Caught stealing image - now what?

[Ben Chase]

Steve - FYI, I sent you another email last evening to largformat@aol.com. Please check your spam filter. It should come from chase (AT) spamcop (dot) net.

Group - Apologize for this being off-topic.

Ben C

[David Karp]

There are many good sources of information on the web regarding intellectual property rights. There are also books on the subject for lay persons. Nevertheless, this is a complex area of the law. There are many attorneys who specialize in intellectual property law and do nothing else. There are many outstanding lawyers who will not touch an IP matter and will refer their clients to an intellectual property lawyer. There is a reason that experienced lawyers will not give advice on this subject and refer clients to specialists.

It seems to me that there is very little information available on this thread upon which a person could rely to determine whether the advice given is consistent with the law.

Of course, you don't have to know anything about the law to negotiate a resolution to a dispute. It is done all the time in business. The problem is that you might not know how good a deal to reasonably try to achieve if you don't know the legal foundation for your claim.

[Joe Smith]

"when you represnt yourself you have an ass for a client and a fool for an attorney"

only a lawyer could come up with that one LOL

[Wayne]

I have never seen Steve make more sense or give better advice than on this thread. Some people are desperately trying to create an issue where there is none.

[tim atherton]

"Steve, I agree, but I try to avoid getting too deep with attny's if there isn't enough to be gained."

"I will consult an attorney first, then send them an invoice with an explanation."

" As in this case, I have spoken to an attny, and a prelim. game plan has been laid out . . . "

Michael,

I don't quite see what the problem is - almost a day has passed during that time

wg asked for advice - got some, took it into consideration, changed his approach and went from thinking he might not need an attorney to realising it would be a good idea, to actually talking to one.

Seems like a natural course of action to me (and of course he's not going to tell us his game plan now).

He didn't tell us that in the first place because he responded to the advice he got on here and changed his direction accordingly. It seem pretty clear - molehill not mountain

[robert_4927]

Actually Joe I think it was Ben Franklin who said that.

[robert_4927]

Correct that ...It was Lincoln

[bglick]

> I guess you are now saying that you have consulted an attorney and that you have a game plan that you are not sharing. Okay, that's fine; but why didn't you make that clear from the beginning? If you are confused, you are also confusing.

Michael, I was preparing a response to the question you posed, but then noticed Tim Atherton answered the question better then I could have....thanks Tim... When I first posted this question, I had no background in this area....now, less then 24hrs later, well, I sure learned a lot, and much of this started with generous contributors to this thread. So although consulting an attny is never bad advise, these forums are also very helpful, as sometimes it motivates someone to contact an attny.

As for not revealing the game plan.... I am not being secretive... but based on the situation, the public nature of this forum, and the timeleness of the situation, I was advsised to stay quiet for now. As I mentioned previously, there is probably no big bucks here, but certainly enough to enforce my rights..... and when this ordeal concludes, I will surely write a thread on the entire story, how it was discovered, how it unfolded, what the advice was and the enforcement measure (s) implemented, how the infringer responded, how it settled, etc. Fair enough?

As with most of these situations, they can often take on a life of their own. I think it's interesting how communicating with others who do the same work can influence our position on subjects such as this. When I made this post, I was aggravated, but probably would have entertained a tiny settlement to end it. Then after a few posters raised certain issues, it really made me think about how much time, energy, expertise and money I have sunk into my photographic endeavors. And when someone unlawfuly uses an image, its not the time and expense of that one image, but rather the time and expense of what it takes to produce images that people desire to use. So I have an entirely new take on the subject. Sort of like a song writer, who spent 30 years writing songs of little value, then one gets stolen, becomes a hit, and the infringer wants to pay him/her for the time spent to write that one song. So again, I thank many of the posters for their contributions.