8 ms·

Sorry to say he went about this the wrong way. Seriously, calling the tech support line for a copyright infringement? Netflix has a corporate website at https:

by donarb 9y ago

Sorry to say he went about this the wrong way. Seriously, calling the tech support line for a copyright infringement? Netflix has a corporate website at https://ir.netflix.com/ https://ir.netflix.com/. What he should do is send a document outlining his claim, including his proof and address it specifically to Netflix's general counsel, which can be found at this page: https://ir.netflix.com/management.cfm https://ir.netflix.com/management.cfm. The letter should be sent (certified mail) to David Hyman, General Counsel Netflix 100 Winchester Circle Los Gatos, CA, 95032

gnu8 9y ago
Why not just send a DMCA to their ISP and have them shut off for a few days?
- chris_wot 9y ago
  It’s a physical item.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
codemati 9y ago
In 2017, it seems unreasonable to say one should have to resort to sending paid postage (from Australia) to simply get in contact with a company who has stolen their work.
- toomuchtodo 9y ago
  Sending correspondence certified mail, return receipt [1] is standard practice for creating a paper trail [2]. There is no such thing with email. [1] https://www.wikihow.com/Send-Certified-Mail-(USA) https://www.wikihow.com/Send-Certified-Mail-(USA) [2] http://www.kalzumeus.com/2017/09/09/identity-theft-credit-reports/ http://www.kalzumeus.com/2017/09/09/identity-theft-credit-re... Control-F "Do you like paper trails? I like paper trails. I particularly like paper trails where the United States Federal Government attests to the exact minute your firm learned the contents of this letter." (hat tip to patio11)
  - SomeStupidPoint 9y ago
    If it's good enough to handle secret information, it's good enough for my official mail to corporations. http://www.wrc.noaa.gov/wrso/security_guide/mailing.htm http://www.wrc.noaa.gov/wrso/security_guide/mailing.htm
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - gasbag 9y ago
    This seems like something we ought to be able to do electronically. I should be able to encrypt a message with recipient's pubkey and a verified timestamp from NIST (for example) in addition to my digital signature, with a requirement for decryption to result in a second call to NIST from the recipient and a record available to me of when it was decrypted.
- jonknee 9y ago
  If you expect someone to take your demand of payment seriously, you should do your best to make a serious request. Calling a customer service agent is almost the worst possible avenue, even an angry tweet could been more effective.
  - H4CK3RM4N 9y ago
    He asked customer support where to take his complaint, not to address his issue. They sent him to the pr email, if he was given the corporate contact he would have gone there.
  - wpietri 9y ago
    I have had stolen photos paid for based on only an email, so it seems pretty reasonable to me.
trcollinson 9y ago
This is good research. But honestly you come off a bit condescending. Should Dr. Lui really know how to handle the situation where an international, billion dollar company steals his art from a blog he wrote? I was thinking to myself, I have no idea how to get in touch with Netflix. If they did something like that to me, I might go down the same path he did. I’m glad you gave him the information he needs but let’s give him a break.
- jonknee 9y ago
  On a similar note, should a lowly customer service rep trained to respond to cancellation requests and login troubles be expected to address intellectual property rights?
  - jfoutz 9y ago
    Yes. Absolutely. They should have legal’s contact info instantly available. If your cs reps don’t have this, your organization is running a big risk. Consider one party recording laws. Let me refer you to legal should be a first day training thing.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
  - trcollinson 9y ago
    I worked at a rather well known social media company for a bit. A good portion of our customer service was for password resets or general complaints. But we had well defined copyright escalation path that started with the lowest of the lowly customer service rep and ended with the general counsel. So yes, actually, I do expect that.
  - Sidnicious 9y ago
    A customer service rep doesn’t have to have all the answers, but they should be equipped to find them, or at least find a next step (which they did, in this case). The author didn’t handle this optimally and neither did the CSR. Should they need to? I’d prefer to live in a world where each party does their best to approach a happy resolution in spite of mistakes. In this case whoever reads the PR mailbox dropped the ball.
tehwebguy 9y ago
They contacted support and were given the PR email address.
crankylinuxuser 9y ago
1. You can't get righted in the eye of the law without money to enforce it... A lot of money. 2. Gough Lui is unemployed, see #1. Lack of money to be made whole/ court fees. 3. Gough Lui is from Australia. You think getting whole was hard in the same country - now try another one. 4. They could have afforded to ignore it. Now it's social media for 5 minutes. So they might, or might not. Not like they're going to sue. See #1, #2, #3.
- briandear 9y ago
  1. Not true. An easy case like this and you can get a lawyer on contingency. I did that when I sued Equifax a few years back — a nice settlement and the lawyer took his cut. 2. Define what being made whole meant? Did he lose money from this photo being used? Did the future value of this photo get harmed? What was the value of the photo? What were the actual damages? As a stock photo, that image wouldn’t be worth much more than $50. Our of court “go-away” settlement would not exceed $5000 — because there aren’t any actual damages. 3. How was he made not whole? What are his actual damages? I find it interesting that the HN community that hates DRM and thinks torrenting movies is ok seems to care so much about when Netflix effectively downloads an image and makes a derivative work — like a music remix. How many are demanding that DJs who make bootleg remixes and post then on SoundCloud pay the original artists damages? How many get furious when someone gets sued over violating a patent? This is the same thing. But we are supposed to care differently just based on who is involved?
  - Nexxxeh 9y ago
    Not GP but... A DJ making a bootleg DnB track for a dubplate or free release on SC, is somewhat different from a multi-national corporation copying someone's images for the premium edition of a boxed retail release of some of their flagship content. Your comparison is disingenuous. Not least because a DJ's primary function is mixing together music. Also for commercial release for sale in Target, they'd presumably get clearance on the samples. And as for your "based on who is involved" rhetorical question, yeah it does matter, and it's not the same thing. Ironically in the case, Netflix are pretty chill and PR savvy about this stuff. But it's a company that rigorously defends its IP. It should be held to the same standard it expects.
nodesocket 9y ago
Agree, writing a blog post about how you are unemployed, and that NetFlix had $178 million dollar Q1 profits is not the correct way to go about this. Write a formal letter, or even better hire an attorney and have them draft it for you. I'm sure $NFLX will be more than willing to pay out handsome royalties if indeed your story checks out.
- nieve 9y ago
  I think "unemployed" and "hire an attorney" are not 100% mutually exclusive, but if he's not asking for much and doesn't have much money it's a probalby not a good option. As for handsome royalties, they're rarely large unless you've got a lot of leverage. You're coming at this as if he's got money and wants to make more and nothing in the post suggests that's true.
richardlblair 9y ago
I worked at a large-ish tech company for a while. I would frequently hang out with customer support people, and honestly stuff like this would come in from time to time. You have to remember the whole world operates on systems such as slack. That customer service person can ask 10 people in a matter of minutes on how to deal with this situation. Ignorance is no longer a tolerable excuse. If something comes in and it sounds like it might be meant for the legal team, then you should probably ping the legal team.
- jjeaff 9y ago
  Only the newer companies (probably Netflix) have customer service that can actually ask anyone anything. Most big companies seem to have completely clueless or extremely siloed support. Probably because they have outsourced it.
  - bri3d 9y ago
    The scripts they send to these silos and outsourcing companies should have a clearly defined "go to Legal" path, though. Even if it takes a "let me take down your contact info and send it to someone else." In my experience bigger corporations are better at this because they've been through it and have a good legal department of their own.
- MechanicalTwerk 9y ago
  > You have to remember the whole world operates on systems such as slack. Um, really?
  - viraptor 9y ago
    Not slack specifically, but slack, hipchat, lynx, skype, jabber, or whatever flavour of text your corp office prefers. Email may still be the only way at higher levels, but for people who actually need to do stuff quickly, there's often going to be done chat system available.
- sithadmin 9y ago
  > If something comes in and it sounds like it might be meant for the legal team, then you should probably ping the legal team. You're vastly overestimating the competence and domain knowledge of the average customer service representative.
aylons 9y ago
I read your comment before reading the post and you gave me the wrong impression of what happened. He did not "call the tech support line for a copyright infringement". He contacted the company to ask for the proper contact information to deal with this problem. This is not unreasonable - he did not demand the tech support to address this problem, he just asked for the right venue to do so. After that, he was talking with corporate, who did not respond to him. I'm sure hiring a lawyer and sending a proper letter would give him better results, but if you trying to solve something amicably, emailing through the official channel is very reasonable.
heedlessly2 9y ago
unpopular opinion, but I don't see what's the big deal. It's not like he took a pic of El Capitan or High Sierra. it's just a VHS tape

by donarb 9y ago

gnu8 9y ago

Why not just send a DMCA to their ISP and have them shut off for a few days?

chris_wot 9y ago
It’s a physical item.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

codemati 9y ago

In 2017, it seems unreasonable to say one should have to resort to sending paid postage (from Australia) to simply get in contact with a company who has stolen their work.

toomuchtodo 9y ago
Sending correspondence certified mail, return receipt [1] is standard practice for creating a paper trail [2]. There is no such thing with email. [1] https://www.wikihow.com/Send-Certified-Mail-(USA) https://www.wikihow.com/Send-Certified-Mail-(USA) [2] http://www.kalzumeus.com/2017/09/09/identity-theft-credit-reports/ http://www.kalzumeus.com/2017/09/09/identity-theft-credit-re... Control-F "Do you like paper trails? I like paper trails. I particularly like paper trails where the United States Federal Government attests to the exact minute your firm learned the contents of this letter." (hat tip to patio11)
- SomeStupidPoint 9y ago
  If it's good enough to handle secret information, it's good enough for my official mail to corporations. http://www.wrc.noaa.gov/wrso/security_guide/mailing.htm http://www.wrc.noaa.gov/wrso/security_guide/mailing.htm
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- gasbag 9y ago
  This seems like something we ought to be able to do electronically. I should be able to encrypt a message with recipient's pubkey and a verified timestamp from NIST (for example) in addition to my digital signature, with a requirement for decryption to result in a second call to NIST from the recipient and a record available to me of when it was decrypted.
jonknee 9y ago
If you expect someone to take your demand of payment seriously, you should do your best to make a serious request. Calling a customer service agent is almost the worst possible avenue, even an angry tweet could been more effective.
- H4CK3RM4N 9y ago
  He asked customer support where to take his complaint, not to address his issue. They sent him to the pr email, if he was given the corporate contact he would have gone there.
- wpietri 9y ago
  I have had stolen photos paid for based on only an email, so it seems pretty reasonable to me.

trcollinson 9y ago

This is good research. But honestly you come off a bit condescending. Should Dr. Lui really know how to handle the situation where an international, billion dollar company steals his art from a blog he wrote? I was thinking to myself, I have no idea how to get in touch with Netflix. If they did something like that to me, I might go down the same path he did. I’m glad you gave him the information he needs but let’s give him a break.

jonknee 9y ago
On a similar note, should a lowly customer service rep trained to respond to cancellation requests and login troubles be expected to address intellectual property rights?
- jfoutz 9y ago
  Yes. Absolutely. They should have legal’s contact info instantly available. If your cs reps don’t have this, your organization is running a big risk. Consider one party recording laws. Let me refer you to legal should be a first day training thing.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- trcollinson 9y ago
  I worked at a rather well known social media company for a bit. A good portion of our customer service was for password resets or general complaints. But we had well defined copyright escalation path that started with the lowest of the lowly customer service rep and ended with the general counsel. So yes, actually, I do expect that.
- Sidnicious 9y ago
  A customer service rep doesn’t have to have all the answers, but they should be equipped to find them, or at least find a next step (which they did, in this case). The author didn’t handle this optimally and neither did the CSR. Should they need to? I’d prefer to live in a world where each party does their best to approach a happy resolution in spite of mistakes. In this case whoever reads the PR mailbox dropped the ball.

tehwebguy 9y ago

They contacted support and were given the PR email address.

crankylinuxuser 9y ago

1. You can't get righted in the eye of the law without money to enforce it... A lot of money. 2. Gough Lui is unemployed, see #1. Lack of money to be made whole/ court fees. 3. Gough Lui is from Australia. You think getting whole was hard in the same country - now try another one. 4. They could have afforded to ignore it. Now it's social media for 5 minutes. So they might, or might not. Not like they're going to sue. See #1, #2, #3.

briandear 9y ago
1. Not true. An easy case like this and you can get a lawyer on contingency. I did that when I sued Equifax a few years back — a nice settlement and the lawyer took his cut. 2. Define what being made whole meant? Did he lose money from this photo being used? Did the future value of this photo get harmed? What was the value of the photo? What were the actual damages? As a stock photo, that image wouldn’t be worth much more than $50. Our of court “go-away” settlement would not exceed $5000 — because there aren’t any actual damages. 3. How was he made not whole? What are his actual damages? I find it interesting that the HN community that hates DRM and thinks torrenting movies is ok seems to care so much about when Netflix effectively downloads an image and makes a derivative work — like a music remix. How many are demanding that DJs who make bootleg remixes and post then on SoundCloud pay the original artists damages? How many get furious when someone gets sued over violating a patent? This is the same thing. But we are supposed to care differently just based on who is involved?
- Nexxxeh 9y ago
  Not GP but... A DJ making a bootleg DnB track for a dubplate or free release on SC, is somewhat different from a multi-national corporation copying someone's images for the premium edition of a boxed retail release of some of their flagship content. Your comparison is disingenuous. Not least because a DJ's primary function is mixing together music. Also for commercial release for sale in Target, they'd presumably get clearance on the samples. And as for your "based on who is involved" rhetorical question, yeah it does matter, and it's not the same thing. Ironically in the case, Netflix are pretty chill and PR savvy about this stuff. But it's a company that rigorously defends its IP. It should be held to the same standard it expects.

nodesocket 9y ago

Agree, writing a blog post about how you are unemployed, and that NetFlix had $178 million dollar Q1 profits is not the correct way to go about this. Write a formal letter, or even better hire an attorney and have them draft it for you. I'm sure $NFLX will be more than willing to pay out handsome royalties if indeed your story checks out.

nieve 9y ago
I think "unemployed" and "hire an attorney" are not 100% mutually exclusive, but if he's not asking for much and doesn't have much money it's a probalby not a good option. As for handsome royalties, they're rarely large unless you've got a lot of leverage. You're coming at this as if he's got money and wants to make more and nothing in the post suggests that's true.

richardlblair 9y ago

I worked at a large-ish tech company for a while. I would frequently hang out with customer support people, and honestly stuff like this would come in from time to time. You have to remember the whole world operates on systems such as slack. That customer service person can ask 10 people in a matter of minutes on how to deal with this situation. Ignorance is no longer a tolerable excuse. If something comes in and it sounds like it might be meant for the legal team, then you should probably ping the legal team.

jjeaff 9y ago
Only the newer companies (probably Netflix) have customer service that can actually ask anyone anything. Most big companies seem to have completely clueless or extremely siloed support. Probably because they have outsourced it.
- bri3d 9y ago
  The scripts they send to these silos and outsourcing companies should have a clearly defined "go to Legal" path, though. Even if it takes a "let me take down your contact info and send it to someone else." In my experience bigger corporations are better at this because they've been through it and have a good legal department of their own.
MechanicalTwerk 9y ago
> You have to remember the whole world operates on systems such as slack. Um, really?
- viraptor 9y ago
  Not slack specifically, but slack, hipchat, lynx, skype, jabber, or whatever flavour of text your corp office prefers. Email may still be the only way at higher levels, but for people who actually need to do stuff quickly, there's often going to be done chat system available.
sithadmin 9y ago
> If something comes in and it sounds like it might be meant for the legal team, then you should probably ping the legal team. You're vastly overestimating the competence and domain knowledge of the average customer service representative.

aylons 9y ago

I read your comment before reading the post and you gave me the wrong impression of what happened. He did not "call the tech support line for a copyright infringement". He contacted the company to ask for the proper contact information to deal with this problem. This is not unreasonable - he did not demand the tech support to address this problem, he just asked for the right venue to do so. After that, he was talking with corporate, who did not respond to him. I'm sure hiring a lawyer and sending a proper letter would give him better results, but if you trying to solve something amicably, emailing through the official channel is very reasonable.

heedlessly2 9y ago

unpopular opinion, but I don't see what's the big deal. It's not like he took a pic of El Capitan or High Sierra. it's just a VHS tape