some of us live in Southern California where it is hard to snap a picture of a snowman.

[lucia]

And finally, although people recommend shooting their own images, some of us live in Southern California where it is hard to snap a picture of a snowman.

It's hard to shoot pictures of palm trees in Illinois.

There are good reasons why people will license images shot by others-- or find some from creative commons or in the public domain and so on. But anytime you haven't taken the image yourself or over seen it, there is a possibility something unexpected will go wrong. Certainly all businesses should keep records. One could say all private individuals ought to also-- but that's not going to happen. Enthusiast setting up blogs and facebook pages to talk aren't going to remember to do so.