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

[Robert Krausankas (BuddhaPi)]

as suspected the images in question, were uploaded to the site by an anonymous fan, and Les being the webmaster does not have a registered agent in place, which would have prevented this whole situation from happening... There may be hope, but i'm not sure how much water this will hold...from his legal page:

JoniMitchell.com is privately maintained, managed, funded, and hosted by Les Irvin, who is solely responsible for its content.
Neither Joni Mitchell, her management, her record company, or other affiliated organizations have any involvement whatsoever in the site's content and financial decisions and may in no way be held liable for any infringements of copyright.

Copyrighted material on this website is used in accordance with 'Fair Use', for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis, and will be removed at the request of the copyright owner(s). As a non-profit, non-revenue producing site, JoniMitchell.com provides its content as a free, educational, and informative service for its readers. Copywritten content on this site may not be further used for profitable purposes without the expressed written permission and consent of the copyright owner.

Might be worth a shot, however claiming fair use and proving it in court are 2 different things. Les needs to pay ELI a visit, and get educated..

[Robert Krausankas (BuddhaPi)]

I also have a concern with ALL of the other images that are used as well..he best hope he has licenses or express written permission to use those...Les is a sitting duck

[Hejira13]

You can ask him but my understanding of that site and the situation is that fans upload their pics of concerts. In this instance, it appears a fan may have uploaded four pics that did not belong to them, and, were in fact taken by the photog who has retained Carolyn E. Wright's law outfit.

There is explanation of things @ http://jonimitchell.com/justice.cfm

Hopefully the webmaster Les Irvin will be in touch with ELI. You can reach him c/o [email protected] and I imagine he'll be happy to send you the letter he's received from Leslie J. Burns and learn more about how these scenarios work.

[Jerry Witt (mcfilms)]

Although the site owner should get educated here, I would be very surprised if this went anywhere. I looked at the site. There is ZERO commercial gain, not so much as a block of Google AdWords. It is truly the ultimate fan site. Also, although the owner did not have a DMCA agent, a member of the site was the one to upload the images. Typically I would expect this to go nowhere. However I believe the Carolyn E.Wright law firm has been known to file on looser cases such as this. So it's important to document everything and engage the support network here as much as possible.

By the way, do you think the photographer Carolyn E.Wright represents got a model release from Joni Mitchell?

I also notice that http://jonimitchell.com/justice.cfm just says "To be continued." I wonder why. Remember, the truth will set you free. There is nothing wrong with posting factual information on your site and I don't think the owner of jonimitchell.com should be persuaded to do otherwise.

[Hejira13]

I don't know any more than I've posted - and have not seen the pics in question. I just know the site and its history of serving fans of Joni Mitchell so well for years.

I see, too, that the page of explanation has been removed. My assumption is that Les Irvin has been in contact with you folks at ELI and a different approach to dealing with the situation is now being followed.

You may know better than I!