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I've been harrassed by law firms in connection with photograph copyright claims. In my case it was a law firm in France who also had a presence in the US. It
by cj 7y ago
I've been harrassed by law firms in connection with photograph copyright claims.
In my case it was a law firm in France who also had a presence in the US.
It was a minor claim (they demanded $500). We took the image down immediately, but they continued to demand their cash "settlement" with multiple letters over a year (1 letter every 1-2 months, each one with increasingly aggressive wording).
I eventually got on the phone with the person sending the letters, and turns out they weren't licensed to practice law (in any jurisdiction). I pointed out that it's illegal to misrepresent yourself as an attorney. They hung up and I never received another letter after that.
Good on EasyDNS for refusing to turn over customer data. If they did, I assume their customer would be harassed in a similar manner.
- duxup 7y agoI received a legal "threat" via ... LinkedIn. I had a situation where some competing company didn't like that my employer had one page where we compared competitor's products and used their logo (and others) on a simple comparison page. The usage was well within US law. LinkedIn was a strange route as the company has been at the same mailing address forever, there are obvious email contact addresses available to find and so forth. The message was vague enough to sound like it was from a lawyer, and even in a round about way seemed to try to create the misunderstanding that I personally would be in trouble of some sort if I didn't take down the image and any mention of their company... but without actually saying that. I suspect by directly contacting a webdev they hoped I'd take it down without thinking and just move on. I didn't respond, just forwarded it to the folks in charge who engaged a lawyer who responded with a letter telling them to go away. Never heard back from them. I looked up the person who contacted me later, they were some PR drone, no legal background... just vague statements that sounded like legal threats.
- LinuxBender 7y agoLinkedIn is commonly used by debt collectors and "private investigators" to track down and harass people. The default privacy settings and even the most vigilant privacy settings allow for paid accounts to track people down.
- ransom1538 7y agoBasic company idea. 0) Purchase office in East Texas. 1) Hire a few young lawyers (having difficulty finding work), 2) scan for companies that have 1 round of series A funding, 3) scan their website for any off domain image, 4) scan their website for any SMS sending, 5) if anything is found - send scary overnight letters demanding 4-5k The worst thing that you can do to THIS business idea is to take the letter and throw it into the trash. Make them show up in court in East Texas.
- n8henry 7y agoCan you elaborate on the SMS sending?
- blackflame7000 7y agoIt is a TCPA violation to SMS message people without first getting their permission. Fines are approximately $1500 per text.
- dvtrn 7y agoOh this has been a thing for quite a while now https://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/3073117/man-pleads-guilty-to-getting-usd172-million-from-google-and-facebook-via-fake-invoices https://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/3073117/man-pleads... Though probably not to the level of detail that you've suggested
- mr_toad 7y ago6) End up on the receiving end of RICO charges.
- paulie_a 7y agoCompany doesn't show up...good luck collecting.
- stevekemp 7y agoI do photography as a hobby. When I reach the point where I wish to complain about unauthorized use of copyright images I do not want "credit", or images to be removed, I want damages. For some reason people think credit is sufficient to excuse bad behaviour, and removing images after they've profited from them with no additional recourse is fine. It rarely comes to the point of making a claim, just when people blatently copy images and pretend to have authored them, or when companies are printing them and selling them on media, t-shirts, etc. But generally the process is pretty smooth from a "complaining" side. Certainly by the point a first letter has been issued without any reaction the next step is to give up, or start complaining "upstream", or via other media/mediums.
- la_barba 7y agoThat is a fair point. Do you know what the law says if the assets were supplied by a third party, or were purchased from one of those stock image sites?
- gnopgnip 7y agoIt doesn't matter, the person or company publishing the work is ultimately liable for any infringement. If the company lost a lawsuit for infringement they may be able to pursue whoever they licensed the images from