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Bogus Takedown Notice Lands $150k Settlement In Australian Court
Fluffeh writes "Richard Bell, an Australian Film Maker, on a fellowship in New York, produced and directed approximately 18 hours of raw footage for a film with the help of an assistant called Tanya Steele and paid her for these services. Ms Steele, through her American lawyers, sent letters to Mr Bell and his agent claiming that she owned the copyright in the footage and demanding that the trailer be removed from the Internet. She also caused the Vimeo website to remove the trailer. In response, Bell went to the (Australian) courts, which declared him the owner of the copyright in the film, and deemed Steele's threats "unjustifiable". Bell then asked for damages. These were granted in the latest judgment because Bell had lost the opportunity to sell some of his works, which typically cost tens of thousands of dollars, as a result of Steels' threats. The Australian judge awarded over $150,000 in damages plus another $23,000 costs against her."
Now THAT is how copyright law is supposed to work! So refreshing to see it actually properly applied.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Don't file bogus lawsuits unless you're a big corporation suing somebody too poor to sue back.
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A settlement involves an agreement between two parties. Nothing of the sort happened here. The Australian court said this woman had to pay the money. Thats a "judgment". Its quite irritating that immediately after this verdict, the relisted trailer on YouTube got blocked by the same person again...
I come out of the film industry and my saying is "some one always gets greedy". I told this to my expartner on my last film and he claimed that wasn't the case. Just to prove my point he stole the film literally from my home and to this day it's gone unfinished and is effectively worthless. I've seen it happen time after time that some one involved gets greedy and often the films get shelved because of it so no one benefits. The oddest thing it tends to be the person least involved that thinks they deserve it all which is what happened to me. On my previous film an actor sued the distributor because he thought he should get a share of the profits in spite of the fact the film broke even and his contract didn't grant him profits. He lost the first lawsuit and got a $25,000 judgement against him so what did he do? He sued a second time and lost again. It's shocking how greedy people get when they think they can make a quick buck.
Try this against sound exchange. lol
Fine, copyright law works between two nobodies. Ain't never seen it "work" whenever anyone big got involved.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
Does this mean that karma will catch up with this idiot too?
Not necessarily. In your case, her victims would have to prove that they lost money as a result. Did they?
In this case of Steele vs. Bell, I know that everyone is making light of the amount of money he won, but this guy Bell really didn't have any problem proving that he was already making $150,000 selling his paintings in just a few of months, so the amount he was awarded is probably just a very conservative estimate of what he could have earned if she had not prevented him from appearing at an art show, and blocked the online promotion of his movie showcasing his story.
Duh. They eat babies. Even I know that and I'm not Australian.