3 ms·

Someone tried to shake our company down once. They posted all this stock imagery on the web, waited for someone to use it with an ambiguously worded attribution

Someone tried to shake our company down once. They posted all this stock imagery on the web, waited for someone to use it with an ambiguously worded attribution policy, then have a third party chase you down and demand $100k but will settle for $5k. It turns out we did attribute the right way (in our terms of use) and could prove it with logs of when we added the language and when it was removed after we removed the image, but I am sure they nail people all the time with this strategy. This didnt stop them from sending 20 emails, demand lawyers get on the phone, etc. There are a couple of similar scams like this out there.

jabl 8mo ago
Sounds like the creative commons attribution scam as detailed by Cory Doctorow https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/01/pixsynnussija/ https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/01/pixsynnussija/
arjie 8mo ago
Oh that's a classic trick. It's been going on for decades. One example I am particularly familiar with is that of Larry Philpot / User:Nightshooter on Wikimedia Commons. He would upload his photos there with an addendum on how he should be attributed. Any slight impression in the attribution would be followed by legal action. It was obviously a copyright troll mechanism and now all of his photos on Wikimedia Commons have forced attribution affixed by users that warns others that he sues people. His stuff is so widespread that the consensus on Wikimedia Commons was to keep his photos and add a warning so that no one ends up accidentally using it. Some accused him of sock-puppetry to get his content into a place. Today, intellectual property maximalism is a much more mainstream position so perhaps modern Internet users will think that he is in the right, but I think it's a bit much. Here's the thread where he's discussed: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Archive_74#User:Nightshooter_-_block_&_deletion_request https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Administrators%27... Here's an example forced-attribution photo: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flaming_Lips.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flaming_Lips.jpg
- jeltz 8mo ago
  Could he ever win a case in court? At least the Swedish legal system is based a lot around common sense and good faith and such a trap would likely end up with the one who sued having to pay the legal costs for both parties.
  - arjie 8mo ago
    Larry Philpot actually did win a case in court. His case was first dismissed but then on appeal the Fourth Circuit granted him the win: https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca4/21-2021/21-2021-2024-02-06.html https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca4/21...
    - ahartmetz 8mo ago
      The US legal system is famously not very much based on common sense and good faith. The US has 3x as many lawyers per capita as other Western countries and for some reason idolizes lawyers.
      - dcrazy 8mo ago
        Is your reaction based on reading the linked case? Because it seems pretty sensible to me. Philpot licensed the photo to AXS under traditional terms, and also posted it to Wikimedia with a CC-BY license. IJR put a copy of the photo in their listicle, did not follow either license, and then tried to claim fair use. It’s clearly not fair use. The whole reason you put photos in an article is to make people want to read the article—this hasn’t changed since the early days of newspaper photography. And the whole reason for publishing the article is commercial: to sell ads against it.
        ahartmetz 8mo ago
        Admittedly it's not based on the linked case.
- zem 8mo ago

jabl 8mo ago

Sounds like the creative commons attribution scam as detailed by Cory Doctorow https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/01/pixsynnussija/ https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/01/pixsynnussija/

arjie 8mo ago

Oh that's a classic trick. It's been going on for decades. One example I am particularly familiar with is that of Larry Philpot / User:Nightshooter on Wikimedia Commons. He would upload his photos there with an addendum on how he should be attributed. Any slight impression in the attribution would be followed by legal action. It was obviously a copyright troll mechanism and now all of his photos on Wikimedia Commons have forced attribution affixed by users that warns others that he sues people. His stuff is so widespread that the consensus on Wikimedia Commons was to keep his photos and add a warning so that no one ends up accidentally using it. Some accused him of sock-puppetry to get his content into a place. Today, intellectual property maximalism is a much more mainstream position so perhaps modern Internet users will think that he is in the right, but I think it's a bit much. Here's the thread where he's discussed: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Archive_74#User:Nightshooter_-_block_&_deletion_request https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Administrators%27... Here's an example forced-attribution photo: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flaming_Lips.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flaming_Lips.jpg

jeltz 8mo ago
Could he ever win a case in court? At least the Swedish legal system is based a lot around common sense and good faith and such a trap would likely end up with the one who sued having to pay the legal costs for both parties.
- arjie 8mo ago
  Larry Philpot actually did win a case in court. His case was first dismissed but then on appeal the Fourth Circuit granted him the win: https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca4/21-2021/21-2021-2024-02-06.html https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca4/21...
  - ahartmetz 8mo ago
    The US legal system is famously not very much based on common sense and good faith. The US has 3x as many lawyers per capita as other Western countries and for some reason idolizes lawyers.
    - dcrazy 8mo ago
      Is your reaction based on reading the linked case? Because it seems pretty sensible to me. Philpot licensed the photo to AXS under traditional terms, and also posted it to Wikimedia with a CC-BY license. IJR put a copy of the photo in their listicle, did not follow either license, and then tried to claim fair use. It’s clearly not fair use. The whole reason you put photos in an article is to make people want to read the article—this hasn’t changed since the early days of newspaper photography. And the whole reason for publishing the article is commercial: to sell ads against it.
      - ahartmetz 8mo ago
        Admittedly it's not based on the linked case.
zem 8mo ago