Hawaiian Art Network files 2 more suits

[SoylentGreen]

Good post by McFilms.

My feeling is that it doesn't really matter in the end who "seeded" the images for free download.
The fact that H.A.N hasn't made any efforts to curtail it now or in the past is telling.
Furthermore, a lawsuit to collect "damages" from those posting the content as "free" would be more successful and effective... but they aren't doing that.
The mere fact that they're posted in hundreds of places for "free" is enough to dilute "standing" and practically nullify claims of "damages".

S.G.

[Matthew Chan]

Stinger,

Can you elaborate more? I wasn't around studying the stock photo industry then.  What was going on?

My recollection is that Getty did that very thing circa 2005 - 2007.

They changed their approach thereafter.  And they have covered their tracks at archive.org

[Matthew Chan]

Hawaiian Art Network Defendants have no idea how generous Mcfilm's offer is. Mcfilms has the distinction of being the only person we know so far who fully negotiated his way out of his extortion letter with full acknowledgment and paying no money. He also shares his real identity and puts his professional reputation on the line over this.

The Hawaiian Art Network defendants need to do their part and think outside of the box and stop playing to traditional lawyer advice. I absolutely think involving mcfilms in the defense would be a game-changer.

If we could get any one of these people hit with HAN suits, to strike back, it would be great. I would be willing to do some spec work  putting together evidence for a counter-suit on deferral for them. I have a strong enough indication that HAN knows damn well that the defendant did not remove the copyright symbol and claiming that they did is an outright lie. I'd like to get to the bottom of who uploaded the images to these "Free Wallpaper" sites. You cannot claim to be the "exclusive representative" of an image AND allow the image to be uploaded to all of these sites. And if you are aware of these wallpaper sites, it is your duty to issue takedown notices.

[Peeved]

Hawaiian Art Network Defendants have no idea how generous Mcfilm's offer is. Mcfilms has the distinction of being the only person we know so far who fully negotiated his way out of his extortion letter with full acknowledgment and paying no money. He also shares his real identity and puts his professional reputation on the line over this.

The Hawaiian Art Network defendants need to do their part and think outside of the box and stop playing to traditional lawyer advice. I absolutely involving mcfilms in the defense would be a game-changer.

If we could get any one of these people hit with HAN suits, to strike back, it would be great. I would be willing to do some spec work  putting together evidence for a counter-suit on deferral for them. I have a strong enough indication that HAN knows damn well that the defendant did not remove the copyright symbol and claiming that they did is an outright lie. I'd like to get to the bottom of who uploaded the images to these "Free Wallpaper" sites. You cannot claim to be the "exclusive representative" of an image AND allow the image to be uploaded to all of these sites. And if you are aware of these wallpaper sites, it is your duty to issue takedown notices.

Just thought that I would add the reference here regarding Mcfilm's success story for those who are new....

http://www.extortionletterinfo.com/forum/getty-images-letter-forum/can-we-start-a-'success-mission-accomplished'-thread-for-success-stories/msg2868/#msg2868

[adam]

I'm a web design / service company that just got a HAN threat based out of a law firm not yet on the list, out of South Florida.  Contacting Oscar here and also my lawyer in Florida.  This is asking for over 8k for a background image.. Used very much like a wallpaper / desktop background but on a website.. And from reading I have done on here tonight sounds like potentially one of my designers grabbed a seed thinking it was public domain.

Also contained accusation that we removed copyright notices, which I know we didn't.  And there is also a real chance we actually got this from one of several royalty free subscription based services we have subscribed to over the years that maybe didn't have proper right to this. And good luck showing we got it from there.

Of complication, demand/extort was sent to my client - not me.

I've already removed the image and replaced it with an equivalent for around $7... Now trying to dig up any history we may have to know where we got it from.

[Extortion-Victim-No Longer]

Michele Tylor is listed as owner of Hawaiian Landmark Images Inc. and also does business as as Kauai Photo And Art Tours with their website being http://www.hawaiianphotos.net/

Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/micheletylor

Why am I choosing to give Michele Tylor the not so distinct title of copyright troll? If you look at the latest complaints filed from Matlock Law Group on behalf of Glen Carner aka Hawaiian Art Network, representing Vincent K. Tylor ( or is it Vincent Scott Tylor?) you'll notice that the copyright registrations are seemingly handled by Michele Tylor.. So with that little piece of information I can only assume that she is also a copyright troll by association, she is apparently a part of the grand scheme of seeding the internet with Vincent K Tylors images, entrapping poor unsuspecting users, that visit the hundreds of FREE wall paper sites and then attempting to extort crazy amounts of money..

It's really a shame that Matlock Law Group and these other copyright troll attorney's only see money signs and never seem to do any homework to see whom they are associating themselves with.

Just wanted to remind everyone of the thread where EVNL had dealings with HAN and Tylor's wife. The whole thread is worth re-visiting.....

http://www.extortionletterinfo.com/forum/getty-images-letter-forum/free-baitpapers/60/

Thanks Peeved  ...Just finished reading this latest bit...

[Moe Hacken]

Adam, your case sounds very similar to the one I'm aware of. Did they tell you the name of the photographer who allegedly has been infringed upon? Are you aware of what the original copyrighted image looks like? Is it basically the same as the one you thought was in the public domain, except for missing a watermark in the corner, or was it modified in any way? As you read through the forum, a certain pattern arises concerning letters sent from HAN and in particular with the works of one photographer.

One thing that is very useful about this forum is that it is helping analyze certain patterns in the conduct of these companies, and it is helping quantify the magnitude of the problem. As Matt has said, no one can tell for sure yet but the number of letters sent could be in the thousands.

It seems like the letters are a shotgun approach, but the lawsuits are precision sharpshooting. There is no doubt that these people are banking on the fear and naiveté of the people they're shaking down.

[adam]

They haven't told me the name yet but when I looked at the other 2 recent cases linked in this thread the file name was listed in copyright app for the same guy.  The image itself was used on one of our sites as a "Background image" where it was maybe in 20% exposed as it was covered up by a foreground layout overlay on it.  So it was the "trim".  I believe this is the same photo that was in question:  http://www.hawaiipictures.com/pictures/gallery/volcanoes/hawaii_vkt_a-14-tropical-lagoon-web-lg.jpg.

Their demand claims that the original had copyright marks and claims we must have removed it.  While right now I am not sure of the source of where we got this - I do believe it was published somewhere as allegedly free - I know 100% we never would have removed a copyright notice. And meanwhile the image is all over the place without any copyright.

I am going to engage Oscar and see where it goes.  I'll provide a copy of the demand after confirmation with him and/or my local lawyer that it is an appropriate point in process.

I do believe this is part of a scheme where they are putting these out or knowingly allowing them to be put out as indeed free and then profiting off of the demands, and counting on that while copyright gives them stright liability argument they can sneak away if nobody can prove their intent on the fraud. I also wonder how much resources and bandwidth they have consumed at my expense scouring hundreds or thousands of pages to find this one piece of b.s.  I have years of bills for bandwidth that always had a sickening amount of bot traffic on it.  Their scanning my sites for commercial gain was not within my terms of service and therefore I would like to argue interpreted as a theft of services from me etc.

The other interesting point is on some of the sites we ran, we had some random image rotators and background rotators that often pointed to third party sources.  Their screen caps do not make it clear where these were necessarily even served from.

Regardless, its a game that it seems once they manage #'s a bit too high and incite a class action response showing they have some systematic racketeering / fraud occuring, they have a nice little cash cow taking advantage of people.

If nothing else I have learned to stop buying at istockphoto and switched our designers to fotolia.  And obviously, we won't be buying any Hawaii photos... hah

[Moe Hacken]

Adam, I commend you on the positive attitude. I'm very inclined to agree with you on every point you've made. I have made the same findings concerning another image by the same photographer, Vincent Khoury Tylor (http://www.hawaiianphotos.net/VKTylor.htm), and the company that represents him, Hawaiian Art Network. The image I'm referring to is this:

http://www.hawaiianphotos.net/images/A-01%20Hammock%20NEW%20Web-LG.jpg

There are a ridiculous number of websites offering this image free without attribution (and sometimes with attribution) and without the watermark that's visible in the lower right corner. I've studied the image very closely (I'm a professional graphic designer with very strong image processing skills), and there appears to be a second version of the image that does not have the watermark that is consistently repeated across the free baitpaper network. In the 2nd version, the image is cropped slightly, but not enough to completely crop out the watermark shown in the original. About half of the watermark should still be there. For example:

http://www.howtogeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/dreamsofhawaii08.jpg

Looking at it VERY closely (about 800% magnification), I would have to say that the part of the watermark that should be there was NOT airbrushed out. It does not look manipulated that way. Which suggests that someone had access to a version of this image WITHOUT the watermark and put that out there for grabs.

The most obvious candidate for having an un-watermarked version of the image is the photographer himself. This doesn't prove he put it out there for grabs as bait, of course. It doesn't prove he didn't either, but I believe it is relevant to consider chain of custody issues with his intellectual property.

So I've been working on trying to find the oldest version of the un-watermarked version to try to see where the virus started before it spread into a shapeless cloud. BTW, another difference with the second version is that it is relatively light in color, contrast and saturation. This suggests that it may have been the drab original, before the photographer made it more dramatic by artificially pumping up the saturation (didn't you?), or that it was an image that was color corrected for darker monitors or for use in print applications. I actually found a version on a jigsaw puzzle being offered on the Italian version of eBay.

One last thing you may find of specific interest: the 2nd version of the image that I linked to up there, is on a page that is still live, still giving it away, and exactly below the same image you're getting the letter for:

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/41956/desktop-fun-dreams-of-hawaii-wallpaper-collection/

The unmitigated audacity. Please let me know if I can be of help with anything.

[Robert Krausankas (BuddhaPi)]

I believe it's on record somewhere where VK Tylor actually stated that he spread these images around to wallpaper download sites, it's very widespread, and we have known about this seeding for a while now..

[adam]

Thanks for the detailed info Moe.  And Buddhapi I think if someone actually assembled more documentation of that there would be increasing resistance to HAN games. 

I am retaining Oscar as step 1 and considering all options if it can't be resolved quickly and - well I can't even say fair - but not too unfairly.

They count on the fact that nobody has the money to dig into this, and they pick and choose targets that don't have enough vested to take them to task on it.  Someone earlier mentioned one of the 2 sites sued above was going to fight back.  Curious to see if that comes to bear.  Also wondering if any other people will pop up over the next few days as getting hit with letters.  The site they targeted with me is small-time.  The law firm they hired to go after it is big time.  It doesn't make a lot of sense aside from perhaps trying to amplify the scare tactics.

[Moe Hacken]

Buddhapi is absolute correct. I have seen a litany of information about this scheme in the forum. Would it be of value to assemble a list of the pattern as it's repeated over and over with so many of his images? How can he admit he gave it away and claim he is still the victim of infringement?

The person that originally made a seamless tile from one of his images that I had contact with tells me the image must have come from a CD collection she bought at some retail outlet named Liddel's or something. This photographer has a longtime relationship with Webshots and admits to selling them his work. Please correct me if I'm wrong. Webshots has for years offered CDs of royalty-free images, some of them containing 10,000 images or even more, and they were usually less than hundred dollars, sometimes even way less.

If that person's story checks out, then the image must have come from one of those CD images and he must have known it was in there. Or did Webshots start the virus of un-watermarked images, thus being guilty of the original sin?

The layman and even people in the trade are going to assume that any image in one of those collections is free-for-all for any purpose. If the source image was from one of those collections, that may explain the different crop and the absence of the watermark.

So this is a bit of a different question: what if the source of the image was NOT a wallpaper website, but another source that amounts to retroactive seeding? The person that bought the CD estimates it was purchased about 10 years ago. That coincides with the copyright for the image. I'm not saying the scheme is 10 years old, I'm saying they may be opportunistically taking advantage of other ways in which his intellectual property seems to have spilled into the computers and servers of 1000s of people.

[Robert Krausankas (BuddhaPi)]

It was me that mentioned that one of those being sued will be fighting back,and I know first hand that if the default judgement is overturned in the Aloha case, HAN will have their hands full, once a counter suit is filed that backs them against a wall and they will have to see it thru.. I would be willing to bet HAN does not have the resources to go all the way in one case let alone 2. It's only a matter of time before HANs house of cards comes crashing down, especially since they have decided to pull the"lawsuit trigger"

[Robert Krausankas (BuddhaPi)]

This is where copyright abandonment may come into play, as opposed to seeding the images...see the below thread, this case has since been settled, which I think is the aim of HAN, flex some muscle and scare the defendant to .settle

http://www.extortionletterinfo.com/forum/getty-images-letter-forum/hawaiian-art-network-v-moku-aina-properties-observations/

you also might want to look at this thread regarding Alohas defense points:

http://www.extortionletterinfo.com/forum/getty-images-letter-forum/hawaiian-art-network-llc-v-aloha-plastic-surgery-update/

I spoke at length to Aloha and they are working on documentation and may be calling up web designers / developers to assist, once the default judgement is out of the way..

[Peeved]

I was considering reposting that valuable info for which Budd supplied previously myself regarding HAN and Aloha's defenses!

Perhaps Matt might consider adding a new "HAN Letter forum".