Sue or not to Sue - Will leave it up to GFY.
 

Ok here is the issue / story so far.

We are a single model Asian site.

A Large top 500 site in the world is whom we have the issue with.

A "member" took one of our images and used it as their profile image.

The site then proceeded to take our image and use it in their ad rotation for 5 months.

This was seen on over 300 sites and by millions of viewers.

Their site does not tell it's users that it will or may use the images in advertisements ( TOS ).

The issue obviously is that this large site used a well know models image and used it for monetary gain.

The site does not publish it's company information anywhere. We sent DMCA notices to their DMCA notice links to have the emails bounce back. So we started to mail every email we could find, including support, and partner program emails.

Finally we got some response back from their attorney stating that they took the image out of their ad rotation. Another email got the image taken down from their caching servers.

At this point their attorney just admitted that they used our image in there add rotation!

We contacted them back letting them know this and that we expect our model licensing fee is paid the use of our image.

"If Pepsi uses Madona's song in their advertisements and she finds out about it, You can guarantee that she will get paid for it!" was my comments back to the attorney.

They came back to me stating that the copyright was not filed with the US copyright office. We know this and this is not the issue.

They also stated that they are exempt under the DCMA safe harbor provisions, and under the Section 230 of the Communications
Decency Act.


I wrote back with

"
DMCA safe harbor provisions are designed to shelter service providers from the infringing activities of their customers.

The action to advertise using our image was *********** .com decision, Not a customer, hence they are responsible for their actions.

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act does not cover this as well.

***********.com knowingly used the image in Advertising, Not a customer.

Therefor Francine Dee is due the licensing fee for ***********.com use of her image in their advertisements which generated ***********.com income.

You just cannot steal peoples content and use it to make money off of. "



Please let me know your comments and opinions on this issue.

Wow that's f-ed up! I'm not sure what you should do but very interested how this turns out. That's good that you got the lawyer to admit that it was used in ads! Can't get better than that lol. Good luck with this though.

You would be better off with this thread in the fuckin' around and program discussion. If you're looking for answers or suggestions at least.

Reminds me of a woman I saw a few times:

http://www.gofuckyourself.com/image....ine=1267322298

I vote sue.

That's unconscionable that they'd do that.

Keep us posted, Morph.

I also vote to Sue

" Finally we got some response back from their attorney stating that they took the image out of their ad rotation. Another email got the image taken down from their caching servers. "

I don't see any admittance to anything, just that they've removed the image from their ad.

I'd sue anyway.

You need to consult with an IP attorney. There are all kinds of "fair use" and "safe harbor" rules.

That being said... a court would most likely grant injunctive relief -- in other words, make them stop... which they've already done. With regard to monetary damages, only plaintiffs with a filed copyright can sue for statutory damages under the copyright law. Everyone else needs to establish damages.

Good luck :thumbsup

What if a webmaster from a non-US country who hosts his domains & content he steals in a server in Europe, how do US webmasters go after that kind of issue?

Or do people just shrug off their shoulders and hope they don't visit the US? :winkwink: