back in the early days i used to 'protect' my images with javascript and stop people from right-clicking on them, etc. (what can i say -- it was the early days! that stuff used to work back then.) and i remember getting a very irate email from a bloke telling me off for preventing him from copying the entire lot, which he apparently wanted to use on his own website. he even threatened to charge me for the hours it took him to read through all the source code for the URLs

I do a lot of DMCA's for a client of mine and so often I get the excuses "It's on the internet" or "so and so is using it." Apparently, being on the internet voids copyrights in some people's minds as does someone else using it, even though that someone is an authorized distributor of my client's products. I find that either a) people are lazy and/or b) they are simply trying to profit off another person's work.

"I still love that he thinks we shoot images to upload to the Internet just so we can sue people for stealing them."

Copyright trolls certainly do exist, but obviously that doesn't mean every photographer is one, or that it gives you a free pass :-)

This case appears to be someone that cannot "get it" about IP, and how people earn from their creations. I wonder it's the same kind of person that also copies all his music from free download sites without paying royalties. "It's on the Net so it's free" attitude.

I've had a A LOT of people poach our images and our news articles for Youtube videos.

Sometimes Youtube takes the videos down and other times the person fights the take-down attempt and Youtube advises me to sue or the video is going back in two weeks.

I spoke to lawyers once and they told me unless the person has money - it's not even worth going after them legally. Or, if they live out of the country it's also a costly pain.

I have a trademark attorney, who told me that even if the person has money - the first step he would advise any client is to do a DMCA and also a Cease and Desist letter.

If the person does not respond to the letter or refuses to remove the content, then he would file a legal complaint. It gets very complicated if the person is overseas.

There is a website in Mexico that takes our articles all the time and translates them to Spanish with zero credit to our site. The guy won't take the articles down or at the very least source our site. Very frustrating.

I read the legal documents to this case.

A bit more complex than his video or any articles tell.

Obviously the article writers on this case did no homework on what happened.

It's not as simple as some small website used an image. It goes deeper.

This guy who got sued owns some e-commerce network and was advising people, who were paying him in some online-shop creating, to use this photographer's images for their stores.

The photographer actually went after some woman who opened her store and was using the copyrighted image in question - which led him to this guy Dan, because she basically threw him under the bus with the excuse of "well he told me to use it so I thought it was fine" and the copyright holder went after the head of the snake.

Well, it's bad advice to even say it's ok to use. Both this person and his client are equally to complicit to differing degrees.

I've been in the situation where a photographer supplied me with imagery and we paid for a specific use. Later, we got a demand from another company claiming the image had used something of theirs without permission/release. The photographer shrugged his shoulders, and we paid the release. In fact, we decided to take the imagery down to avoid further confusion and hassles. You're right, it's often more complex than first thought.

it is a problem that is getting worse ....

schools are giving homework that includes such things as "Find an image of 'x' from the internet and print it off as part of your project"
- this instills the idea at an early age that you can just take what you like.

when i was a kid, some of my contemporaries would tape music from the radio, also some would tape vinyl LP's ... however although it was done everyone knew it was illegal, however today kids don't seem to even know that downloading pirated music/films/tv shows is morally wrong and illegal.

also by lowering the barrier of entry for webpage creation it means that anyone with little intelligence or background knowledge can 'create' pages often using copyrighted material.

I once had a photo I took, in a friends house in Madrid, of another friend (a well known rock bass player/singer) sitting on the balcony, stolen for a website AND a CD cover!
I was certainly annoyed, largely because I wasn't asked or given credit, but also because the users were cashing in after my pal's death. They told me they weren't interested in my annoyance. Since I was broke at the time, I just gave up on it......
Still pees me off.....
Having once changed a hot linked image for one reading 'This image is stolen' and having the site slag me off for not being co-operative I again washed my hands of the issue

No sense in getting too wound up about these things, life has better things to occupy me...... ;)

The internet is not set up to deal with copyrighted content. It is too easy to do and too difficult to enforce, even when the other party admits guilt. While we are all connected to the same internet throughout the world, our legal systems, or lack of them is not so far reaching.

We would need much more legal oversight and regulation in order to deal with international internet copyright issues.

The only thing I didnt like in this scenario is the guy who made the video has some validity about the lawyer.

I don't care about him suing the guy owning the network who made the video.

But it bothers me that the lawyer sued this woman initially, who basically just opened her shop. She was much older, was very new to the internet in terms of being a webmaster and did what she was advised to do by a peer who she paid for advice.

There was no takedown notice, nothing. This woman basically got blindsided when she a received a lawsuit at her door and got fleeced for $5,000 under threat of being fleeced for much more in court. She was broke, single mother with kids trying to find something legal to make money and is now on a payment plan with this lawyer like a collection agency.

Mind you, that 5K she paid is far beyond what the photographer charges for that photo. You can buy an image through Getty for a billboard for $575, which tells you all you need to know.

The photographers I know, guys who are pros, have websites where they have their images, but they are all watermarked right down the middle and protected in a special area you need to register to access - unless you pay... similar to Getty or the AP.

I get what the video maker is trying to say, the photographer set up a website, threw all of his images on there unwatermarked and unblocked, hoping Google Images would index those images and then someone would take them, so he could sue for some revenue. That may or may not be the case here, hard to say, but either way he just went to the guy's site and took his images.

Saw this news piece yesterday, quite amusing how blindsided some people are.

I think a decent punishment for blatant copyright theft is asking them what intellectual property they've created the past 5 years and release it into the public domain, if they have anything of use.

Mind you, that 5K she paid is far beyond what the photographer charges for that photo. You can buy an image through Getty for a billboard for $575, which tells you all you need to know.

They may have been able to acquire the image for $575, but, where's the penalty for abuse. If they only get charged $575 it's not a penalty and everyone will do it until they get caught.

Even if the photographer put their images online without watermarks it cannot be assumed they are free to use: That's just the misunderstanding, again: It's on the web so it's free.
I don't know if the photographer put a disclaimer on the site. Most sites have some kind of copyright message.

There's so much wrong with this whole tale, and it does seem that all are to blame in some respects, and some more than others. It's sad that the penniless woman got hit so hard.

@engine - he actually sells if for $45 dollars. $575 was the price Getty sells for professional images in the highest possible resolution and size.

The point is, a $45 image does not give him the right to fleece someone for $5000 on a website that gets no traffic and there are no damages.

The only reason he found this woman is because he has a lawyer on retainer, and that lawyer's sole purpose is to have his firm search all day long to track down images that belong to their clients - no different than the attorneys retained by music labels.

Taking copyrighted material is stealing, no different than stealing from a store. But if you steal a $50 sweater, the court will not order you to make restitution back for $500.

If the photog can prove damages, thats a different story. But the way the laws are written (in America at least) you DONT have to prove damages in these image cases or even have a copyright disclaimer on the site. As long as the image is filed with the copyright office, you can just sue without notice.

But I dont exactly blame the photog. I blame that lawyer - because he gets a third of the money, so of course he can set the price as high as he wants - no different than a collection agency attorney who wants $10,000 to settle a debt that was originally 100 bucks.

This is why I started an LLC many, many years ago - because a lawyer warned me about the internet being the wild west when it came to lawsuits and an LLC will protect your personal assets in the event of a legal matter - as long as it's not personal wrongdoing.

I also block all of my info on whois. Everything is private, because that's how scam artists can track you down.

@vegasrick That's even worse at $45, so it does look predatory.
As I said, it does seem something's wrong all around on this story.

where's the penalty for abuse

I dunno about elsewhere, but in the US, only the government is allowed to punish. That means if you steal something valued at $50 you may well get fined $500 or $5000 ... but that extra money doesn't go to the person you stole from.