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Geek Wins Copyright Lawsuit Against Corporation
Chris Gregerson writes "I work as a stock photographer/web developer. I saw a photo of mine used in Vilana Financial's full-page phone book ad. They wouldn't pay the licensing fee, and I wrote about it online (mirror). They sued me for defamation, producing a sales agreement signed by one ' Michael Zubitskiy' (who they said took the photo and sold the rights to them). I sued them for copyright infringement, and they added claims against me for trademark infringement, deceptive trade practices, and tortuous interference. There was a trial I'll long remember on the 5th of November, and the judge recently issued her verdict (PDF; mirror). She ruled Vilana Financial forged the sales agreement and willfully infringed my photos, and awarded me $19,462. All claims against me were denied. I represented myself during the litigation."
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
"Copyright infringer", not "thief".
There are several differences here:
1. The evil corporation started playing hardball first.
2. The evil corporation was infringing the copyright for profit.
3. The evil corporation provably distributed copies of the copyrighted material, and the number of copies could be proven as well.
4. The evil corporation appears to have undertaken actions to attempt to defraud both the copyright holder and the court by giving testimony that a person sold the copyright to the corporation. (The ruling expresses doubt that this person even exists.)
5. The damages claimed were not ridiculous given the extent of the violations, substantially less than the amount available at law.
Sometimes I struggle understanding double standards on /.
There is more than one person posting here.
So ripping off a stock photo is Bad and this guy did good by pushing for his rights and winning.
Yes. And more importantly, without a lawyer. IMHO that alone makes it a respectable achievement, regardless of how I might feel about this particular law.
But pirating copyright music via p2p etc is OK because nobody got hurt right.
Not the same thing. This company used his images for profit. What would have been analogous to file sharing might be if the defendant had photocopied the image, put it on his wall for his own personal enjoyment, and given some copies to friends for the same purpose.
Conversely, there does not seem to be much sympathy for people who _sell_ pirated songs or attempt to use them for some purely commercial purpose.
I personally make a distinction between non-commercial/educational use and use for commercial gain (the RIAA goes after private individuals who shared music with other private individuals non-commercially). I went after a business who had a budget for photography, but cut me out of the loop to increase their profit margin at my expense. I barely make a living at photography, which is why I was pro-se (I couldn't afford an attorney).
I don't know what the fix is for the current copyright system, but anything that allows content creators to earn a living (without having to sue people) is fine with me.
www.cgstock.com
I think the OP's point (and I agree) is that the shows tend to use fairly reasonable devices, they just don't always use them correctly.
Numb3rs' equations are generally appropriate to task, at least insofar as I can follow them. The equipment they use on CSI does by and large exist, even if it's much rarer and considerably less slick than they make out. Law & Order usually references at least halfway appropriate legal doctrine, and House is at least usually (not always, but usually) fact-checked/consulted to the point of distant plausibility, even if they do often represent extremely rare situations or exaggerations as predictable lifesavers.
As for the rest, I'm OK chalking it up to dramatic device. Sometimes I'll see something headslap-worthy (normally something computery, given my usual focus) but I can generally maintain some level of distance from reality. All fiction takes shortcuts.
do you claim to own the rights to your briteny spears mp3 collection?
they didn't just rip off his work, they claimed to own the copyright on it as well. your missing the point we make time and time on here again as well - RIAA aren't content creators like this guy, they are business thieves that take the majority of the artists cut and sue their fans.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
The judge absolutely did NOT help me, and I didn't have the money for an attorney (they sued me for defamation first, so I had no choice but to litigate).
I may have been lucky, but I prevailed because I worked hard for two years and persisted. I worked much harder that the other side, and knew more about this area of law than their attorneys.
I will agree with you I should issue a disclaimer "Don't try this yourself". There are plenty of pro-se litigants who don't know what they are doing, a few who do, and I suspect that won't change.
www.cgstock.com
I'm not sure what the solution is, but in this case I initially sued in small claims court based on contract law and the "terms of use" of my website (which required a licensing fee for use of the photo). My claim was denied because it necessarily involved copyright, and I was told I had no recourse under contract law -- only copyright law, and only in federal court. I disagree, but there you have it.
And yes, there is a flood of images nowadays, but the skyline in this case is from a vantage point other's haven't duplicated. I provide high-res files 24/7, technical support on image format and resolution, and I shoot on speculation -- I add as much value as I can and rely on copyright as little as possible.
www.cgstock.com
No, his time isn't worth anything extra. His award of damages already covers that time spent.
Attorney's fees are for attorneys. They reimburse for out-of-pocket expenses, not for opportunity cost. That, again, is part of the award of damages. He chose to pursue this, calculating that his award would make it worth his time. He chose not to use attorneys, calculating that he'd fare better without those bills.
He was right on the former, but it turns out he was wrong on the latter. But he never bore the risk of gargantuan legal bills, so he traded the highest possible returns for that reduced risk.
FYI: I researched claims for infringer's profits in cases where a photo was used in an advertisement. I found that precedent requires the Plaintiff produce actual customers who testify the photo caused them (at least in part) to become customers (you can then get a small percentage of the infringer's profits). I thought that might incur more investigation and deposition costs than it was worth, and was otherwise busy trying to uncover the other side's fraud.
www.cgstock.com
Sorry to read the details, but that's just the way I am. I don't get much done, but what I do do is quality work...
Another $5,000 for removing the watermark (more than the value of the photo itself), plus another $10,000 in punitive damages, "just because the judge said so".
Well, like Mom always said, it is better to fess up than face the wrath of being caught in a lie.
The cover-up always costs more than the crime, it seems.
And, yes, I did say "do do" on purpose.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
I've seen setups like that before, and it's basically a case of the day-to-day monitoring equipment being low resolution while the recording is HD streamed to a SAN or recorded to a high quality film loop (e.g, 16mm), and can later be viewed at full res.
I basically agree, but want to point out I also got to keep my grip webpage up (they sought an injunction against it). I shouldn't have had to go through this, but I figured the outcome might deter other bullies who want to silence online critics.
www.cgstock.com
Working in print media, I can safely tell you that I've never worked with photographers like this. All commissioned photography is taken under contracts that include all the necessary copyright permissions (we usually but exclusively use "all rights" contracts because we publish online and in print, and online is global) and always, without exception, result in us getting the processed image files in suitable digital form.
Not RAW files though, which you might think you want but you probably don't really. Part of what I expect a photographer to do for me is correct the RAW image and give me a high res JPG or TIFF. He knows better than my production dept what colour correction needs to be done - they can tweak it later but the initial work on the RAW file is part of what I'm paying the photographer for.
So maybe you need to look up some freelance photographers in your area who work with print media and understand what's what. Expect to pay a lot more than you might think - a good photographer, complete with preproduction work and all rights handed over, is probably orders of magnitude more expensive than the family studio on the corner whose business is the low-margin, high volume opposite.
There's a difference between real time control of the camera optics, and processing after the fact. Normal surveillance cameras (the kind they're always enhancing on TV) have very limited resolution but a wide zoom range. You can zoom in if you can control the camera, but if it wasn't zoomed in at the time the data simply *isn't there* and no amount of photoshop will recover it...
Piracy is seizing a ship on the high seas, outside territorial waters. What ship was seized, and where is it now? If you cannot tell me what ship was seized, it was copyright infringement, not piracy.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
"Copyright infringer", not "thief".
The forged sales agreement, and the bogus defamation suit, takes it out of being just copyright infringement and more something else. Theft is probably the right label for that something else.
$20K ain't chicken feed for our hero, but to the bank it is cheaper to lose the occasional lawsuit than to do business honorably.
Our hero should probably follow up with various banking regulatory agencies (private or public) to make this hurt more.
"Any numbers backing that up?"
I've got better than that, I've got the judgement (so do you) where the judge stated
"Plaintiff could have sought the profits Defendants derived from the infringement as damages but chose not to do so"
Reading is your friend.
2) I'm assuming that the defendant isn't just going to cut a check. What are his options? Can the plaintiff just show up one day at the office with a Bailiff, a court order and a moving van and start carting away 19,000 dollars worth of office equipment?
Basically. Well, legally it's the sheriff who traditionally enforces judgments, not the bailiff, and it's a writ of garnishment rather than an order, but other than that what you said is basically right.
Also, with concealed carry permits available in most states, the majority of citizens can carry under a jacket by simply taking a course anyways. Not that they'd be able to take that jacket off (by definition the weapon has to stay concealed unless it's needed in a life/death situation), but that doesn't mean they're not there. With that in mind, I highly doubt they care if their forensic guys carry.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
The alternative was to take down the webpage they complained about and forgo compensation for their commercial use of my photography. If they could do this to me, as corrupt and wrong as they were, it could happen to me again, and to anyone else. I would, in a very real way, be giving up on my right to publish the truth online, and be compensated for my work when used commercially by others.
I believed I had to stand up against that. Whether or not it was worth it perhaps depends on the value you place on these issues, but I value them pretty highly and so, yes, it was worth it to me.
It's impacted my life in that I know a lot more about the law. There was an issue of implied threats against me, so I've been in close touch with my local police (the station is a block from me). It's been a huge stress, but I don't regret it. As for collection, I am optimistic.
www.cgstock.com