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Photographer Threatened With Legal Action After Asserting His Copyright
New submitter JamieKitson writes "Photographer Jay Lee got more than he bargained for after sending some DMCA takedown notifications out to hosts of sites using one of his pictures. One Candice Shwagger accused him of everything from conspiracy over local sheriff elections to child abuse. Since Candice is now threatening legal action, Jay has said he'll take down the post, so here's a snap shot. After reading the story, I checked for use of my own pictures and found one of them being used on a review site without even a credit."
How do I find out who uses my pictures on the internet?
-- Cheers!
Elrond: We cannot use the DCMA. That we now know too well. It belongs to Sauron and was made by him alone, and is altogether evil.
Please remain calm, there is no reason to pani... wait, where are you all going?
Wow. That is what is like when you cross paths with someone that is truly unhinged. If I were Jay, I'd be checking to see if there are any bunnies in boiling pots on my stove.
He quickly realized that she does seem to do non-profit work for disabled children
That's no excuse. The correct response is "Oh, I'm sorry I didn't realize this was an issue. I do non-profit work for disabled children, is there any way we can work out an accomodation?"
The fact that Shwagger went straight to threats of lawsuits indicates that despite the fact that she works with disabled children, she's still a terrible person.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Candice Shwagger now that her antics have made the front page of /.
Its well knows that the weenies on /. have issues with cyberbullies, and a very long memory.
Its a good thing that nobody here would print that page to PDF and keep it archived and continue to remind the world of her shennigannis for a very long time.
I think Houston's best marketing attorny is going to be having problems since future clients will call her site into question because she's pladgerizing other peoples work. The Texas Bar association should really know about this, perhaps they will take action and actually end her career.
"... Doesn't look like she's missing too many meals" http://www.examiner.com/slideshow/candice-schwager?slide=37962031
She eats the babies she can't save.
Her Blogspot site ...
http://attorney4specialneeds.blogspot.com/
Has the same logo as ...
http://activesportfitness.co.uk/
Someone seems to have copied it from the other.
Thanks to Google Goggles for that quick research!
And once again, I have to change my previous comment. Here's what this woman emailed privately and posted publicly about the photographer:
Private - "Now that the issue is resolved and you have your precious image back, do not ever bother me again. You cost me thousands in billable time and I could sue you. You are fortunate it came back up because as usual, an emergency call came in from a very disabled client needing help and it is substantial as to time/effort/predicted fees. Had you not done the right thing, you would have hurt a lot of people, but most pathethically, a MR girl with the mind of a 4 year old who needs my help. Do not harass or stalk me on Twitter or FB or otherwise. I am done and you better be. Donâ(TM)t make me vomit, your lawyer."
PUBLIC: "Jay Lee Blows It
I do not believe this many coincidences could come together and be legit. So many things dont add up or sound the alarms, I just canâ(TM)t bring myself to buy the innocent victim role Jay Lee vomits everywhere. Jay Leeâ(TM)s skittish inconsistency, sincere, desperate, apologetic (clearly understanding nothing was knowingly done to him, after he saw all of the wreckage his wrecklessness caused), terror (induced by reading my letter? Realizing he had made a big mistake), inexplicable stalking, bait & switch images on Flickr, removing âoehot potatoâ image and refusing to sell at opportune time, with my letter thrashing him, sent the fear of God through him.
"I do not believe in coincidence. Even if I did, the number of âoecoincidencesâ that occurred in this shameless, disgusting story, make me quite certain that Adrian Garcia and/or Alan Bernstein and his minions at the Chronicle conspired to have the Help Desk guy / techie, Jay Lee (creepy), falsely accuse me of copyright infringement and use his tech abilities to determine which website was hosting the remaining sites so that Garcia could take them all down."
B.I.T.C.H.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
The DMCA, when implemented properly by the hosting provider, is a minimally troubling procedure. It's basically a form letter version of exactly what you're suggesting. It also provides him and the hosting provider with legal protections as well as formalizing a response procedure by the uploader. GoDaddy's the one that kicked it into overdrive by taking down all sites associated with the user rather than just the one file that was being infringed.
I'm not saying it's perfect and I don't think it should be shotgunned against every file returned by a query of "guns roses" on Google. But it perfectly fits the case where someone doesn't want to go through the trouble of having personal correspondence with the possibly hundreds of people who have infringed upon his copyright.
If it was a couple of websites that he found using his photo, I'd agree with you. But he found a lot, and rather than trying to track down every single individual, potentially have to fight with them, and ultimatley have to use DMCA notices for half of them anyway, he did what was reasonable - he used a single tool to notify everyone of the issue withing the law. The fact that GoDaddy took the sites down as a result is NOT on him - he didn't request that, that's what GoDaddy's TOS that SHE agreed to says that GoDaddy will do.
As much as I hate the DMCA, in this case I think the copyright holder took reasonable action, especially since he was the actual copyright owner, and not just some shill claiming that anything even closely related to something their employer owns belongs to them. Plus, given her reaction, do you really think she would have responded any more reasonably if he had just contacted her directly? My guess is that she would have disputed his copyright assertion at the very least, if not flat out telling him to shove off because she was "entitled" to use it (see her own words for her flawed logic about that). Something tells me this was the better move anyway (especially since most if not all of the other offenders had perfectly reasonable responses)...
Wow so now we all are lawyers? I mean give me break, what has this world come to when copying a photo causes a deluge of DMCA takedowns. If you want to share, post it on the internet. Otherwise stay off of it and go to law school.
Given that the photo was posted on Flickr and clear marked as a copyrighted photo with "all rights reserved", any adult should know better than to think s/he can appropriate for their own commercial enterprise ... and in this specific case, it wasn't just any random person, but in fact a LAWYER that appropriated the work of another.
Before even considering the unprofessional behavior, this was worth a slap from the state bar association, now it's worthy of several slaps and a couple of kicks as well.
"Flame away, I wear asbestos underwear"
So if I walk up to you and take something that belongs to you, in your world view I should track you down and ask nicely for it back before I call the cops? It's not like she and the others didn't know they were taking someone else's work, without permission or credit, and using it to make money for themselves. And you genuinely want to make out that he's the bad guy here? You believe this? Really...thanks for making sure I'm not getting out of this week without one more reminder how hopelessly fucked up and bankrupt some peoples moral world view can be.
Wait a minute: did you just compare a felony (theft) with copying one file?
And you have the nerve to call the GP's morals as "hopelessly fucked up and bankrupt"? Why don't you go fuck yourself, mate.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.