Higbee claim for a shared YouTube video thumbnail + video title

[gladiator]

Hi,

I got a 15K$ extortion mail from Higbee similar to the one that 'target' member complained about (photographer claim). Here are facts about my situation:

1. The page that is mentioned in a claim contained a thumbnail image (preview) of a YouTube video + title of this video + link to the page where this YouTube video can be viewed. It means that my server didn't host an image. Title of the video is hiding about 20% of image's bottom in a shade.
2. As this image is a THUMBNAIL, it has very small size (less than 15 kilobytes, about 400x300 pixels) and blurred / low quality.
3. I've check Google Analytics, this page was viewed less than 5 times during a short period of existence.
4. Content was removed same day the notice was received.
5. The video that was used by YouTube to generate a thread thumbnail (that inlined by my page) still exists at YouTube (and there are dozens or may be even more). I've made a search by image and found hundreds of websites that use this thumbnail and their pages appear in google search with this thumbnail.

I would appreciate your advice (give response or ignore). My investigation has shown that in most of the cases thumbnails were recognized by courts as a fair use (Google Image service etc.):

https://fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/fair-use/cases/#artwork_visual_arts_and_audiovisual_cases

Fair use. A search engine’s practice of creating small reproductions (“thumbnails”) of images and placing them on its own website (known as “inlining”) did not undermine the potential market for the sale or licensing of those images. Important factors: The thumbnails were much smaller and of much poorer quality than the original photos and served to help the public access the images by indexing them. (Kelly v. Arriba-Soft, 336 F.3d. 811 (9th Cir. 2003).)
Fair use. A Google search engine did not infringe a subscription-only website (featuring nude models) by reproducing thumbnails. Important factors: The court of appeals aligned this case with Kelly v. Arriba-Soft (above), which also permitted thumbnails under fair use principles. (Perfect 10, Inc. v. Amazon.com, Inc., 508 F.3d 1146 (9th Cir. 2007).)

[Robert Krausankas (BuddhaPi)]

Attorney Mathew Higbee is an idiot, and knows nothing about copyright law. I would sim ply ignore it, if he were to file a lawsuit, he would likely lose. He is not even worth spending time responding to.

[notarget]

Gladiator and I exchanged a few private messages. Gladiator shared his Higbee claim number and the rough date when he got his extortion letter. Based on his claim number and mine, Higbee is sending roughly 150 letters a month. This assumes a simple number assigning process where each extortion letter bumps the count up by 1.

The good news is that I've been able to help someone. By posting enough of my story, Gladiator was able to find this forum and hopefully relax enough to look critically at the situation and not panic.

[icepick]

$15k for a thumbnail? Maybe the easy settlements are drying up for Higbee as the word gets out about him so he is trying to get more from fewer people. Let’s keep this site in the top 5 search results for when people search this clown after getting his letters.

[notarget]

My extortion letter from Higbee also asked for $15k. Yes, a good idea to include the words "Higbee" and "extortion" in relevant posts to help search engines to find us.

[gladiator]

After a phone consultation with a lawyer, I've followed his advice and replied Higbee saying that images he is complaining about are YouTube video thumbnails, which linked YouTube videos and if he's not happy with these he should file DMCA complaint to YouTube to take down these videos. One week later Higbee replied me: "You are also correct on your assertion that the image is linked https://i.ytimg.com/vi/..... and Hosted by Google. However, the fact is, the content was visible and uploaded on your website. Therefore, we could consider this as an infringement, a contributor or even a distributor of the infringing content." Have anyone heard that sharing a link to YouTube video or even embedding a video that infringes someones copyright is a new sort of crime? Have any one heard about a lawsuit which sounds as crazy as his reply?

[gladiator]

https://www.themarysue.com/embedding-video-copyright-infringement/

"The court ruled Thursday that embedding a video that infringes on copyrighted material is not a violation of copyright law. For example, if I found an episode of The Simpsons on YouTube that I thought was really nifty and I embedded it in my blog, I wouldn’t be violating any copyright laws even if the person who uploaded the video to YouTube ripped it straight from The Simpsons’ season 3 DVD. It would be the person who put the video on YouTube who was breaking the law, not me."

[Robert Krausankas (BuddhaPi)]

correct, that precedence (sp) was set back in the perfect10 v google case, where the court deemed that hot linking to an image was not an infringement. Higbee continues to show his ignorance.

[Matthew Chan]

The problem with a lot of letter victims is that they are in a battle of "trying to convince" the other but really don't understand you will almost NEVER "convince" them in that they will acknowledge or state the weakness of their assertions.

People in adversarial positions will rarely acknowledge the weakness of their position even if it has been presented to them. BECAUSE there is NO BENEFIT to do so. Hence, despite their weak position of trying to claim infringement on thumbnail images from YouTube videos (which is the context), they will still make their weak argument.

As I tell people, you don't have to have a lawyer to learn to stand your ground. People seem to think that you can stop someone from filing a lawsuit against you. Dumb lawsuits happen all the time but it doesn't mean it goes anywhere. Yes, it is inconvenient but it isn't a catastrophic event.

This is why people need to get educated and get involved here to get your head on straight.  Otherwise, be prepared to be suckered out of your money.