Looking for more info on actual and expected results from defense letter program

[Mote]

Thanks stinger.

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Thanks for your reply, Matthew.

If you need that much information to spend $195 for the legal service, then I say keep your money and start hitting the ELI resources and online forums and do lots of homework as I did.

A big part of what makes this so coercive is that they apparently often choose to demand amounts in a "sweet spot" that is exorbitant, yet would quickly be burned through getting legal advice / representation (even letters written), and that is considerably less than the cost of defending a lawsuit, which would be prohibitive for many targets of the campaign.  The demand amounts can be a very significant, perhaps even unbearable, financial burden for the targets. 

For a target for whom the cost of the letter program is something like 15-25% of the demand amount, and especially when the demand amount represents a considerable financial burden for the target, I think it's pretty significant whether using the letter program may result in a greater total financial burden if the target will be forced to settle anyway, or if additional fees will be required to achieve a desirable outcome.  That's why I'm so interested in whether the goal of the program is to settle, or if it's not, what happens after the 2 letters have been sent.

As for the amount of information I've asked for, I understand that you have good reasons for not providing it all, but at this point I have only a very vague idea of what to expect from the letter program and therefore it's hard to tell if it makes financial sense.  I know that it will cover sending a couple of letters and prevent Getty from contacting the client, but I don't know if that's temporary and what happens then (e.g. do they realize the "case" is a loser and go away?, are you forced to settle?, do you begin incurring additional cost to have attorney Michelen continue representing you?, does attorney Michelen discontinue representing you and you're back to square one on your own?, etc.)

1. You get legal representation for a very reasonable price from a lawyer that is well-known in his niche. However, there are limits to how that representation will go.

Yes, that's part of what I'm wondering, how far the representation will go.  Even in the "simpler" (e.g. 1 image) cases, if Getty is willing to harass the target for 3 years I wonder if they would just do the same to attorney Michelen and if that requires more response than 2 letters, or if they realize the "case" is a loser because the target will not be easy to coerce and quit the harassment sooner.

2. Oscar is very good at what he does but you aren't going to get a lot of phone time. That is not what the DLP it was designed for.

Understood.  I'm really more concerned with what results / costs to expect.

5.  The goal is to help the client achieve what he/she wants. If differs from client to client.

I'm sure it does, but I imagine the goal of many is to avoid, to the greatest possible degree, being extorted and rewarding this behavior, and I wonder how they make out with that.

6. We do not hard-sell the program or engage in fear-mongering. It is a soft-sell resource and not mandatory. It is made available for those who want to take advantage of it. WE don't try to "convince" people. Our track record and reputations speak for itself.

I don't question anyone's reputation or personal track record, I'm just curious about the track record of the defense letter program.  I appreciate that you don't hard-sell the program, I'm just not sure how informed of a decision can be made with the limited information available about what to expect from the program.  Maybe the program is very effective and that level of secrecy is necessary to accomplish that -- I don't know.

7. There have been almost no complaints about it out of the hundreds of clients Oscar has represented. That says a lot. If someone wanted to trash us, the DLP, or Oscar Michelen, it could be easily found on Google.

Yes, that's certainly a good thing.  And there's nothing restraining those people from speaking their mind, like confidentiality agreements or anything?

(The few complaints have related to when Oscar was handling all the administrative and clerical aspects and he got backed up while being in court. But part of this occurred also because of people keep trying to get free time from him by clogging up his email account. These issues has since been corrected. I work with his Office Manager on this. She takes care of many of the clerical aspects which allows Oscar to focus on the case, client, and representation as it should be.)

I've seen those kinds of issues mentioned, and it's great that it's been streamlined like that.

7. I am a big believer of learning how to self-represent but most people don't have the time, inclination, or personality to do so. Hence, people appreciate that we have the DLP available at a reasonable price.

I could write my own letters, but I don't have any particular interest in doing so.  I'm certainly interested in the DLP if I'm able to conclude that there's a likelihood of achieving a desirable outcome, I'm just not sure I can tell based on the available information.

8. We are transparent for the most part. But I will tell you there are "secrets" and things that never get published or discussed publicly because the stock photo agencies, their employees, and their lawyers are reading ELI. It is stupid to reveal all our tactics, strategies, mindset, and everything we know to the public. It is our competitive edge.

Understood and agreed.

9. There is a certain amount of trust you need to have in us. I am biased, but I think the work Oscar and I do is high quality and high credibility. Our business reputations are very good. We aren't going to put out crap just to earn $195.  I don't get commissions from the letters. Oscar doesn't need his reputation tarnished on the Internet over $195 letters when he charges $400-$500/hour in New York.

I don't question your credibility or reputations or the quality of the letters, I just wonder how ultimately effective it is at achieving a desirable outcome.  I fully understand that offering this program for this fee is not about profit for attorney Michelen, and that you don't profit from it financially.

I certainly trust your motives and intentions, and I understand that there are things that you can't reveal.  It's just too bad it's not possible to know more about what the goals / results of the program are without compromising it.

10. If you are a micro-manager and need tedious updates and details, don't enroll in the program. The program works best without micro-management. You will and can ask for periodic updates but if you try to micro-manage this, it won't be good for anyone.

If a favorable outcome will be achieved, I'd prefer to waste as little time and energy as possible dealing with it.  I don't know what you'd consider micro-managing, or even what would be possible to micro-manage in this situation.  I guess I wouldn't want a settlement agreed on without me or something like that.

However, hopefully the statements I made will help clarify whether the DLP is suitable for you and anyone else that have similar questions.

Well, I'm not sure how much it clarifies it.  I had hoped it would be possible to find out some more specifics to evaluate it.  It sounds like the decision would have to be based mostly on trust, without much specifics about what to expect. 

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@bernicem77, thanks for your reply.

After spending a couple of hours reading many of the posts on this forum I hired Oscar. Let me tell you, a weight was immediately lifted off my shoulders.

I can see how you'd feel that way, because they'll stop contacting you.  But for how long?  I don't know if you want to comment on how long ago you hired attorney Michelen or if / how your situation has been resolved.  I'm wondering how it plays out in the long run.

You can always hire a local lawyer, but what are the chances that their credentials will match Oscars?

I'm not trying to compare attorney Michelen's service to hiring a different lawyer, I'm just interested in what the results of using the DLP are.

[Robert Krausankas (BuddhaPi)]

I'm jumping in here, but need to preface that I did not read either of your posts in their entirety..

Heres the deal as simply as I can put it:

1. Hire Oscar to draft your letter and chances are good the issue will go away.
2. get educated and do the letter merry go around yourself ( there will be alot more going back and forth as they know you are no lawyer with 25+ years experience)
3. Hire your own lawyer and see if he gives you these statistics you so badly want..
4. pay them and be done with it. ( and score another win for them, so they can afford more paper and stamps)

at the end of the day their is NO guarantee with any method you chose except number 4.

you're really over complicating this IMHO

[Robert Krausankas (BuddhaPi)]

If the program did not work, do you think we would even be here offering it? This is not about making money, if that were the case Oscar would be charing his normal $400.00-$500.00 per hour fee.

[Extortion-Victim-No Longer]

at the end of the day their is NO guarantee with any method you chose except number 4.

you're really over complicating this IMHO

Exactly!

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@lucia, thanks for your reply.

So, appropriate goals by a lawyer would be different in the two cases and you question cannot be answered by stating 1 sole goal.

Understood and agreed, that's why I referred to a range of possible results.

In case 2, the letter recipient has done nothing, and the goal should be to shield the letter recipient from communicating with Getty and ultimately prevent them from filing a suit within the 3 year window. (Getty would be nuts to file a suit in case 2-- so the main goal is to spare the letter recipient from writing their own letters, fielding calls etc.)

That sounds good, but I'm wondering if Getty keeps after it for 3 years and if so how it's handled after the 2 response letters.

3 years is a statute of limitations for civil copyright claims.  If they haven't sued you within 3 years of first discovering the issue, they are barred from trying to sue (or collect).

Understood.  What I'm wondering is what activity would be happening between the time the 2nd response letter is sent and the 3 year period runs out.

If you write a response yourself, Getty always responds. I have no doubt that if Oscar writes they a) are less likely to respond but they b)sometimes responds.  If Oscar's program charged for the 2nd letter, I suspect Getty would tend to respond to the first letter.  But as it stands, they know that an attorney has been hired, and so know that they'd better send a higher quality letter than they would to someone writing their own letter. ( After all, when they respond to me, I don't know enough to spot anything that might be used against them in court should this ever proceed. But Oscar would know.)

That sounds good, but this seems to imply that they give up after the 2nd letter, but who really knows?  That's the kind of thing I wish I knew.

As I don't work for him, providing me the information to let me do this  would likely violate the ethics of his field.

I don't know what the rules / ethics surrounding that are.  If it's the case that non-personally-identifiable information can be shared, especially in aggregate, that wouldn't surprise me, but again, I don't know.

That depends on the specific of your case, the value of your time and your own personality. I am dealing with my case myself because I didn't commit an infraction at all and I am comfortable writing my own letters and dealing with the responses from Getty. (I actually enjoyed writing the most recent one! And posting their response!)  But some people here (ENVL for example) found letters very distressing, and having Oscar deal with it gave great peace of mind.

ENVL would have benefited greatly from finding Oscar initially and having him write the letter. This is partly a personality issue. Me? My personality is different and my situation is different.

What you said makes sense.  I guess what I was really asking is if there's any big legal advantage to having the DLP be the first response, assuming that if you wrote your own letters first you wouldn't say anything that would directly weaken your position (like admitting guilt or lying or something).

In my opinion: if your case is complicated and you are-- to some extent-- guilty of any sort of violation that could result in an award that is several multiples of the letter writing fee, then you probably should get a lawyer who specializes in copyright.

That makes sense, but they approach everyone as if they're liable for an amount that is at least several multiples of the letter writing fee.  My impression is that there's a consensus that this is often highly unrealistic and unreasonable and would not actually be awarded in court, even if the alleged infringement actually ocurred.

You also want someone who how to present your case to a judge in a light that is most favorable to you and so on.

Well, if they actually sue, that's a whole different ballgame.  The idea is to try not to get sued, right?

So, if your case looks bad-- e.g. multiple infractions, posted on a business site, there is a good chance Getty will want to go to court.

A fair amount of the complaints seem to involve business sites, but the information I've seen is that no one knows of a suit involving less than 20 images.  Do you mean that if there are multiple infractions and it's posted on a business site, there's a good chance they'll sue?

Would you incur legal costs beyond $195 to write the letters in this case? Of  course. That would happen because your case would be one that appears to be potentially much more costly.

That makes sense, but is speculative.  Do you have any way of knowing how any of the DLP cases (even simple / minimal ones) are resolved and what the expenses end up being?  I completely understand that the situations vary and some are more troublesome than others.  That's why it would be interesting to see statistics, but I realized that probably was not going to be possible.

In this case, quite likely, the letter writing program would benefit you. But only you can judge for sure.

Right, but judge based on what?  Even if I have a simple / flaky complaint, there's not much info about what to expect from the DLP ultimately.

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@bruceh7463, thanks for your reply.

For $200 the BS from Getty stops.  No more contact.  After a while you will hear from Oscar and then you can decide what to do. Worth every penny.

Unfortunately, that doesn't provide any additional information.

After a while you will hear from Oscar and then you can decide what to do.

That's very vague.  Decide from what kind of choices, and based on what?

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@mcfilms, thanks for your reply.

Also worth noting that in the couple of years I have been here, I have never, ever heard anyone complain about what they got for there $195....But I've never heard a peep from someone disappointed with the outcome of the defense letter.

Yes, that's good, as far as it goes.

Oscar and Matt point time and time to the information on this site. Everyone has it within their power to craft a letter based on what is on here. That's what I did. But you assume the risks and you have to consider what happens if you say the wrong thing.

Yes, I understand that.  I'm interested in the DLP, but I am curious about its effectiveness.

I'd hazard a guess that once they get a letter from his office, a fair percentage slink back into the shadows.

That's what I'd hope, but does anyone actually know?  It seems like there's only speculation and no one knows actual results or can say what happens after the 2 response letters.

[Matthew Chan]

Mote,

There is no way your questions are going to get answered to the specificity you want on a public forum. If you want to pay for an ELI Phone Support Call, I can explain your options and describe the details of the DLP in a way I cannot on a public forum.

For some reason, you are dead-set on trying to twist and reframe what people are telling you. You are drawing some strange conclusions. It has already been commented that you are making this way more complicated than it has to be.

People have generally been very happy with their respective outcomes. Out of hundreds of clients that enrolled, if someone were to be unhappy with the DLP, I would have heard about it by now. It's effective. If that is not good enough then not much we can do about that. We can't save the world and we can't accommodate everyone.

Your other option is to hire your own lawyer at the traditional hourly rate and then you can delve into it as deeply as you want it.  Aside from having you pay for an ELI Support Call, there is probably not much more any of us can say about it.

No one is going to push you into the program over a measly $195. You can take your time and think about it or just represent yourself.  Many people represent themselves successfully. You just have to dig in and do some homework.

[Robert Krausankas (BuddhaPi)]

If Matthew thinks this post should be deleted, by all means, I'm tough and will not be offended...but I'm going to say my piece anyway, like it or leave it..

@MOPE based on you posts, question and responses, it would appear to me you may be better off just getting outside counsel and paying full price, this is a SIMPLE letter program, designed to get Getty off your back and give you peace of mind..apparently you are wanting much more...

[Matthew Chan]

I am not trying to be insulting here but you are really being a bit dense about this. I actually know a good amount of the end results but I am not going to discuss them publicly. Oscar cannot discuss them publicly because of the position he is in.

I am telling you the DLP is "effective" using your words. But we are not going to tell you what that means specifically for reasons already discussed.  But there are no 100% guarantees and there is a small chance that someone (such as yourself who is drilling down harder than most) will be unhappy.

Do yourself a favor and try to read between the lines that hundreds of other clients seem to understand with little problems. Have you thought about why you are having such a difficult time with this and others do not?

I am only chiming in again because I don't want you to leave this weird impression to new readers of this thread, not because I am trying to convince you to enroll.

That's what I'd hope, but does anyone actually know?  It seems like there's only speculation and no one knows actual results or can say what happens after the 2 response letters.

[SoylentGreen]

I post on the forum quite a bit, although I'm not involved in the letter program.
Of course, that never stops me from throwing in an opinion.

No matter which lawyer one may retain, he/she will NEVER guarantee anything.

The letter programs works well because 99.99 percent of all demand letters that are dealt with here are trolls.
Specifically, people give in and pay because of the stress and inconvenience placed upon them.
It's not because of the legalities or even "guilt" upon the alleged infringer for the most part.
Getty for instance doesn't own the copyrights to the bulk of its vast catalog.  So, all they can do is harass people into paying.
Retaining a lawyer such as Oscar means that the harassment ends, and the likelihood of anything else ever happening is tiny (unless you have a very large issue at hand).

Considering that most lawyers require a payment of 100 to 150 dollars just for a consultation, the letter program seems like a good deal.

Some people want/need what I call "concierge-style service".  There's a market for that, and people do go that route.
However, unless you have a "big" legal problem, and you're actually going to be sued, that's not really practical for most.

Those are just my thoughts.

p.s. I should add that I've noted the humor inherent in Oscar's posting of the defense directed at Mr Carner/H.A.N.
Especially since Mr Carner asked for an example to be posted.  A case of be careful what you wish for.

S.G.

[Robert Krausankas (BuddhaPi)]

p.s. I should add that I've noted the humor inherent in Oscar's posting of the defense directed at Mr Carner/H.A.N.
Especially since Mr Carner asked for an example to be posted.  A case of be careful what you wish for.

S.G.

Now why didn't I catch that?! I don';t think this is Oscar's first HAN letter responce, and I still find it hard to think, that Glens "attorney" would not have shared the responses that came in the past.. 

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@buddhapi, thanks for your replies.

Matthew, I've seen your posts and I'm only posting this to reply to buddhapi and explain my reasoning about things that were commented on.  I realize some of this is moot based on your recent posts.

you're really over complicating this IMHO

apparantly you are wanting much more...

I've only been trying to find out what can realistically be expected.  I don't know what could make it seem like I want more than what's offered, because I'm only trying to understand what is offered and what the likelihood is that it will be enough to resolve the matter.  I don't think it's unreasonable to want to know how common it is for the situation to be resolved by 1 or 2 response letters, and what happens after that (in general terms) if it's not.  I'm just explaining my thought process -- I get the message that it won't be discussed publicly.

1. Hire Oscar to draft your letter and chances are good the issue will go away.

That sounds good, but go away temporarily or permanently?  That's the kind of results information I'm curious about, but I don't know if you're just speculating or if you actually have a way of knowing that it works out that way.  Anyway, it seems that it's considered unwise to discuss it publicly when it is known.

this is a SIMPLE letter program, designed to get Getty off your back and give you peace of mind

It would give me peace of mind if it would resolve the situation, but I'm wondering if in some cases it just delays the harassment.

If the program did not work, do you think we would even be here offering it?

Well, as Matthew stated earlier...

5.  The goal is to help the client achieve what he/she wants. If differs from client to client.

So different people have different ideas of what it means for it to work.  I don't know what outcomes people have achieved and considered satisfactory or succesful.