4 ms·

You might be right - I've never been in the situation - but he claimed to have taken it from some other site without any obvious copyright notice. Obviously no

You might be right - I've never been in the situation - but he claimed to have taken it from some other site without any obvious copyright notice. Obviously not a smart move, and he did pay a price for it. The whole topic got brought up because I was planning on interviewing in one of their Rails shops and by doing research on the company I had stumbled across stories of people that had this exact thing happen to him, so I was shocked when he explained that it had happened to him as well. I don't think the "fee" is unreasonable if a few hundred dollars is the going rate for licensing the image (although I personally would never pay that much), I just find the automated process of hunting these people down and asking for money right away (no option to just take it down immediately) a little distasteful, and in a similar vein to the RIAA's tactics.

count 14y ago
Why should you get the option to 'take it down immediately'? You've already caused the harm / received the benefit / etc., and you should pay for it.
- waffle_ss 14y ago
  Did that daycare owner really cause a harm worth hundreds of dollars - was the picture devalued that much by posting it on a micro website visited by maybe a dozen people? I think it helps to be a little objective here. I mean, I'm as capitalist as the next guy, but I fail to see how taking taking hundreds of dollars away from a small business owner who is technologically naive is correcting an imbalance in the free market. It's a slippery path from there to charging arbitrarily ridiculous amounts like [$15K][1] for a violation, leading to insane lump sum damage amounts like [$75 trillion][2]. [1]: http://arbornet.org/~danpeng/ http://arbornet.org/~danpeng/ [2]: http://www.pcworld.com/article/223431/riaa_thinks_limewire_owes_75_trillion_in_damages.html http://www.pcworld.com/article/223431/riaa_thinks_limewire_o...
  - igouy 14y ago
    Copyright infringement of registered images may also be subject to statutory damages. http://pacaoffice.org/library.shtml http://pacaoffice.org/library.shtml
  - count 14y ago
    I won't argue about amounts, just the principle behind it. I don't think it's got anything to do with devaluing the image by posting it on a micro website, so much as recognizing potential commercial value on someone else's work, without giving them their due. If this had not been a business (like folks downloading mp3s, and not reselling them), I'd probably think about it differently, but in this case, there was specifically a commercial intent. I agree the $15k / $75T thing is beyond ridiculous, especially given the non-commercial nature of that infringement. We're not arguing there. I'm arguing 'oops, I'm sorry I made money using your work without paying you' isn't good enough. Who knows, maybe it could have been $5 - the sum isn't the important part, it's the principle.

count 14y ago

Why should you get the option to 'take it down immediately'? You've already caused the harm / received the benefit / etc., and you should pay for it.

waffle_ss 14y ago
Did that daycare owner really cause a harm worth hundreds of dollars - was the picture devalued that much by posting it on a micro website visited by maybe a dozen people? I think it helps to be a little objective here. I mean, I'm as capitalist as the next guy, but I fail to see how taking taking hundreds of dollars away from a small business owner who is technologically naive is correcting an imbalance in the free market. It's a slippery path from there to charging arbitrarily ridiculous amounts like [$15K][1] for a violation, leading to insane lump sum damage amounts like [$75 trillion][2]. [1]: http://arbornet.org/~danpeng/ http://arbornet.org/~danpeng/ [2]: http://www.pcworld.com/article/223431/riaa_thinks_limewire_owes_75_trillion_in_damages.html http://www.pcworld.com/article/223431/riaa_thinks_limewire_o...
- igouy 14y ago
  Copyright infringement of registered images may also be subject to statutory damages. http://pacaoffice.org/library.shtml http://pacaoffice.org/library.shtml
- count 14y ago
  I won't argue about amounts, just the principle behind it. I don't think it's got anything to do with devaluing the image by posting it on a micro website, so much as recognizing potential commercial value on someone else's work, without giving them their due. If this had not been a business (like folks downloading mp3s, and not reselling them), I'd probably think about it differently, but in this case, there was specifically a commercial intent. I agree the $15k / $75T thing is beyond ridiculous, especially given the non-commercial nature of that infringement. We're not arguing there. I'm arguing 'oops, I'm sorry I made money using your work without paying you' isn't good enough. Who knows, maybe it could have been $5 - the sum isn't the important part, it's the principle.