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Higbee Associates Letter & Lawsuits Forum / Recent articke- Investigating the Higbee & Associates Copyright Trolling Operati
« on: February 26, 2019, 01:32:38 PM »
The below article documents the shoddy work done by Higbee & Associates. The biggest takeaway is that these lawyers ARE NOT intellectual property lawyers. They don't know copyright law and they don't care. Their in the copyright troll game to secure payments from "low hanging fruit", people that get so scared they pay up quickly. The way to combat this is to get educated and push back with knowledge. It isn't a great feet to become more knowledgeable than Higbee.
Yesterday, we wrote about web developer Daniel Quinn's harrowing experience receiving a $20,000 payment demand from copyright troll Higbee & Associaties. That post ended with Quinn explaining how he found lawyer Carolyn Homer to represent him. Today, we have a companion post by Homer to talk about her experience investigating and dealing with Higbee, and calling out some of his questionable legal practices.
The moment I saw Higbee’s demand letter to Daniel Quinn I knew I was dealing with a troll. Although I’ve recently joined the #resistance, I spent the first five years of my career defending Silicon Valley companies against mass copyright trolls. Higbee is new to me, but I know this game.
I immediately scanned his demand letter for problems. There were many — Michael Grecco’s power of attorney authorization isn’t even signed! — but I’ll focus on three major ones.
Major Defect # 1: Pricing Unmoored From Market Reality
As Daniel quoted yesterday, Higbee’s November letter threatens litigation, statutory damages up to $150,000 and attorney fees. Supposedly to avoid this terror of litigation, Higbee demands payment of $20,000 within seven days, accompanied by a non-disclosure agreement.
Daniel Quinn did not pay the $20K. So Higbee sent a December follow-up letter which escalates the demand: “[P]lease do not make the mistake of ignoring this. If this matter is litigated, the demand amount will likely quadruple or more, and then you will also likely have to pay attorneys fees.”
Higbee’s message is clear: pay $20,000 now or risk litigation and $80,000—maybe even $150,000—later.
None of those numbers make sense. The market rate for a license to publish most individual photos on the internet ranges between $0-$1000. Similarly in my experience, typical litigation damages for adjudged infringement of individual photos on the internet range between $200-$2000. At this exact moment in time, a photograph from Michael Grecco’s same X-Files photoset is available to license for $1800. And that is itself insanely high—there’s a multitude of other professional X-Files stills available from stock photo agencies Alamy and Getty for $49-$499.
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20190220/13283641640/investigating-higbee-associates-copyright-trolling-operation.shtml
Yesterday, we wrote about web developer Daniel Quinn's harrowing experience receiving a $20,000 payment demand from copyright troll Higbee & Associaties. That post ended with Quinn explaining how he found lawyer Carolyn Homer to represent him. Today, we have a companion post by Homer to talk about her experience investigating and dealing with Higbee, and calling out some of his questionable legal practices.
The moment I saw Higbee’s demand letter to Daniel Quinn I knew I was dealing with a troll. Although I’ve recently joined the #resistance, I spent the first five years of my career defending Silicon Valley companies against mass copyright trolls. Higbee is new to me, but I know this game.
I immediately scanned his demand letter for problems. There were many — Michael Grecco’s power of attorney authorization isn’t even signed! — but I’ll focus on three major ones.
Major Defect # 1: Pricing Unmoored From Market Reality
As Daniel quoted yesterday, Higbee’s November letter threatens litigation, statutory damages up to $150,000 and attorney fees. Supposedly to avoid this terror of litigation, Higbee demands payment of $20,000 within seven days, accompanied by a non-disclosure agreement.
Daniel Quinn did not pay the $20K. So Higbee sent a December follow-up letter which escalates the demand: “[P]lease do not make the mistake of ignoring this. If this matter is litigated, the demand amount will likely quadruple or more, and then you will also likely have to pay attorneys fees.”
Higbee’s message is clear: pay $20,000 now or risk litigation and $80,000—maybe even $150,000—later.
None of those numbers make sense. The market rate for a license to publish most individual photos on the internet ranges between $0-$1000. Similarly in my experience, typical litigation damages for adjudged infringement of individual photos on the internet range between $200-$2000. At this exact moment in time, a photograph from Michael Grecco’s same X-Files photoset is available to license for $1800. And that is itself insanely high—there’s a multitude of other professional X-Files stills available from stock photo agencies Alamy and Getty for $49-$499.
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20190220/13283641640/investigating-higbee-associates-copyright-trolling-operation.shtml