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."

Comments

refreshing!

[v1]

Now THAT is how copyright law is supposed to work! So refreshing to see it actually properly applied.

Re:refreshing!

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually what's more refreshing is that for a change, a foreign court was granted jurisdiction in America, rather than the other way around. And no-one got to be deported in the process!

Re:refreshing!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's worth noting that if there were no copyright law then Tanya Steele wouldn't have been able to cause damage in the first place.

If a person has a gun and goes around shooting people for fun and, one day, is shot by one of their targets, then it's natural to feel a low-level sense of justice but I wouldn't go around saying "Now that is how guns are supposed to work".

Re:refreshing!

[Anonymous Coward]

Think you will find there is a whole raft of Copyright treaties between Australia and the US. She can certainly take further legal Action, but the Australian court decision will be in effect for both countries.

Just goes to show

[19thNervousBreakdown]

Don't file bogus lawsuits unless you're a big corporation suing somebody too poor to sue back.

Shouldn't it be "Judgment"?

[thomasinx]

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 just don't get it?

[Grayhand]

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.

Umm, but..

[Weezul]

Try this against sound exchange. lol

Fine, copyright law works between two nobodies. Ain't never seen it "work" whenever anyone big got involved.