Anti-Infringement Company Caught Infringing On Its Website

danomac writes "Canipre, a Canadian anti-infringement enforcement company, has been using photos on their official website without permission. This company hopes to bring U.S.-style copyright lawsuits to Canada, and they are the company behind Voltage's current lawsuits. It says right on their website, 'they all know it's wrong, and they're still doing it' overlaid on top of the image used without permission. Multiple photos from different photographers are used; none of them with permission. Canipre's response? 'We used a third party vendor to develop the website and they purchased images off of an image bank,' they said, trying to pass the blame to someone else. Some of the photos were released under the Creative Commons, meaning they could have used the photos legally if they'd provided proper attribution."

Comments

$5k limit

[Citizen of Earth]

The limitation of liability in Canadian cases is $5k for all infringement in a court case for non-commercial copyright infringement, but the more likely "get" is just $100. When their first "successful" case goes through the court system with a judgement of $100, it will make the news headlines and their business model will be destroyed.

Re:$5k limit

[ledow]

The point is that threatening legal action costs the person you're threatening. Not everyone even has a few hundred dollars to retain a lawyer no matter how briefly. Yes, you might "get it all back" but at great risk even if you are completely innocent and the charges are groundless.

A threatening letter from a lawyer doesn't have to go through another expensive lawyer. Sure, if you try to get clever, you can dig yourself in deeper, but the fact is that if you can't afford to fight the case, then you sure as hell can't afford to do anything at all - even the simplest of letters from your lawyer will not make the case go away every time, but will cause huge bills unless you find a no-win, no-fee lawyer.

Courts are quite reasonable in this regard. You just write back a letter that says "I have received your letter dated XX/XX/XXXX. I believe it to be without merit." (or similar). That's it. Just send it back. Let *them* take *you* to court if you're sure you're innocent. There, THEY have to prove YOU did it. With expensive lawyers and to a legal standard. And once you get there, junior lawyers will often jump for the chance to advise on a case for free. Once it's in court, your legal fees will be paid if you're victorious and it will be stupidly expensive if not so you have nothing to lose. Hell, if you are forced to take out a loan to hire a lawyer, it can often happen that the other side has to pay the loan too. And you will KNOW that it's time to hire a lawyer or face worse problems.

However, before it gets to court, there's no point settling unless you are guilty (and sometimes not even then) as it will only be to your detriment. Settlement paperwork often has clauses that say you were guilty and accept that you did it. It's then an irrevocable fact of law that you can't ever contest. This is also why "no comment" exists, and why you have the right to say nothing when arrested, and why you SHOULD say nothing until a lawyer arrives. However, if you are innocent, there's no harm in saying "No, I didn't do that, etc." By letter, being silent is easily confused with ignorance, disregard, attempts to evade justice, etc. so you just write back and say, in effect, "Nope".

Even if settle only to get away from the case, you are forever taking responsibility for that event. If it later comes up in another case that "if you did X, then you must have done Y" (i.e. if you downloaded that tune at that time on that day, then that MUST have been you driving your car past your house a minute earlier, etc.) then you are stuffed.

Until something lands in court, you don't need a lawyer. It may be prudent if you can afford it, but lots of people can't. And in the same way you don't need a lawyer to go over your terms and conditions of every service you use, or approve everything you say to a sales person, you don't need a lawyer in the early stages of response to threats like that.

I have been threatened with court several times. Funnily, it's never actually happened.

First, over a mobile phone contract (with phone) that never arrived at my door, was never signed by me, and I phoned up to REPORT IT MISSING / STOLEN. They wanted to force me to pay for the contract (for the whole year!), pay for the missing phone, pay for any replacement, etc. They threatened all sorts, in writing and on the phone. I wrote back, stated my side, and let them get on with it.

I can see it from their point of view - I ordered a phone, it might have arrived and I've done a runner with it. Sure. I get that. It's a valid case that there might be a simple answer to or that might need taking to court to get to the facts of the matter.

They harassed me for a month with letters and phone calls and after a while, I just stopped answering or answered only with "Sorry, your company has threatened me with legal action. Therefore, I will not discuss the issue."

In the end, I had the bank force a refund of my money that they'd taken (with zero problems, actually, it took only ten mi

Re:Why isn't it plausible?

[ganjadude]

its also plausible they just told you what you wanted to hear to make you go away, knowing the entire time they took your work

Re:Does this surprise anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

We all do this - we say one thing, but when it comes time to do it, we take the easy way out, we cut corners. And then fail to see how hypocritical we are.

Speak for yourself. Some of us either wouldn't do this in the first place, ideally - or we'd be horrified to find out that we have done this, and would take whatever steps were necessary to correct it and prevent its reoccurrance. What we *wouldn't* do is excuse it, cover it up, and justify it on the basis that lots of people visibly do the same (like you are doing). What other people do or don't do does not excuse/justify what I do.

Perhaps *you* are a hypocrite. That confession is yours to make, or not make. That's your choice and I respect it as such. But do not pretend to speak for all human beings. That is supreme arrogance.