Attorney J. Stephen Street Extortion Letter: Hawaiian Art Network/Vincent Tylor

[Matthew Chan]

After an extended silence, Hawaiian Art Network & Vincent K. Tylor are back once again with a brand-new extortion letter by none other than Attorney J. Stephen Street himself.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/106569880/J-Stephen-Street-Settlement-Demand-Letter-Hawaiian-Art-Network-Vincent-K-Tylor

For those of you who don't know, J. Stephen Street is Hawaiian Art Network's attorney on recent lawsuit complaints filed on 4 Hawaiian businesses. However, 3 of them were dropped presumably because they settled.

This extortion letter is interesting because Street spends time on Section 1202 of the DMCA. Additionally, he takes infringements of 2 photos and pumps them up to "18 uses".

Of course, the point of quoting all that verbiage is to overwhelm the legally ignorant into paying up by sheer intimidation.

I guess it's time to find out more J. Stephen Street, his staff, the size of his operation, how he operates, etc.

[Moe Hacken]

The registration VA0001696555 is a bulk registration titled "Hawaii 2000" which was loosely entered back in 2009. I don't believe there's much data beyond a list of titles included. Maybe the Copyright Office has a CD with this stuff and it wouldn't surprise if it had the Webshots logo on it.

By the way, there they go again with the totally baseless accusation that the copyright information was intentionally removed so they can make it sound like a criminal matter. They can't prove that and they know it.

By the way, could Uncle Glen and Cousin Vinny tell us which one of these is their copyrighted version?

http://tinyurl.com/8kjyu8f

[Jerry Witt (mcfilms)]

About 3,380 results.

But we are not seeding.

Oh, lordy.

[Moe Hacken]

Disturbing, isn't it?

The Webshots reference is due to my suspicion that some of VKTs earlier works (including the ones in this lawsuit) may have been included in a royalty-free stock image CD roughly 10 years ago. Maybe more than one collection, who knows.

Maybe pass the word around to folks you know who have purchased stock image CDs to see if they know of a copy of any of the "Best of Webshots" CD collections that came out around 2002. Webshots was bought by American Greetings a few years ago and they have no copies of this product. They may turn up on someone's shelf or on Craigslist. These were sold on retail outlets back then.

VKT has been a long-standing member of Webshots and many of these images that have gone insanely viral date back to that period. In many cases the images have spread so much that I would argue it's basically an orphaned work because there's no reasonable way to trace the owner of the copyright and the bulk of the evidence is that it's in the public domain because it's so ubiquitous.

[Robert Krausankas (BuddhaPi)]

Oh, lordy.

I have to admit, those are NOT the 2 words that came to my mind...more like HOLY F$C%!!

[Oscar Michelen]

Absolutely ridiculous.  I don't think that registration would hold up in court and you would have a very good argument that Tylor failed to properly protect his copyright in the image if it so plastered all over the web.

[Greg Troy (KeepFighting)]

This is the kind of BS that really ticks me off, when I see these demand letters accusing people of willfully stealing the images and altering the image to remove copyrighted information it gets me as worked up as when I got my Getty letter.

I can't tell you how glad it makes me to know that Aloha Plastic Surgery has countersued them in is getting ready to take them to court and put a serious but heard on them.

[Activated]

This demand letter makes my blood boil. I guess we will be seeing more of VKT in the posts here again. The same photo of Hanauma Bay is in question that was on my site. That photo is everywhere! I am really looking forward to the outcome of the Aloha Plastic Surgery case.

[Oscar Michelen]

It would be nice to see a big win there. I suspect seeing Smith's name on the letter might scare up more money as people search and find the lawsuit. That's why its important when any of these cases come to court that the judge be told the WHOLE story-  that this one case is not  just one case but part of a larger strategy by the digital warehouses to "send a message." 

[gene007]

Street is up to his old business, received a letter recently from him demanding $5000

[Greg Troy (KeepFighting)]

Would you be willing to share your letter with us, you can rest assured that your personal information will be redacted.

Any and all information will help. If you are willing my email address is [email protected].