Messages

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Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: What Will Glen Carner's ELI Contribution Be? No more free rides.

« on: June 08, 2012, 12:12:43 PM »

Seems like just double downing... The original letters are based on one part fear and a major part gullbility - to believe it because it is written down and a lawyer said it.   Now its the same thing again.. Let's see if I can convince this group they have me all wrong....  It's almost like if they are stupid enough to go for it the first time, they probably will go for it this time too.

As soon as he asked for tolerance of engineered, psychologically abusive "legal" (or perhaps "illegal") letters, his "efforts" on here should have insulted anyone reading it.   I seriously doubt anyone on here would have ignored a good faith email or call from them to discuss accidental use of an image.  Sheesh, after going through expense of having to redo website that used a freely distributed open license image, these guys should be apologizing for letting these be released all over the place and causing this confusion in the first place.  I'm sure it's just that they didn't understand what they were doing back then, right.. But all the letter recipients SURELY understood they were "stealing" and "remove copyrights" ... Yeah...   

Things like this ultimately come around to bite those involved in the ass.

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Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: What Will Glen Carner's ELI Contribution Be? No more free rides.

« on: June 08, 2012, 02:10:36 AM »

Seems from Glen's response that he and his constituents are well aware of what the lawyers they retain are doing.  It's obvious the trumped up claims with immediate threat of litigation are intended to one thing -- scare people into a quick settlement and hoping they ignore the facts of law at hand.  They contain unsupportable misrepresentations (or I guess more bluntly lies) twisted and stated as facts shrouded in legalease, intended to bring a trumped up damage value claim that are completely irrelevant and unsupportable without these lies.  They didn't get in there by accident.

But recipients should call them and let them know they made a mistake?

Hahaha.. Come on.. Mistake.. Some of these letters are unbelievable and I am starting to wonder if some states frivolous litigation statues would provide some recourse for defendants in counter-claims to also recover from lawyers rolling the dice with these letters, because clearly they should know and from Glen's response DO know what they are doing.  And he comes here and makes a mockery of "help us understand" something they have engineered to be what it is.

The surprising this is the recent round of allegedly better caliber law firms getting tied up in this mix. Makes me wonder if top brass at law firms like Conrad and Sherer know they have staff lawyers participating in games like this?  To go from representing George Bush to this crap?  I realize the economy is bad, but wow.. If I was considering them or similar lawyers for a large corporate or government project, I'd have to ask myself what was going on over there. 

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Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: ELI Currently Exists Based On Annual Agreement Between Matthew & Oscar

« on: May 15, 2012, 02:02:51 PM »

Matt,

I will setup some time with you soon.  Perhaps later this week or whenever is convenient for you. Thank you. 

I was stunned with your ELI contribution. I believe it is the single largest ELI contribution by anyone in ELI's short history. Thanks so much. It is greatly appreciated. Normally, a $50 ELI Contribution gets you a 30-minute support call. You obviously get a lot more for being so generous. You get to jump to the front of the line here.

As a result of your contribution, I will be putting out more information as to the the behind-the-scene support resources ELI utilizes and some of its direct and indirect costs. Some people might be surprised.

I revamped all the Paypal buttons and configurations. I finally implemented a new "subscription contribution" feature that was suggested to me late last year.  (I am sometimes slow with some good suggestions to my own detriment.)

Again, you have my gratitude for your contribution.  Give me a shout and let's look at your case. You earned it.

I'm a newcomer but I appreciate this site and have sent in a small donation ($100).  However, at the end of the process it gave me an error:

The system cannot find the file specified.

on domain mcssl.com.

Please comfirm this domain is legit to even be in your process (I used the donate now link at bottom left of forum), and make sure you get the money.  Then you may want to get this fixed.

Further - I own a website design company and would be willing to donate design or hosting services ongoing. 

Thanks for everything.  I also retained Oscar today.

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Hawaiian Letters & Lawsuits Forum / Re: HAN/VKT question

« on: May 11, 2012, 09:33:39 AM »

Now at same time.. Don't get me wrong.. Even if it is a "better" firm, it doesn't make their b.s. claims have any more merit than it did before.  Arguably, it is even more reprehensible that a firm of greater standing would take this on that perhaps a desperate one man show.  As to some of the "statements of fact" made by the lawyers (such as trumped up penalties of removing copyright images when the target simply wouldn't even know how AND technical analysis of the image would indicate removal of watermark / copyright to be b.s. because of the quality of the image - that's been discussed here and something my own designer has pointed out as well .. supporting the seeding of high quality originals) it is in my opinion much worse that reputable firms would be making false statements to induce a settlement under duress. 

Further, on the flip side, one can hope that these "real firms" demanded "real money" and aren't just working on a contingency deal.  If that's the case, it may cost HAN more to negotiate and deal with any issues or counters raised than using a 1 man shop that needs the business a bit more.  Part of HAN's equation has to be that settlement amounts are sufficient to make money in excess of legal payoffs, while being sufficiently less than the cost of someone properly defending it and shutting their racket down.  It seems they are learning from the forums though and the concept that they only use crappy lawyers, and they have tried to elevate that impression.  (combined with actually filing some suits last week).

Again, it can work both ways though.

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Hawaiian Letters & Lawsuits Forum / Re: HAN/VKT question

« on: May 11, 2012, 09:28:15 AM »

Understood, but I can tell you from having lived down there, this particular firm (at least the people at the top - perhaps not the guy who is pursuing this b.s.) are poltiically involved, have done major cases.. and are not the same profile as some of the prior lawyers I have seen referenced as used.  This particular firm has had some high profile clients, major settlements, and it makes the fact of trolling for settlements on trumped up $8k claims more silly for them.  This may work to advantage once word gets out and maybe hits some of the people at the top.  One of partners at this firm is politically involved and likely has some ongoing political goals.  A story of how his firm is extorting small businesses and perhaps putting them out of business w/ some specific examples of type of thing would likely go a long way.  If it costs them 1 or 2 real clients it may change their perspective on this business.

I agree 100% with everything you say in re can't just the firm by the b.s. on its site, but this particular one does appear to be a different caliber than what has been used by HAN in the past.

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Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: ELI Currently Exists Based On Annual Agreement Between Matthew & Oscar

« on: May 10, 2012, 09:51:32 PM »

I'm a newcomer but I appreciate this site and have sent in a small donation ($100).  However, at the end of the process it gave me an error:

The system cannot find the file specified.

on domain mcssl.com.

Please comfirm this domain is legit to even be in your process (I used the donate now link at bottom left of forum), and make sure you get the money.  Then you may want to get this fixed.

Further - I own a website design company and would be willing to donate design or hosting services ongoing. 

Thanks for everything.  I also retained Oscar today. 

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Hawaiian Letters & Lawsuits Forum / Re: Conrad-Scherer Demand Letter by Attorneys Jeffrey Kominsky & Ivan Kopas

« on: May 10, 2012, 09:48:58 PM »

This is the same firm that I am having the issue with.. Letter was first week of May.

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Hawaiian Letters & Lawsuits Forum / Re: HAN/VKT question

« on: May 10, 2012, 09:24:00 PM »

I'm one of the people that got a new HAN threat this week. I hired Oscar today and talked to him briefly.

I saw on forum someone else came forward about a letter - and they also were attacked by a new (more powerful than past) law firm out of South Florida.

I am wondering if a good # of these other letters went out - and hoping people find the site. I am not sure how it works, but is there some sort of "inverse class action"?  If these people threaten 10 people at once.. If each person is looking at settling it could easily be a $20,000 - $40,000 pooled defense fund.  The facts are very similar, etc. etc.  Wouldn't require 10x the work for the defending (and counter-suing) lawyer as the merits would be common and it would really just be more examples and funding...  Not sure it's even realistic and haven't seen a # of people pop up that I sort of expected to see.

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Hawaiian Letters & Lawsuits Forum / Re: Hawaiian Art Network files 2 more suits

« on: May 04, 2012, 07:57:41 PM »

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.

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Hawaiian Letters & Lawsuits Forum / Re: Hawaiian Art Network files 2 more suits

« on: May 04, 2012, 05:32:31 PM »

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

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Hawaiian Letters & Lawsuits Forum / Re: Hawaiian Art Network files 2 more suits

« on: May 04, 2012, 12:33:08 AM »

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.