Wednesday, May 28, 2014

This extortion is just never ending

It seems that lawyers trying to extort money have plenty of time on their hands. Earlier today, I received the following message from them (previous post link):

Dear Mr. Golob,

Thank you for getting back to me. Yes, by amicable we mean a monetary settlement out of court. There are thirty three (33) infringements that are/were posted on your website, to which my client owns the exclusive rights.

These do not appear to be posted by a user but  by the website itself, and all of the pictures were housed on Mizozo servers. Therefore, the defense of “user content” does not appear to be a valid assertion.

Please call me to discuss this matter further.

What's most interesting to me is their count of infringements. Either they just make up numbers as they go, or they are willfully not sending me additional takedown notices. The notice I received from them only has 4 images, so where the other 29? I remember there were many more images on that post, all of which I removed, but unfortunately I have no record of the count.

Of course, their second paragraph is also telling ... 'do not appear'. Now there's an argument! I figured they would be a bit more concrete than that.

Oh well, looks like this fun isn't ending soon. My friends tell me that I have nothing to worry about, these shakedowns happen all the time. If they do take this to court, I can potentially benefit a great deal due to the press it would generate, so I should just sit back, be nice and answer any questions they have so as not to offend. So, that is what I'll do.

I don't see any questions in this email, do you?

Wednesday, May 21, 2014

And so the Takedown Extortion contiues

Looks like the extortion attempts aren't over. In case you aren't following the story, I think my last post may be useful, and this post started it all. I'm impressed by these people's resolve, but unfortunately for them am unchanged in my resolve.

So, here's the email I received from the wonderful law team yesterday:

Dear Mr. Golob,

I have not received a response to my email dated April 17, 2014. Since that date unfortunately my client has informed us of more infringements of images they owe. There are now thirty three (33) violations in total.

As I am sure you are aware, removing the images does not alleviate the infringement. It is our desire to resolve this matter amicably. However, if we do not hear from you by Friday May 23, 2014, we will assume that you are not interested in resolving this matter and will proceed accordingly.

And, here is the response I sent:

Hello Stacy,
I am not exactly sure what you see as amicable, but I'm guessing it involves green pieces of paper. If this is the case, how many pieces are you looking to attain?

I must point out, your attempts at extortion are futile. Mizozo is a user generated content website, which provides ample ways for people to send me takedown notices for any content they feel is infringing.
Dan

This sounds like fun. Time to get a few other people involved.