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91

UK Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Getty images infringed my copyright

« Last post by gerth on January 01, 2019, 06:27:33 PM »

Thanks victim2. In summary, I have proof that Getty knew the contract had ended as I wrote to them. EyeEm, through their legal counsel, claimed retrospectively that it was down to a 'technical problem'.

I have now had problems with licensing with 500px, EyeEm and Getty and feel that Shutterstock and Alamy do not offer enough money for image licensing to make it worthwhile chasing down any copyright infringement. Picfair seems to be the best of the current market. Although I have no sales with PicFair and maybe Stocksy is better.

92

Higbee Associates Letter & Lawsuits Forum / Re: Claim against me from Higbee

« Last post by Robert Krausankas (BuddhaPi) on December 30, 2018, 08:14:14 AM »

this may or may not fall under "fair use" as the work may be transfomative..might be worth looking into...

https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/fair-use-what-transformative.html

93

Higbee Associates Letter & Lawsuits Forum / Claim Against My Corporation

« Last post by ihtfp71 on December 29, 2018, 10:46:03 PM »

I have a slightly different situation from other postings here. The infringement email came into my personal email but was addressed to the corporation that I own. The infringing posting was on the corporate web site. The domain name of my personal email is the same domain name as the corporate web site.

First, I heard from Picrights in Canada. They wanted $150, which I would have given them except that I was concerned that I would only encourage more claims. I did communicate with them via email, and I challenged them to prove that they existed as a legal entity, to which they did not respond. (I suspect they didn't know how.) So I decided to ignore the whole thing since I couldn't evaluate the risks from settling, and I had a difficult time imagining that a Canadian firm was going to sue me in the US for small change.

Second, months went by and then I heard from Higbee, who wanted $1,000. I have ignored (not even opened) emails and ignored voice mails. I considered this to be more serious but nevertheless they were going to have to travel a long distance from California to sue me.

Third, completely independently, this corporation no longer has any business nor expects any business, and I had already decided to dissolve it at the end of this year. This just gives me an extra reason to do so.

Fourth, in theory, the corporate liability protection should be sufficient, but then again any determined attorney would attempt to pierce the corporate veil and expose personal liability - and might succeed. Not every single i has been dotted or every t crossed in the lifetime of the corporation.

Finally, there is a sister corporation to the one being dissolved which has a similar name. I'm going to pull down the original web site with the dissolution of the corporation, but some of the material on it is planned to re-appear on the sister's new web site, albeit in a different form and with no unlicensed images except those of my own creation.

That's the background. I have read many of the other postings on this web site, but I've seen none that comment on settling resulting in new claims once they've discovered that you will pay. Is this not of concern or has it simply not happened (yet)?

Any comments on the corporate versus personal liability? I've considered simply faxing them the dissolution papers, but decided that any communication would not be wise. Let them figure it out. If they actually did sue me as president of the corporation I could probably craft a sufficient pro se motion to dismiss as the corporation no long exists, and I am no longer an officer of the corporation. If that didn't work, I could let them secure a judgment against the corporation which doesn't exist and no longer has a bank account. On the other hand, if they were to actually travel here to sue me, they would probably be back for a new filing against me personally which I would have to defend. I'm sure that it is unlikely but not impossible.

Or I could tell them I'm in my 70s and living on social security - which is true but not the whole story as they could quickly discover on LinkedIn.

Mostly, I'm just sharing my situation for others, though I'm happy to take any comments anyone would care to make.

94

Higbee Associates Letter & Lawsuits Forum / Claim against me from Higbee

« Last post by piratealice on December 28, 2018, 01:00:36 PM »

I read on another thread that there's a statute of limitations on Copyright Infringement.  I posted a picture to my personal blog which I have never made any money from. The image was altered with the faces replaced by the faces of my cats.  I posted this picture in 2013. And this month (December 2018) I got an email from Higbee Associates. I took the image down as soon as I received the notification. Of course someone named Cody Donnell is pressing me to "resolve this claim".  I have a friend who is a copyright lawyer who is going to help me out. But I'm hoping for a little more ammunition to use against these people as I have NOTHING to give them.

95

Higbee Associates Letter & Lawsuits Forum / Re: Who really owns the claimed image?

« Last post by 313speed on December 27, 2018, 07:04:07 PM »

Short answer is that I reached out to Getty to clarify who owns the rights here in the U.S. for a photo a demand letter is requesting. I used an email that has this screen name in it. I didn't want Getty to forward any info along. That and I'd be fairly certain Higbee monitors this site.

That being said, if Getty has exclusive U.S. rights to manage an AFP license, can AFP go outside of their partnership agreement for collections? The Getty EULA states that "You may not assert any right to revenue from a collecting society in respect of photocopying, digital copying or other secondary uses of the licensed content". I would assume Getty would want to have their hand in the pot for any image it licenses based on this language. Getty's email response to me inferred that they were in control of the image rights.

Of course, I'm also curious as to how AFP would verify if their partner licensed an image. Can PicRights/Higbee even access Getty records? Based on my experience with large corporations acquiring ones I've worked for, I'd be surprised to see Getty and AFP so transparent with each other. I'll keep reviewing the site here and let you know how things turn up.

Acoording to Wikipedia, AFP is the third largest news agency in the world.  My guess is that Getty is well aware of what they are doing and that there is coordination between them with regards to checking for or verifying license history.   Though, I am not sure why it is relevant to anyone who does not have a license.   You previously said you do not have money or assets.   AFP and Higbee won’t sue you if you convince them you are not worth suing.

I would assume that it would be relevant to a class of people if Higbee was simply sending out demand letters without proof. Getty may be aware, but that would imply there is some sort of agreement between AFP and Getty for collections. Here's the problem with that though... Getty got out of doing stuff like this after it got a lot of bad press. Why then would they open themselves back up to this? Also, if Getty is responsible for licensing, why would they sidestep the collections process?

Higbee provides far more information than it realizes about their business model. The company has structured itself in a way that does the bare minumum of work in order to generate revenue. I would hazard a guess that he company is relying on Picrights to verify claims so that it can be held harmless if it came out that they were not verifying ownership prior to making a demand.

96

Higbee Associates Letter & Lawsuits Forum / Judge Awarded RM Media nearly $20,000 for 2 Creative Commons Images

« Last post by Ethan Seven on December 27, 2018, 03:08:26 PM »

Higbee & Associates posted a link on their website to a court order for a copyright claim involving to RM Media images that were offered via a Creative Commons license.  The judge awarded RM Media nearly $20,000 in damages.  Most of the damages came from copyright and 1202 violations. 

The order is posted at http://www.higbeeassociates.com/practices/copyright-law/

Some takeaways:

The judge awarded an additional $10,000 for violations of section 1202, which pertains to the removal of copyright management information, among other things.   That is more than the $7,500 he awarded for the copyright violations.   

The court did not just rubberstamp RM Media’s request for damages.  The order was detailed.  He gave RM Media a lot, but not everything. The judge even reduced the requested amount of attorneys fees to $1650, which was required by the local rule.

RM Media seems to be comfortable arguing the validity of its claims and business practice of suing when people do not buy a license or comply with the Creative Commons license terms.   It will be interesting to see if this has an impact in their defense in the case against RM Media in NY.  That case has not moved since Higbee filed a motion to dismiss.  I check every week. 

This was a default judgment. The merits and context of default judgments was discussed thoroughly on a similar thread at https://www.extortionletterinfo.com/forum/higbee-letter-lawsuits-forum/judge-awarded-higbee-associates-$48-000-for-use-of-1-photo!!!/

97

Higbee Associates Letter & Lawsuits Forum / Re: Who really owns the claimed image?

« Last post by Ethan Seven on December 27, 2018, 02:43:46 PM »

Short answer is that I reached out to Getty to clarify who owns the rights here in the U.S. for a photo a demand letter is requesting. I used an email that has this screen name in it. I didn't want Getty to forward any info along. That and I'd be fairly certain Higbee monitors this site.

That being said, if Getty has exclusive U.S. rights to manage an AFP license, can AFP go outside of their partnership agreement for collections? The Getty EULA states that "You may not assert any right to revenue from a collecting society in respect of photocopying, digital copying or other secondary uses of the licensed content". I would assume Getty would want to have their hand in the pot for any image it licenses based on this language. Getty's email response to me inferred that they were in control of the image rights.

Of course, I'm also curious as to how AFP would verify if their partner licensed an image. Can PicRights/Higbee even access Getty records? Based on my experience with large corporations acquiring ones I've worked for, I'd be surprised to see Getty and AFP so transparent with each other. I'll keep reviewing the site here and let you know how things turn up.

Acoording to Wikipedia, AFP is the third largest news agency in the world.  My guess is that Getty is well aware of what they are doing and that there is coordination between them with regards to checking for or verifying license history.   Though, I am not sure why it is relevant to anyone who does not have a license.   You previously said you do not have money or assets.   AFP and Higbee won’t sue you if you convince them you are not worth suing. 

98

Higbee Associates Letter & Lawsuits Forum / Re: Who really owns the claimed image?

« Last post by Ethan Seven on December 27, 2018, 02:35:20 PM »

Ethan,

What happened in this thread?  Did the person who started this thread orphan out your responses?  That is rude because it leaves the rest of us stranded. They got their answer and suddenly no one knows what they asked?

Might I suggest that with newbies who have no posting track record, we "regulars" quote the underlying post as part of the response so that if they decide to pull this stunt, we still have  a copy of what was being responded to.

No one likes orphaned threads because the naked responses lack context.

I had never seen that happen before, but I see the problem.  Excellent idea.  I will give it a try

99

Higbee Associates Letter & Lawsuits Forum / Re: Who really owns the claimed image?

« Last post by 313speed on December 26, 2018, 09:08:06 PM »

Sorry Matthew tried to send a PM to explain but I couldn't.

Short answer is that I reached out to Getty to clarify who owns the rights here in the U.S. for a photo a demand letter is requesting. I used an email that has this screen name in it. I didn't want Getty to forward any info along. That and I'd be fairly certain Higbee monitors this site.

That being said, if Getty has exclusive U.S. rights to manage an AFP license, can AFP go outside of their partnership agreement for collections? The Getty EULA states that "You may not assert any right to revenue from a collecting society in respect of photocopying, digital copying or other secondary uses of the licensed content". I would assume Getty would want to have their hand in the pot for any image it licenses based on this language. Getty's email response to me inferred that they were in control of the image rights.

Of course, I'm also curious as to how AFP would verify if their partner licensed an image. Can PicRights/Higbee even access Getty records? Based on my experience with large corporations acquiring ones I've worked for, I'd be surprised to see Getty and AFP so transparent with each other. I'll keep reviewing the site here and let you know how things turn up.

100

Higbee Associates Letter & Lawsuits Forum / Re: Who really owns the claimed image?

« Last post by Matthew Chan on December 25, 2018, 02:54:56 PM »

Ethan,

What happened in this thread?  Did the person who started this thread orphan out your responses?  That is rude because it leaves the rest of us stranded. They got their answer and suddenly no one knows what they asked?

Might I suggest that with newbies who have no posting track record, we "regulars" quote the underlying post as part of the response so that if they decide to pull this stunt, we still have  a copy of what was being responded to.

No one likes orphaned threads because the naked responses lack context.