Hello Joel,
As founder of ELI, I welcome you to the ELI Forums and pleasantly surprised you have replied to this thread. I was not aware that you had posted and I was notified by another forum user of your participation.
As you can see, the ELI Forums is where the action is at and we have been in existence for 6 years. I am going to tell you it hasn't always been an easy road being the sole advocates for Getty victims for so many years. Oscar Michelen and I have poured countless hours over the years and our personal time and reputations in assisting others.
Because ELI was founded by me (a non-lawyer) and our community / readership consists almost entirely of non-lawyers, we have taken unconventional approaches to fighting back the tide of thousands of letters that are issued each year that go beyond Getty Images that ask for disproportional amounts of monies. When asked for more proof and copyright registration, the standard bullshit answer (forgive my bluntness) is they will only provide such information if they filed suit and/or during a trial. The truth of the matter is they would be expected to provide such information beforehand.
There have been unexplained issues where they are charging SALES TAX within some of their extortion letters for what I believe is a retroactive license. In other words, they attempt to transform what is allegedly a copyright infringement settlement into a "coerced purchase". I take it to mean "you either buy this license" today or we will sue you. For non-lawyers, it is taking a legal gun to someone's head. Either they want to sell a license or they want to settle a complaint. It has a similar feel to a backroom "protection scheme".
Getty Images sloppiness is such that in Getty Images vs. Advernet in New York, the Court appears to show extreme disapproval of Getty actions and operations to the degree that they lost the case even though the defendant had not appeared and counsel was no longer representing them! Normally, you would expect to see a default judgment in such matter. But we were all astounded to see how perceptive that Court was in viewing Getty shenanigans.
You should be aware that high-ranking Getty Images corporate employees have engaged in backroom mischief in an effort to discredit and silence me and thereby crippling ELI and I have actual documents to show this. I also have documents that demonstrate backroom mischief by outside counsel of Getty Images. If you had waited longer, you would have seen a more expansive and complete cycle of how the Getty collection system works because Seattle Attorney Timothy B. McCormack would have likely sent you a letter and you could have seen the misleading tactics being used by his office.
For example, I have an email by Getty corporate counsel trying to heavy-handedly advise Oscar Michelen (who does not own this website or these forums) to use his influence on me to NOT file State Bar Complaints against an abusive lawyer. Although, every private citizen has the right to do so if they feel they have been wronged.
Before we called them out on it, his operation had at least one paralegal (Ashanti Taylor comes to mind) appearing to engage in legal practice by a documented letter that says SHE would advise Getty Images of a course of action. I believe only Timothy B. McCormack would have such authority or representation ability.
In fact, it has gotten so personal Mr. McCormack has managed to inject himself in another lawsuit about me that entirely has nothing to do with him. But he wants to get at me.
Picscout, purchased a few years ago by Getty Images, reportedly routinely defies and ignores all Internet conventions and protocols and engages in invasive website scanning techniques to invade web servers throughout the U.S. and perhaps beyond. From what is reported to me, Picscout is fully owned, sanctioned, and endorsed by Getty Images. Picscout actively engages in online activities that come dangerously close to indiscriminate wholesale hacking and theft of bandwidth.
These are only small examples of details the ELI Community have been tracking over the years.
And if you think Getty Images is bad, you should see the larger picture of which ELI reports. There is a Hawaiian operation led by photographer Vincent K. Tylor (VKT) that routinely takes advantage of what appears to be "seeded images" of Hawaii scenery photos on the Internet under the guise of "free wallpaper images" and "free screensaver images". It does not appear he actively "seeds" the Internet but he fully, actively, gleefully, and vindictively capitalizes on it in a very big way if you look at his lawsuit and settlement record, in particular, the ones by Hawaiian Attorney James Stephen Street.
VKT used an alleged California law firm called Woolf, Gafni, & Fowler" for a number of cases. Upon investigation, we discovered there is no such law firm legitimately registered in California and there were only remnants of an old Texas registration found.
http://www.extortionletterinfo.com/forum/hawaiian-letters-lawsuits-forum/info-on-woolf-gafni-and-fowler-llp/When ELI reported on it, the suit was dropped within 48 hours but later refiled. It was even written about a Vermont newspaper.
http://www.reformer.com/localnews/ci_26247454/lawsuit-against-vernon-company-dropped-refiledhttp://www.reformer.com/localnews/ci_25969243/vernon-company-faces-lawsuit-from-copyright-trollWe've another Hawaiian operation, Hawaiian Art Network, that used a California lawyer (Brandon Sand) to pursue and frighten a travel agent in Canada!
We've had a realtor (Jennifer Sherrouse) who was charged with housing discrimination by the U.S. Dept of Justice.
http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2009/September/09-crt-934.htmlDespite her checkered past in the real estate industry, she is engaging in active litigation in Atlanta on a fellow real estate agent refusing to amicably settle over a minor matter.
http://www.extortionletterinfo.com/forum/getty-images-letter-forum/realtor-jennifer-sherrouse-files-suit-with-the-help-of-evan-andesron-and-carolyn/The issue of copyright extortion goes beyond Getty Images although they have the largest trolling operation. There are countless examples of legal shenanigans pulled over the years by all kinds of parties. It is a HUGE revenue generator for those that engage in it.
There are a great deal of other information I have been compiling and holding but I cannot publicly write about them at this time due to the sensitivity of the information.
I commend your efforts to get a declaratory judgment to get clarification of how they work. It will set a precedent to all similar operations throughout the U.S. But more importantly, expose the internal operations. I believe upon a discovery process, you will find very "interesting information" into the Getty operation. In fact, you will likely find "interesting information" into most operations if you dig deep enough.
You may have visited the ELI Forums to respond to your lawsuit against Getty Images but I believe you will find a hornet's nest of transgressions that go far beyond Getty Images.
Because I am originally from Florida and have friends in South Florida, there is an opportunity to personally discuss these issues personally and privately. The issue has become so personal especially by Timothy B. McCormack's recent lawsuit shenanigans, that members of ELI such as myself are now having their legitimate First Amendment rights dangerously being threatened. We have numerous letters on file of attempts to censor, restrain, deter, and mute our reporting.
I have considered filing a wholesale list of State Bar Complaints against a number of troll lawyers through the U.S. that have attempted to stymie my abilities to speak out freely on the issue, censor ELI through their written complaints to third parties not involved in the ownership or operation of ELI. They have actively engaged in deceptive, backroom activities that have impeded my blogger rights as defined by the EFF.
https://www.eff.org/bloggersFurther, I would like to have a private discussion of a possible lawsuit against those lawyers who have repeatedly written complaints about me to another party in a coercive attempt to stop or slow our ability to write, report, and comment freely.
I am willing to be a party to a joint lawsuit or any other formal civil remedy and I am willing to travel to other jurisdictions if need be. I am also willing to engage in publicity to raise such funds if necessary. It is not a tact I would normally engage in or endorse because I distrust the legal system but it might be the only message they understand.
There are 2-3 parties in particular, that have annoyed and interfered with my and ELI Efforts for years in an ongoing, concerted, backroom manner, that I am quite fed up with.
There have been parties and forces that have encouraged me to exercise restraint over the years but I am seriously considering ignoring such advice. There has been too much secrecy and cloak and dagger techniques. I am a believer in getting all the information in the open (ugliness and all) and let the chips fall where they may.
I am willing to consider written apologies by those parties for those backroom efforts against me. but I expect none as I believe they are despicable, obnoxious human beings that simply "don't get it". And so, it is so IRONIC that you have landed directly in the ELI Forums with a huge public platform with so many built-in supporters .
Welcome to the ELI Forums! It unfortunately gets down and dirty here.
Hi everyone. Joel Rothman here. Partner in Schneider Rothman Intellectual Property Law Group PLLC. http://www.sriplaw.com
We are the plaintiff in the case filed this past week against Getty Images, Inc. I have visited ELI previously, but did not realize there were forums here. I do now after speaking yesterday with Oscar Michelen. There seems to be a wealth of valuable information here and I commend everyone who is contributing productively to increase awareness and understanding about copyright and the law.
When we filed suit on Wednesday, 8/20/2014, I posted this on our website http://www.sriplaw.com/sued-getty-images/. Let me go into a bit more detail about our legal strategy (Getty's attorneys, please pay attention).
The Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act (FDUTPA) broadly declares that “Unfair methods of competition, unconscionable acts or practices, and unfair or deceptive acts or practices in the conduct of any trade or commerce” are unlawful. See s. 501.204, Unlawful acts and practices here:http://goo.gl/fi4PPa
We believe that Getty's past conduct demonstrates that the unfair or deceptive act it committed against our firm, has occurred, is occurring, and is likely to occur in the future and, therefore, Getty must be enjoined from further commission of said act in the future.
It is just that simple.
Comments? Questions?
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