A Part Deux to Greg Troy's Letter Campaign

[Amanda]

I have been giving this idea some serious thought for awhile, but debated posting since I wasn't sure if I really had anything new to offer, but after ELI folks came by and stopped by my little neck of the woods in cyberspace and talking with Matthew, I know it's time to share.

For anyone unfamiliar with Part I of the CABA Law letter program here is the thread here: http://www.extortionletterinfo.com/forum/getty-images-letter-forum/an-experiment-against-getty/ Kudos to Greg for thinking of it and sharing and his amazing stories of success thus far.

He has driven home the idea of extortion rather well, but since the extortion is legalized, no one is doing anything about it. It's time to take Greg's great success and up the ante. I have looked at past copyright troll cases in what they were impaled upon and I think some of these apply and any case there is real evidence. It's just their MO has changed somewhat in how they find their targets due to the increase their technology. Here they are in no particular order:

Fraud

In my case against John DeBoer I have a strong case of fraud, if it isn't fraud, then he is incompetent. So basically it's self explanatory. If there is fraud in any of the transmissions with a troll or the DMCA takedown is bogus, there there can be mail fraud, email fraud, internet fraud. If anything is fraudulent and someone is deceived into submitting it to their business insurance, then that is insurance fraud.

Racketeering

Copyright trolling by its definition is a racket. The inflation of the facts where alleged infringements inflate the statistics for actual infringements due to the trolling scheme itself is a racket. Using retroactive licenses to "cure" an alleged infringement after the fact when it has been rendered invalid by the courts is a racket. The whole seeding and entrapment schemes are a racket. The whole "guilty until proven innocent, this letter is a judgement" charade is a racket. "Inevitable litigation" when there might not be could be a racket. The screenshot as sole evidence of copying (when it may not be a copy at all--a hotlinked image) is a racket. The whole thing where Getty is exploiting internet memes for their trolling scheme is a racket... There may be more, but this is good to get the point across.

Take a look at this article. This reminds me of the last page of the John DeBoer Letter I posted in another thread: http://www.extortionletterinfo.com/forum/getty-images-letter-forum/has-any-one-seen-this-in-an-extortion-letter-before-courtesy-of-deboer-ip/. Someone sued a troll for racketeering, but they couldn't get it to stick, but just sayin... http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/09/angry-entrepreneur-replies-to-patent-troll-with-racketeering-lawsuit/

Here are a couple other articles about Seeding and Entrapment Schemes (Vincent K. Tylor is the poster child for this as well as Linda Ellis):
http://turnkeypublisher.com/2011/06/27/beware-of-stock-photo-entrapment-extortion-scam/ (Matthew Chan)
http://www.bosshi.com/copyright-infringement-warnings-and-scams-for-website-owners/ (photographer)
Abuse of Power

This is the whole thing about using the knowledge of the law and the legal system as the proverbial gun to the naive "average Joe's" head to intimidate, bully, deceive, and collect money.

Blackmail

This goes with the extortion scheme in that there could be public shame done to the "accused" in the event of litigation to add insult to injury. What Linda Ellis did for her "public apology" for her victims could fall under this category.

Denial of Service

I know some people here at ELI know that Picscout is a very bad robot. Here is a recap here: http://www.hackerfactor.com/blog/index.php?/archives/627-A-Victory-for-Fair-Use.html

Here are some other articles about Denial of Service which is illegal.

http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=1105828

http://www.technicallylegal.org/the-legality-of-denial-of-service-attacks/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denial-of-service_attack

What Picscout does to our websites when it steals our bandwith and causes our sites to crash when it is hacking into our site and lifting our info falls into this category. When Linda Ellis sent a bogus DMCA takedown notice to shut down April Brown's YouTube account and to the IP provider for ELI against Matthew Chan could be a fit.

If Picscout were a good little bot like the Google bot and actually helped us when we followed the law, then I wouldn't have a problem. Instead it is like Skynet with its terminator army and HKs. The fact that some of the dirtywork is outsourced overseas to a thug company in Israel in a cloak and dagger fashion also tells me that not everything is all right under the hood.

That said, take what you can use. I know there is a lot of experience and commentary at ELI to properly load your guns. As you can tell, I am not afraid to call the kettle black.