George Riddick — the One-Man RIAA of Clip Art

An anonymous reader writes "Pages at ireport.com and extortionletterinfo.com have been documenting and researching the activities of George P. Riddick III, previously known for his lawsuits against IMSI and Xoom at the turn of the century. In 2007 he issued a largely-ignored press release claiming the majority of clip art online infringes a copyright and has ranted about how Microsoft and Google are stealing from him. In recent months, he's apparently made a business model of going after web site operators who were using clip art they believed to be legally licensed or public domain, telling them they're infringing clip art collections he hasn't offered commercially in years and making outrageous settlement demands. He seems to have tested the waters on this some years back, but emboldened by the passage of the PRO-IP act, he's gone aggro with it. A few dodgy anonyblogs had popped up to 'out' him as a copyright abuser, but these recent ireport.com and extortionletterinfo.com reports go much deeper in documenting and researching Riddick's recent one-man campaign to be the RIAA of clip art."

Comments

Ahh, fair use

[mlwmohawk]

make no mistake, this is an assault on "fair use" of work.

The logos and art in question are not representing Google or Microsoft, they are mere representations of what was found on the external sites which are assumed to be displaying lawfully acquired content.

Google and Microsoft are not the police or the courts. If you have a valid issue with their display of an image, issue a take down notice.

Re:Ahh, fair use

[Technician]

This is one of the first things I noticed when my SO was looking at sewing machines. We looked into the extra costs in doing embrodary and was appalled at the total lockdown of the artwork for any of the machines. It resulted in a simple no sale as the machines were unusable for any hobby applications as everything was tied up in royalties and legal risk.

This is a field that could have had lots of interest, but due to greed and closed formats, etc, it appeals to very few.

Re:Ahh, fair use

[fyoder]

If anything, they'll go after the people selling the discs in the first place. Confused grandmothers are not known for their deep pockets.

That wouldn't stop the RIAA. The Embroidery Inustry Association of America is obviously not made of the same stuff.

Re:Ahh, fair use

[Anonymous Coward]

It is because the scope of protection offered by patent is significantly more than that offered by copyright.

The justification being that because the rights it confers are limited it takes longer to make a reasonable profit.

That said, I think the protections offered by both extend for too long a period.

Re:Ahh, fair use

[Stanislav_J]

I'm sure that Disney is aware of the situation and is frustrated that they can't suck the blood from these spinster pirates because of the bad PR involved with suing confused grandmothers.

Never stopped the RIAA. Maybe that's why Disney is a thriving concern and the RIAA is in its death throes.

Re:Ahh, fair use

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it's due to the insane lengths of modern copyright. Why should copyright outlast a patent?

Shut up! If the right person hears you, they'll extend the length of patents!

What's the problem?

[HEbGb]

If this guy really owned the clipart, and they are being used commercially without permission, then he has every right to go after any involved party. Obviously they can then choose to settle, if under reasonable terms, or just remove the damn clipart.

I really don't see what's so evil about this guy. *As long as he can prove his assertions.*

[ Notice how slashdot folks rail against people who steal personal videos, photos, artwork, etc. for commercial use... ]

Re:What's the problem?

[SpacePunk]

What's to stop him from copying an image, placing it on his site, then claiming he owns the image? He'd be hard pressed to prove he owned the image to begin with.

Re:What's the problem?

[mikael_j]

But, just for fun let's say I can prove only I make/sell those jeans. Well, if I know I'm the only one who sells the jeans, and I didn't sell you the jeans, and you're wearing the jeans... ...Then yeah, you either stole the jeans or are in receipt of stolen property. Just like in the current scenario.

To make this about clipart again (since physical items aren't the same as data on a disk), let's say I can't remember where I got the clipart from, but I'm reasonably sure I got it from a backup of an original disk (that had been destroyed) that a friend of mine gave to me because he no longer had any use for it, and he bought the original disk from some guy ages ago, doesn't remember who this was and that person most likely doesn't have a receipt anymore? Would you say it's a clear-cut "YUO STOEL FROM ME!!!111" situation then?

Because that sounds a lot like what's going on, and to take it to the jeans analogy: I got a pair of jeans from a friend of mine, he got them from some guy in his dorm who most likely bought them years ago and now a Levi's just sent me a threatening letter telling me that I've been spotted wearing a pair of their jeans in public and that they have no record of ever selling me a pair of their jeans. Does that sound even remotely sane?

/Mikael

Re:Growing network of victims!

[cbiltcliffe]

Yeah. I've found in my cynicism that when you're dealing with somebody with a vested or political interest in something like this, what they don't say is much more important than what they do say.

Re:What a joke.

[Red Flayer]

I love the fact in his letters he always "hopes to keep this confidential." That always works when the internet is involved.

I think you may misunderstand the reason he writes that he "hopes to keep this confidential".

It's not about protecting himslef, it's part of the threat package: "Pay me now or spend a fortune paying me later... oh, and by the way... nice reputation you have there. It would be a shame if anything *happened* to it."

A Neutral Observation

[illegalcortex]

claiming the majority of clip art online infringes a copyright

I'm actually fairly willing to believe this.

Of course, that's not the same as proving that HIS clip-art is being used at all the sites he sues. If it is, then I'd find it hard to actually get mad at him.

Did anyone read the linked to "rant"? It's actually fairly cogent. First he basically says "If I was to steal your copyrighted stuff, you'd sue me into the ground because you're a huge company. Yet you steal mine all the time. That's rather unfair." Doesn't this sound like the Official Slashdot Position? Next he goes on to say he's mad at Google and Microsoft's image search tools because they continue to cache the image even after the site has removed it. Microsoft claimed they weren't caching them and he showed them an example that proved them wrong. Isn't this also a very Slashdot thing to do?

All in all, it sounds like he wasn't pissed that the image search features exist, but that they kept caching them even when he got people to yank his clipart off their server. Then they get money for ads on pages with the cached picture. And then people would copy the clipart again from the returned image results, making it easier for people to continue copying his clipart.

I've went to the links in the summary and they actually make me sympathize with the guy MORE. And I'm a bittorrenting fiend. One of them posts a picture of him accompanied by "Maybe if he makes enough money, he can go on a diet course, or at least buy a bigger belt to hold up that fat, obese stomach." Especially petty considering he looks like just about any old man his age, not actually spectacularly obese or anything.

I haven't been able to find widespread claims that he sues over clipart he doesn't own the copyrights to. Just that he's a jerk because his letters say "you put our clipart on your page, pay up" and don't give the target a chance to say "I'm sorry, I'll just take it off and we can pretend it never happened." The only other thing I can find other than personal insults was that they claim his clipart sucks anyway (sour grapes, anyone?). True, he does sell a lot of clipart that looks straight from the 80s, but there's also things like this:

http://www.imageline2.com/pages/ipics2_LOGOSNature.htm
http://www.imageline2.com/pages/ipics2_OTHERWorldRel2.htm
http://www.imageline2.com/pages/PRESENT_Index.htm

This looks like prime fodder for a lot of business use today. It looks better than 90% of what I see in powerpoint presentations even now.

And the last point I can find people make against him is that he has clipart of the UN flag and the Sydney Opera House and those have some very specific copyrights attached to them. First, the UN flag is not protected by copyright but simply by a UN resolution that says "don't use our flag." A resolution that has no actual legal backing. And the question of how much the SOH can legally limit the use of their image is murky at best:
http://www.freedomtodiffer.com/freedom_to_differ/2007/06/photographing_t.html

So really, I just don't get the uproar. Yeah, I wish copyright law was MUCH different to align penalties with actual profit being made by the infringer. But this guy hardly seems to be in the same league as the RIAA and their whole "making available" bullshit.

Entitlement again

[Migraineman]

From the ImageLine website:

How many of these people who believe our copyright laws are outdated and should be abolished do you think work in one of the copyright-dependent industries? Better yet, how many of them have ever given a dime, let alone a cup of hot coffee, to a starving artist, musician, painter,or writer who has lost their job due to piracy?

And here again we see the Entitlement Mentality. The "starving artist" can't earn a living at his chosen profession. Exactly why is the artist *entitled* to make a living at said profession? If his chosen career path isn't economically viable, why am I suddenly obligated to support him? Perhaps the "starving artist" wouldn't be starving if he made better choices in his life.

Further, I work in an industry that relies heavily on copyright law. It is plainly obvious that copyright law is broken, and is detrimental to society in it's current form. The "temporary monopoly" was never intended to grant a semi-permanent revenue stream for you and your children. Copyright Rebels, my ass.

Re:Use the web-Nailed It!

[Nom du Keyboard]

After reading all of these letters, I don't think that anybody would really take this guy seriously.

You've nailed the point. Most people don't see all the letters. They only see the one they received and few know the actual history of any art they might be using.

And that's not a 419 (Nigerian) scam. It's the classic mob extortion line: "You've got a nice little web-site here. Be a shame if anything happened to it - along with personally bankrupting you for copyright infringement. Remember those huge statuary damages the RIAA is always suing for...?"