Tuesday, April 22, 2014

A Decision has been made

After our last post about the attempted extortion, it has been decided that we will play the waiting game. Rather than try to reach an amicable resolution, as suggested by the email, we will simply ignore the threat and see if it goes away on its own. Lets be honest, the only solution that those lawyers will be happy with is money, and that is not going to happen, so why bother?

Assuming this doesn't simply go away and they reach out again, our response will simply be that we have done and said everything that we plan to do and say, so the ball is in their court. If they decide to take it to the next level, we will become very vocal and they will only lose the battle, wasting both our time and money as well as theirs. Also, a battle like this may prove most beneficial to Mizozo in the long run.

If they are reading this blog, we should see a response from them soon ...

Thursday, April 17, 2014

Seems our latest Takedown Request is a blast from the past

It turns out that the previous post's takedown request is in reference to an earlier takedown request. After we removed the link and alerted them that the link was gone, we got a follow up email claiming they would get back to us shortly, but it seems that their idea of shortly and my idea of shortly are very different.

Here's the latest message we received from them.

Hi Dan,

I am not sure that you remember what this case is regarding. We received the email copied below from you on October 9, 2013, and appreciate that you removed the image. However, we have left several messages for you to discuss the fact that removing the image only solves part of the problem. The other part being the time that the images were up on the site without permission.

I would like to discuss this matter with you and hope to come to an amicable resolution. Please contact me as soon as possible.

From: Dan Golob [mailto:mizozo.com@gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, October 09, 2013 8:43 AM
To: SLPLLC - Copyright
Subject: Copyrighted content removed
 
Hello.
The copyrighted content referenced in the attached PDF has been removed from Mizozo.
Thanks
Dan


Regards,

Looks like they really want to scare me into giving them some money. Nothing like a good extortion scheme to start your weekend right.

I am not responding to them right away, I need a little time to think this over. Do you have any suggestions?



Wednesday, April 16, 2014

These DMCA Takedown Requests are getting interesting

Looks like the lawyers are trying to get clever in their extortion attempts. The latest DMCA takedown request was sent via our Contact Us link on mizozo.com. While there is nothing special about that, it is the way in which we were contacted that is clever.

In the past, every time we received a takedown request, there is usually a link with some images that the lawyers felt were infringing. They would mention the images in some way, have some extortion amount mentioned, and try to put the fear of God into us stating that some crazy lawsuit is about to happen if we don't pay up quickly.

This time, however, they tried a different method. There is no mention of what is infringing, only a website I could log into in order to check what I infringed upon. More interesting, they claim that "Our office has made several attempts to contact you regarding the above referenced matter", which is complete bull considering how quickly I post any DMCA takedown request to this blog, and how I quickly I usually remove the links from the site.

Oh well, if they want to play that game, lets play and see how it goes. Here is the message I received from the lawyers (its funny how they feel they can send an unsolicited message to me and assume that I will agree to their terms of not sharing their messages contents, I guess they should have done a bit of research before sending):
UNAUTHORIZED USE OF COPRYRIGHT IMAGE - CASE #103316 To Whom it May Concern; Our office has made several attempts to contact you regarding the above referenced matter. To date, we have not received a response. You may view the infringement by going to our website XXXXXXXXXXX and entering your code e4x1Tde Please note we have been authorized to commence litigation against you should you fail to timely resolve this matter. Please be further advised that once we commence such litigation, we will seek the maximum statutory damages available to our client, and will start to accrue legal costs and attorney\\\\\\\'s fees for which you may ultimately be responsible. This letter is without prejudice to all rights and remedies afforded our client under statute and common law, all of which are expressly reserved. Please contact me immediately, should you wish to resolve this matter amicably. Regards, XXXXXXXXXXX

**************************************************************
This communication, including any documents transmitted with it, is intended solely for the individual or entity to whom it is addressed and may contain information subject to the attorney client privilege and/or the work product rule, or otherwise confidential and exempt from disclosure under applicable law. The transmission, accidental or otherwise, of the information set forth in this communication and/or any accompanying attachments to any person or entity other than the identified recipients of this communication as set forth above is completely inadvertent. Such transmission is not intended by the sender or by any of our clients to waive any applicable privilege, the protection against disclosure available under applicable law. If you are not the identified recipient of this communication (or the employee or agent responsible for the delivery of this communication and any attachments to an identified recipient), any dissemination, distribution or copying of this communication or of any attachment is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify the sender by email or U.S. Mail at the above address and delete the communication and any attachments.
And here is my response:

Hi Stacy.
I am not sure how you got the impression that 'several attempts' were made to contact us, but rest assured that this is the first attempt that we are aware of.
If you would like to make this process go quickly, simply send us the link that you don't like and we will remove it.

Thanks

Lets see what happens ...