=> How to Battle Copyright Infringement?

[scott_ferris]

<p><a href="00YKK0">"Show us some cites proving there is a "thriving industry""</a></p>

<p>Looks like somebody got out of bed the wrong side today?</p>

<p>You can be as argumentative as you want, some claims will never be worth chasing, I don't disagree, none of mine have been yet. But I have shown practical advice on taking realistic steps on how to legally back up your claim for registered copyright infringement, with a case study of a successful claimant, including details of paperwork and actual specialist law firms that might be willing to fight your case at no out of pocket expense. And your contribution to the thread has been?</p>

[funcrunch]

<blockquote>

<p>Yes, good point, and the article I linked to has two step by step articles on how to do the entire process linked in it.........</p>

</blockquote>

<p>The ASMP has another good <a href="http://asmp.org/content/registration-counts">step-by-step copyright registration guide</a>.</p>

<p>The author's statement in the 10 rules article that you can register unlimited images online for $35 is technically correct, but somewhat misleading. Online registration is for unpublished images or for images published on a single date. Unless I'm mistaken, group registration for images published on different dates is not yet available online, though it is in testing.</p>

<p>Also, at this time you can only register as many images as you can upload in an hour. For many photogs this will not be an issue, but I shoot events and sometimes register several hundred photos from a single shoot. I size them down to 800 px on the long side, but it still takes awhile to upload (my slow DSL speed is partly to blame here).</p>

[john_h.1]

<blockquote>

<p><em>"Show us some cites proving there is a "thriving industry"</em><br>

Looks like somebody got out of bed the wrong side today? You can be as argumentative as you want... …But I have shown practical advice… …with a case study of a successful claimant...</p>

</blockquote>

<p>You are confusing argumentativeness with examining the merit of your claims. We know that advance registration is recommended for the potential of enhanced remedies in the event an infringement. You implied that it is the be all and end all to the issue of infringement while ignoring, even when alerted, preventative measures. Over time, your comments have narrowed the scope of its utility as it has been pointed out as such. One of the themes still being presented has been the good fortunes arising from infringement with comments like…<br>

<em>…if you are lucky enough to be infringed…</em><br>

<em>…hope somebody steals your stuff….</em><br>

Then you went on to claim that “there is now a thriving legal industry” where images are purposefully floated about in hopes that some entity will make infringing use of the image. If there were such a “thriving” industry, you certainly would be able to cite some sort of evidence for it. When asked to do so, all that you could come up with was a discussion about one outfit utilizing the model and it is encountering grave legal setbacks. Scarcely a “thriving” industry.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>And your contribution to the thread has been?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>1) Providing a brief summary about responses to copyright infringement concerns.<br>

2) Correcting Richard’s portrayals of the scope of copyright protections.<br>

3) Correcting your portrayal of the scope of practical utility of statutory damages remedies for preventing infringement and claims that one is “lucky” and should “hope” that their imagery is stolen bolstered by a false claim of a thriving industry to that effect.<br>

4) Fleshing out Matt’s useful analogy using magazines.</p>

[scott_ferris]

<p>Dear John,</p>

<p><em>"You are confusing argumentativeness with examining the merit of your claims."</em><br>

<em><br /></em><br>

You are the one who is demanding citations to links you have previously provided! You are, my friend, being argumentative. That you didn't like my tone, or the way I made my comments should be no reason for you to cast them in such a negative way. The information I imparted was good solid information that all photographers interested in protecting their copyrighted work should know.</p>

<p>If you feel that your four point list is useful solid information that all photographers looking to protect their work should know, if you believe by only providing one spurious link on an irrelevant side issue is helpful, if you believe killing the messengers message because you took umbrage at its delivery, well, we have very different ideas on forum use.</p>

<p>The merit in my "claim"/link, is clearly demonstrated by the outcome of the case. But you are too angry to see, or acknowledge that.</p>

<p>I have nothing further to add.</p>

[john_h.1]

<p>Scott, I acknowledged "that advance registration is recommended for the potential of enhanced remedies in the event an infringement" in the very post where you claim there is no acknowledgment and mentioned its value in all the other posts responding to you. Its not helpful to just make stuff up. There is no thriving copyright trolling industry. Pre-registration is advisable but is so often of no utility for the very people you "laugh" at for not pre-registering. Infringement, even with pre-registration, is not something to be deemed "lucky" just because damages have been awarded in some instances and nor should people "hope that somebody steals their stuff". Recommending pre-registration, in general, for times it may be helpful is well and good but, these other claims are misleading and its appropriate to describe it as such here so that others do not get a incorrect impression.</p>

<p> </p>

[sheila]

<p>I thought I might chime in here! Through TinEye, I was successful in collecting $1,700 from a Romanian publisher when I found that they had cut, cropped and published in image of mine on the front cover of a book title "through an oversight of a busy graphics department". In the past week, through the new Google Image Search engine, a UK police site has now agreed to settle for $3,750 for publishing an image of mine on a booklet advising the public how to report theft of bicycles - the image was a bicycle. The irony did not go unnoticed. Again through Google, a Hollywood dentist has paid me $500 for licensing fees of an image on his site and will probably renew the licence in March 2012. Today, I found a web developer had one of my images on its site, had also added a couple of kangaroos, moved one kangaroo and deleted a human but Google still found it and I am awaiting his explanation as I have threatened to sue him for copyright infringement. Apparently. they have passed the image on to a client. I have recently retained a prominent US copyright attorney to pursue a client for gross copyright infringement which will amount of five figures, and I have not registered with the US Copyright Office and this does not seem to affect my case. I have never understood why one has to register images with the Copyright Office as the US is a signatory to the Bern Convention on Copyright and is possibly the only country which appears to have its own rules. </p>

[steve m smith]

<blockquote>

<p>I have never understood why one has to register images with the Copyright Office as the US is a signatory to the Bern Convention on Copyright and is possibly the only country which appears to have its own rules.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>My thoughts exactly!</p>

[sheila]

<p>My battle is continuing with infringers. But what I have found is the very handy Wayback Machine which has indexed websites for a long time and you can prove to infringers how long the image has been on their site. Rather than go into great detail here, I have written about it in my blog http://sheilasmartphotography.blogspot.com/ <br>

Sheila</p>

[Tim_Lookingbill]

<p>You're my hero, Sheila.</p>

<p>Wonder how much time you spend pursuing all these cases and if it has paid off from all you've collected. Do you make more money winning these cases over actual legitimate sales of your images?</p>

<p>BTW, I've bookmarked your site. You're definitely a credit, resource and a pit bull for photographer's copyrights issues and the industry in general.</p>

<p>Didn't realize photos posted online were that valuable, desired by the public or could command the prices or legal compensation you list from stock agencies and suits considering how saturated the market appears to be. Good for you.</p>

[sheila]

<p>Thanks Tim. Actually, I have earned more in the past three months through collecting on infringements than I have earned through legit sales. Mind you, it doesn't take much - my last Alamy sale was discounted 70% of the calculator price and my last Getty sale....wait for it...was $4.17 for toys, games and "other" (rather vague) for a Chinese manufacturer for 12 months use. There was no anticipated production numbers which is odd as it was licensed as RM. I immediately despatched a "please explain" to Getty and they have said that they are looking into it. I won't hold my breath waiting. I just don't know what to do with the $1.25 I will receive but I know what I would like to do with it! I have just spent a couple of hours sending off DMCAs to both Photobucket (which has to be one of the biggest infringers of my work) and Google's blogspot sites. Photobucket is a big problem in that they allow downloads and my work has showed up on many sites with the courtesy of Photobucket. As I mentioned in my blog, one can sometimes find the source by right clicking to View Info and Photobucket often shows up as being one of the sources. I have given up on Facebook (even though FB are pretty prompt in removing images) but I have yet to find how to send out DMCAs to MySpace. On at least four or five occasions I have found my work on web developers who should know better. At the moment, I am awaiting a second response to a State tourism office (in New South Wales, Australia where I live) who apparently had one of my images on their database and were dispensing it willy nilly to tourist companies. Hmmm..probably one for my Sydney IP attorney if they don't respond in my favour! <br>

So, keep vigilant and happy hunting.</p>

<p>Sheila</p>

[birteragland]

<p>All of you would do well to check this person out, I have just had some 300 photos removed from this site. While going through it I noticed many other members photos there. This is the site<br>

<a href="https://plus.google.com/photos/107250801972430506269/albums">https://plus.google.com/photos/107250801972430506269/albums</a></p>

[sheila]

<p>Many of the birds were taken from Sandor Bernath's photonet site. </p>

[Tim_Lookingbill]

<p>Nadine Gamal is not claiming ownership as creator of these images, is she?</p>

<p>Or is that Google Album page acting more like a "Pinterest" style collection of interesting things found on the web "by Nadine Gamal" type of site?</p>

<p>Just trying to determine the boundaries of "Fair Use".</p>

[funcrunch]

<p>Photos posted to Google+ (and Picasa) albums show the account owner as being the owner of the image. It's not set up like, or intended to be used like, Pinterest (not that I have any love for that site).</p>

[sheila]

<p>Nadine Gamal is also not attributing the work to the photographer and is therefore passing off other's images as hers. Pinterest is also infringing photographers' images as on most occasions the owners of the images (ie photographers) are not asked permission for them to be published. What is worse about Pinterest is that the owners of the site are in the process of a rights grab by stating in their T&C that they have all rights to images uploaded to the site without any reference to the owners. </p>

[Tim_Lookingbill]

<p>To make matters worse today I just saw a Pinterest page of someone's collection of photos displayed on a major cable news channel as a sort of stamp of approval that it's a legitimate and "neat" site for web surfers. It was either HLN or CNN. Can't remember right off hand.</p>

<p>Wonder if there are Pinterest collections similarly using someone else's images with the creators watermark clearly retained and displayed in the image. I think that's the only way of asserting ownership at this point against these quick grabbers which I wouldn't think would even spend the time to edit/crop in order the remove the watermark.</p>

<p>They may even be discouraged from including watermarked images in their Pinterest collections in the first place.</p>

[lex_jenkins]

<blockquote>

<p>"Nadine Gamal is also not attributing the work to the photographer and is therefore passing off other's images as hers"</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Are you certain this is accurate? At least in this particular photo discussion Nadine Gamal doesn't seem to be claiming credit for the images: <a href="https://plus.google.com/photos/107250801972430506269/albums/5707519874423188433">"Bizarre Celebrity Portraits Made Out Of Trash"</a></p>

<p>I'm genuinely curious... what are you planning to do with your photographs that would be hindered in any way by this type of reproduction online?</p>

<p>Is it a matter of measurable and/or demonstrable damages or losses? Or a preference to retain complete control of how and where your photographs are displayed?</p>

[steve m smith]

<blockquote>

<p>Or a preference to retain complete control of how and where your photographs are displayed?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>As an aside, it's strange how visual art and music differs in this respect. If someone wants to licence the use of a photograph, the copyright owner has the final say and can decide if he wants to grant the licence (or not) and sets the price.</p>

<p>With music, once you have published your CD (for example) anyone can take a track and use it on their radio or TV show or movie soundtrack without the permission of the artist by just paying the appropriate licencing fee to MCPS.<br>

<br />Sometime I think it would be better if a similar system existed for photographic images.</p>

[sheila]

<p>There is no attribution of Mark Adamus' work here <a href="https://plus.google.com/photos/107250801972430506269/albums/5708259820244818065">https://plus.google.com/photos/107250801972430506269/albums/5708259820244818065</a> Maybe Mark authorised the use. While some "albums" have a name on them, many more do not. Many of my images have gone "viral" because someone down the track removed the watermark and then placed it on line without my permission or seeking a license to do so. It only takes one person to ignore copyright laws and now stemming the flow of infringements takes up more time of my day than I care to think about. Using Google Search by Image on many of these images of Nadine will generally take you to either PhotoNet or the website of the legitimate owner. What folk do not seem to understand is that ALL images are copyright and one must obtain the permission of the copyright holder (ie the photographer in this case) before one can publish them. If they do not, they are infringing the intellectual property of others. These days my blog <a href="http://sheilasmartphotography.blogspot.com.au/">http://sheilasmartphotography.blogspot.com.au/</a> is taken up by articles advising photographers how to find and pursue infringers. And do you know who the biggest category of infringers are? Web developers - who really should know better!</p>

[Tim_Lookingbill]

<blockquote>

<p>I'm genuinely curious... what are you planning to do with your photographs that would be hindered in any way by this type of reproduction online?<br /> Is it a matter of measurable and/or demonstrable damages or losses? Or a preference to retain complete control of how and where your photographs are displayed?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>For me it's not damages or loss that's the issue but the fact someone is creating their own "intellectual property" so to speak in the form of making them self out to be someone of good taste and selectivity showing some one else's work much like a curator of a museum only the curator does it with honorable intentions and at least credits the creator of the work.</p>

<p>Pinterest is just a platform for a bunch of curators of taste through association. IOW these folks are stealing the mojo of another artist/photographer's work to create/promote them self as an online persona (well known character) of taste and not even giving credit to the folks that did all the work. The least they could do is give them credit.</p>

<p>I mean I just uploaded a bunch of my photos to my home town's wiki site and had to read a ton of legal jargon on their Creative Commons section on what "free" means. Wikipedia at least acknowledges that free doesn't mean NOT to give credit to the original artist if anyone's going to use or publish free content elsewhere on the web posted on Wikipedia.</p>

[lex_jenkins]

<blockquote>

<p>"...these folks are stealing the mojo of another artist/photographer's work to create/promote them self as an online persona..."</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Tim, that's probably as savvy and succinct a summary of the issue as any I've seen.</p>

<p>So far I've seen very few photographers coherently state or persuasively argue what, precisely, they've lost in material terms when their photographs are reproduced elsewhere, including by linking without actually downloading and re-uploading. Other than a handful of stock photographers who actually earn money from smallish JPEGs, how many photographers can actually specify any sort of loss or damages they've incurred? It usually seems to come down to a desire for <a href="../site-help-forum/00aAZa">absolute control over presentation of</a> and attribution for the work.</p>

[Tim_Lookingbill]

<blockquote>

<p>Tim, that's probably as savvy and succinct a summary of the issue as any I've seen.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Thanks Lex. You're welcome to use it any where you want and you don't even have to credit me. §;D</p>

<p>I got the idea from watching "Cadillac Records" movie about how the mojo borrowed from race records before the '60's made rock and roll kings out of the Rolling Stones, Beach Boys and Led Zeppelin and others without compensating the likes of Muddy Waters and Chuck Berry and others from whom they borrowed from.</p>

<p>But I'm really not sure if that can be applied to contributors of Pinterest and the like. I don't know what copyright law it fits under. I just observed a similarity between the two copyright (intellectual property?) situations.</p>