Carolyn Wright and Others

[woodbridge98]

I'm new to this forum. In looking back through some of the old posts, I see that others have had the pleasure of dealing with the Carolyn Wright "Firm of Extortion."  One of my clients just received a letter from her accusing my client of violating the copyright of photographer Kristin Pierson by the use of one Facebook photo on his small business's web page.  For a mere $13,000, the problem will simply disappear.  The letter was strongly worded, and had the intended effect of scaring my client to death, but luckily he contacted me before responding.  Just for fun, I did a copyright search on the photographer's name, and she has only one copyright - and it's 14 years old, and for a sculpture, not a photograph!

I have a number of small and medium size companies as clients (I'm a business lawyer), and this is the third time in as many months that one of them has received an extortion letter - each time from a different lawyer for an unrelated infringement.  Two were for photos, and one was for the client's website's privacy policy, of all things. 

The legal profession has a bad enough reputation as it is.  This expanding group of copyright trolls is downright embarrassing!

[stinger]

Thanks for noticing Woodbridge98!  Unfortunately, it is not going to end until our lawmakers legislate the "extortion for  profit" out of copyright trolling.

[DavidVGoliath]

Just for fun, I did a copyright search on the photographer's name, and she has only one copyright - and it's 14 years old, and for a sculpture, not a photograph!

Did you consider that you didn't find a relevant record because the Copyright Office hasn't processed it yet? It can take a few months from filing an application to the certificate being granted - if you tack on the grace period that a claimant also has when considering filing (three months from date of first publication), then it could be six ~ eight months from publication before they receive a certificate.

I'm speaking from experience as I shot an event for a client in early March and, less than a few hours later, a different entity had pulled the leading shot "from a Google image search" (their claim) and used it to anchor their review of the same event.

My personal view was that this was so bloody blatant that I instructed my counsel to send a letter to them, which the third party received just days later. We didn't reference a copyright certificate in the letter as I didn't have one at that time - I filed my copyright registration application at month end, just over three weeks after shooting it.

I instructed my counsel not to follow up on that initial letter, despite many wild accusations and claims being thrown about by the third party. I'm waiting for my certificate to arrive in the mail (should be with me around month end) and, at that point, we'll send out fresh correspondence.

Of course the facts surrounding your case may well be very different, but just remember - absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

[Robert Krausankas (BuddhaPi)]

"a different entity had pulled the leading shot "from a Google image search" (their claim) and used it to anchor their review of the same event. "

would not a "review" of the event, be considered fair use?

[DavidVGoliath]

Robert; nope - this is one of the biggest misconceptions surrounding 17 USC 107, because the phrase "news reporting" is used in the opening lines of the text of the exceptions.

The courts have held that the original intent was to be reporting on a photograph itself in a newsworthy manner. Here's an example of the differences.

Photographer Neil Leifer captured several incredibly iconic frames of Muhammed Ali towering over a prone Sonny Liston, which can be seen here http://neilleifer.com/portfolio/muhammad-ali-vs-sonny-liston-1965-world-heavyweight-title-2/?g=373907

Now Mr. Leifer has on several occasions donated prints of this image to be auctioned for various charitable organisations - and any newspaper, website, blog, or broadcast medium (in territories which allow fair use for news reporting purposes) would be able to include this photograph in their report about a copy being available at auction, or what it fetched at auction without license due paid to Mr. Leifer, and they would not be breaching Mr. Leifer's copyrights in doing so, as they were reporting news about a copy of the photograph itself.

The boot would be on a different foot if any reporting outlet simply used the same photograph in a general article about boxing, Muhammed Ali or Sonny Liston - even if the article was about the Ali vs. Liston fight, as they were not reporting on or offering opinion about the photograph itself. Mr. Leifer would be well within his rights to make an infringement claim if he wanted to, and would likely prevail.

[Greg Troy (KeepFighting)]

Very interesting and thank you for the clarification DvG.

[DavidVGoliath]

No problem, Greg - it's just frustrating that both 17 USC 107 and/or 17 USC 512 are misunderstood quite frequently by people who think they offer carte blanché exceptions - and there seems to be an increase in deliberate abuse of these two sections of US Copyright Law by those who seek to explicitly generate revenue from the work of others (think buzzfeed etc.)

I do believe that the vast majority of people who commit an infringement simply had no clue that what they were doing, and didn't intend to cause harm.

Unfortunately, it's the few truly egregious cases that get the most publicity, which leads to further entrenched division of opinions between content creators and those who think that copyright laws are abused, and it winds up getting heated and emotional all around.