Received letters from CEG

[crnoob]

I recently received 7 letters from CEG TEK International demanding $500 for copyright infringement with the following content (not all content from the letters)

"You are hereby notified that unauthorized use of XXXXX's Work on the website identified above is a violation of the U.S. Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. 106.  In this regard, request is hereby made that you either:

(i)  Produce proof of license of said image by emailing it to: [email protected].  If you are in possession of a valid license from XXX for the use of the image, we apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.  XXXX has a diligent protection policy to ensure consistent, optimum value and quality for its loyal customers.

OR

(ii)  Remit settlement in the amount of $500.00 by visiting https://www.copyrightsettlements.com/XXXXXX and immediately and permanently cease and desist the unauthorized use and display of said image.

If you do not already hold a valid license or settle as described above, you may be held liable for monetary damages, including attorney's fees and court costs if a lawsuit is commenced against you.  You have until November 05, 2012 to access the settlement offer and settle online.

If you fail to respond, settle, or produce proof of license within the prescribed time period, the claim will be referred to our attorneys for legal action.  At that point, the original settlement offer will no longer be an option and the amount will increase as a result of us having to involve our attorneys."

The images were only on the site due to resizing.  There was no editing of their information from the pictures.  The text before the images stated where they were from and linked back to where they were from.  My site is a non-commercial site and were removed immediately.  There were less than 200 different visitors (less after you remove spiders and other bots) to said page and the images were up for appx 12 days.

So, 7 images at $500 each is $3500.  Pretty steep for a stupid mistake, little traffic, and no intent to infringe on my part. 

I don't want to deal with lawsuits and courts (I don't really have time).  Most of the information I've seen here is in regards to Getty images or P2P other than the Lidsay Lohan site in which the owner paid and shut it down.  I've really seen nothing to suggest there is much more I can do other than try and negotiate lower payments or fight and eventually go to court?  Has anyone tried contacting the original image owners to negotiate a deal instead of dealing with these extortionists? 

Thanks

[Robert Krausankas (BuddhaPi)]

You have other options, but need to get educated first!!

is the image available for download elsewhere?
is the image registered with the copyright office?
does the company that sent the letter have the right to enforce this?

among other things..

[crnoob]

The images are on a few sites that I can tell via Google but I assume they purchased rights to them for publishing. 

Per the public copyright catalog these images are not listed via a search.  The owner may have registered them but they are not showing in the system yet?  Nothing is registered under this owner since 2011 via the search and these images are recent.

I do not know if CEG has the right to enforce.  I'm not sure exactly how to find this out without contacting said owner of photo?

[Robert Krausankas (BuddhaPi)]

would you be interested in sharing these letters with us, we will redact your personal information, before uploading them to our library.. I'd like to do some research into CEG and this info would be helpful..

[crnoob]

I can upload/send a redact version later today or this evening sometime. 

How "up to date" is the online copyright public catalog?  Again, this particular owner does not show any images added since 2011 via a current public search.  Is there a way to determine if CEG was hired by this owner to protect their works without contacting the owner directly and should that be one of my next steps?

I know there is only so much that can be said other than telling me to "research" but I'm not really finding others sharing their stories other than Getty images and this issues seems a bit different.

[Robert Krausankas (BuddhaPi)]

I have no idea how up to date the copyright site is...it should be fairly current I would think.. No-one is sharing their stories because this is the first time we have heard of this group of trolls, hence we would like to do some research as well as shre the letters.. I will send you a PM with my email address where you can send the letters..

did they come via postal mail or email?? Either way I would not respond right away and if they came via email, I would not respond at all, email is not "official". I'll try to make time today to round up some info that will hopefully help you, as well as others, and once we get your letters posted, the rest of the community will surely chime in.

 

[crnoob]

I've received them via email AND I have received statements in the mail showing a copy of the webpage.  The email notifications came in sometime last week and I was not aware of them until my ISP forwarded notifications to me.  I only check that email account every few weeks.  Once aware the content was removed immediately.  The postal copies came in this past Saturday.

I'll get a copy of one of the notices to you.

[stinger]

DO NOT deal with them via email.

Use the post.  Give them no information about your use of images.  State only that you are looking into how what they allege could have happened.  Part of the M.O. of the image troll is to get as much information from their victim as they can - and use it against the victim later.

[crnoob]

They just sent me three more for some files that were deleted and for some reason popped back up again.  I validated multiple times that all the files had been removed including the html page itself.

[Robert Krausankas (BuddhaPi)]

they are money hungry leaches! and well known in the world of copyright trolling. I will be starting a new thread in the Getty Forum dedicated to CEG TEK International and copyright troll Ira Siegel

They just sent me three more for some files that were deleted and for some reason popped back up again.  I validated multiple times that all the files had been removed including the html page itself.

[crnoob]

Yes, they are indeed.  Just need to figure out the next steps.

[crnoob]

I'm doing further research and have run some searches via the http://cocatalog.loc.gov US Copyright Office website and I do not see where the images are registered.  I see some other images by this person from early in 2012 listed but not these which are probably a month or more old.  I've also noticed in other Getty-style letters they list the images copyright registration number, similar to the letter shown in this thread:

http://www.extortionletterinfo.com/forum/getty-images-letter-forum/copyright-services-international-is-back-again/

In the letters I've received they simply showed my URL for the images (and a picture via those that arrived in the mail) and a date/time stamp but no actual copyright information for the images themselves.  Does this mean anything or is the copyright office ultra slow in either sending paperwork out or updating their database?

Thanks!

[Robert Krausankas (BuddhaPi)]

Plain and simple if they are not found in a copyright search, they are not registered, most trolls do not supply a registration number, because there is none. This is usually the first request made, if you decide to engage them, they are demanding money sdo you need to demand proof of valid registration, if they fail to supply this, the image is probably not registered. Getty never supplies this. I have offered to help you search via private email, but you need to help me, help you, give us the photographers name and link us to the image from one of the other sites you have seen it on.. You have no obligation to protect the photographer or the image..continuing to do so leaves us without a means to help you.

a screen shot of the image on your site and a simple URL means nothing...it does not prove infringement..

[crnoob]

Robert, sorry, I have not checked my email account in a couple days due to work related travel.  I'll get right on that.

[mort]

Hello.

I am looking for some advice on an issue I am having. I apologize ahead of time since this post will be pretty long.

About two months ago I received a letter from CEG telling me that my website (a television themed Wordpress blog) had a copyrighted image on it that was owned by a company named AKM Images. This is the first correspondence I received and I never received a cease and desist letter. They wanted a settlement of a couple hundred dollars in order to avoid taking the case to court.

Since I have never put copyrighted material on my website I knew something was off. It turns out a couple months prior; Wordpress had a security hole that allowed unapproved users to access your server and upload files. At the same time my hosting service also had a security hole that I later found out about (I have an email from the hosting service proving this one).

Needless to say a hacker took advantage of one or both of these security holes and uploaded html files to my server. I believe the hacker hacked into my website so they could upload a bunch of html files that linked to other websites (I am guessing that were owned by the hacker). One of the html files had the image on it that CEG claims that I took. The image was never on my server. The html files referenced an image on another webpage.

These html files were put into a random folder on my server that had no link to them anywhere on the website. I don't know how anyone could have found them. The webpage the image was on was also a totally different design than the actual website and my blog never discussed celebrity gossip so this image would never have appeared on my website.

After receiving the letter, I contacted CEG by phone (I know probably not the best idea) and explained the situation. I told them that my website was hacked and I deleted the html files as soon as I found out about them. I did not admit any wrongdoing. They told me they would get back to me since they had to talk to their superior. They never did and I contacted them several other times and they never contacted me back. So I assumed they were dropping the case since I did nothing wrong and the hacker was responsible for the copyrighted materials. Yesterday I received a letter from a Marvin Cable law office in Massachusetts saying that he now wants $2,000.
I am wondering what I should do. I am unemployed so I have no money to pay the settlement even if I wanted to. I don’t want to pay the settlement anyway since I feel I did nothing wrong. I didn’t put the image on my website and I definitely didn’t receive any benefit off it since no one should have been able to find it. There was also no way I could have made any money off it since the page the image was on had no ads and was not asking for any money.

With this said I have the following questions:

1.   Due to my website being hacked, I was wondering if any of these copyright trolls have ever been accused of or been found guilty of hacking someone’s website, uploading their images, and then turning around and suing the website owner? When I called and talked about hacking, he went into defensive mode and said things like it was ridiculous and his company would never have done that. I never even said anything about thinking they were responsible. In the words he used and the manner in which he said them it seemed that he was hiding something.

2.   Do you think they will ever even bring the case to court? Looking on this site it seems like most of the time these cases never go to court. It was only one image and I have some proof that my website was hacked. Plus I have no money (have been unemployed for quite a long time) so he wouldn’t be able to collect anything anyways. Do you think I should just ignore the letter since the case is unlikely to go anywhere, should I try to discuss the case with him, or should I consider settling?

3.   If this case would go to court, where would the case be heard? The lawyer who sent the latest letter is in Massachusetts, AKM Images is I believe in California, and I live in the Midwest.

4.   If this case would go to court, what defenses would I have since I didn’t put the images on the website?

5.   I read on the “Copyright Enforcement Group aka CEG TEK International” thread about the Perfect10 v. Google case. I looked up the case and believe due to the images not actually being on my server that this case could be relevant for my defense if the case should ever go to court. The paperwork they sent me even says that the image url is of a website I don’t even own. Am I right with this assumption? If I am right, if I contact the Marvin Cable law office should I bring this up and he will realize that I am educating myself on the issue and will not settle easily with him? Do you think this would make him realize that he will just be wasting his time and he will stop harassing me?

6.   As I was reading some of the other threads people were mentioning looking for similar photos and finding out how much they were charging for the image. I didn’t find a lot of information so I was wondering if anyone knew of the best websites to look for comparable images (celebrity photos) to see what the market rate for a similar image would be?

7.   If I decide not to settle (I am leaning towards this option) is there some way I can stop these companies from harassing me?

8.   Would it be advisable to call the Marvin Cable law office and try to get this settled? I would not admit to anything and would most likely just ask him to prove he has the copyright to the image, that he has proof that the photographer transferred the copyright to them, how he came up with the ridiculous settlement offer of $2,000, and proof of sales that lead to that calculation. I am guessing that calling him will not get him to drop the case even if I explain what happened and that I have no money?

Thank you for taking the time to read this lengthy post. Any help would be appreciated. Once again thank you for your time.