From: security curmudgeon (jericho@attrition.org)
To: Richard Buss (rbuss@ls-media.com)
Date: Sun, 16 Mar 2003 01:19:59 -0500 (EST)
Subject: RE: Awesome Site


Interesting that you dropped the lawyer CC when trying to preach law to
me.

: Tawnee Stone is one of the more popular amateurs on the Internet. Just
: like you get emails saying this picture "belongs to me"; Every day a
: dozen or so violations are reported to me. I don't have time to deal
: with such things; We have an attorney who pretty much works full time
: on these issues.

Then they should be fully aware that proving the copyright is much more
beneficial to all parties than dragging it through court. Unless of
course, they want to do that in order to bill you more..

: You are right; We do need to prove we have ownership. However, this is only
: a matter of filing a document in a courthouse. Not only do we own the

It's an even more simple matter to provide ONE link to an image on your
site showing that you hold the copyright. I have no clue who 'Tawnee
Stone' is, if the girl pictured is her, etc. The image we have up suggests
it isn't her given the syntax of the image along with the "yearbook" photo
included with it. Despite all of that, I am still willing to believe you
if you could just show the image is copyrighted. Hell, it would have taken
you a fraction of the time to prove it than type all of this out and
threaten us with legal action.

: copyright on "ALL" Tawnee Stone pictures, but we also own her trademarked
: name. We go to court over copyright issues on a weekly basis. Lightspeed

That is all fine and dandy but I have no way of knowing the image is of
"Tawnee Stone". Further, her TRADEMARKED NAME is not used on that image.
Even further, there is a somewhat fuzzy URL of a site in the upper right
corner of the image. That indicates to me that the image is possibly NOT
yours and/or that the site listed is responsible for any such copyright
violation.

: Once the legal process starts our attorney starts to charge us, and there is
: no turning back at this point. Having the pictures removed isn't much of an
: issue; Our attorney will file charges against the sever hosting the pictures
: and they will take it down. They aren't going to risk a lawsuit over someone
: else's problem. This will happen in a few weeks.

We've heard this before.

http://www.attrition.org/postal/legal.html

If you choose to go this route, it will become clear that you chose to
ignore an easy chance to resolve this issue. Instead of doing so, you
intentionally took it to court which wastes their time and taxpayer
dollars. In short, sounds pretty frivilous to me. *shrug*

: Then we'll file charges against you for copyright infringement. Such charges
: carry very heavy fines. We can sue you for $750 a day per picture. Because
: your server will not hire an attorney to protect YOU, your server will give

Why do you make such assumtions? You *clearly* demonstrate you know
nothing about Attrition with such statements.

: tell us exactly when this file was placed on line and how many times it was
: viewed. These fines will quickly add up to tens of thousands of dollars, if

Actually no, short of you breaking into this machine, physically breaking
into the room the machine resides, or having a court provide me a
subpoena, you will never know when the image was placed on line, and never
know how many times it was accessed. That is also making the huge
assumption that we even keep access logs.

: Since you won't be able to pay this, we'll settle out of court for our
: "legal fees", plus a small amount of damages. We just settled out of
: court in Fresno, California, for $7k.

Gonna have to prove to a court that the transgression took place in
California, right?

: You won't have a legal leg to stand on in court. We have all the
: documentation we need; You'll have nothing.
:
: Of course if we really wanted to be dicks about this, we can just file a
: complaint against you with your local police department and tell them we
: believe you are posting pictures of children under the age of eighteen.

Which you have claimed ownership and copyright of, which you claim to be
making money off of. Feel free to pursue this route and we'll report you
to our friends at the Bureau. They don't like child porn, and they really
don't like people that *sell* it as you do.

: Since you obviously don't have a model release and have no way of proving
: her age, you'd be in hot water. You might not go to jail for it, but it
: would seriously fuck up your life.

So instead of you sending us one linke to prove ownership of the image,
you want to resort to threatening us, suing us, etc. That form of
harassment is illegal in some states. =(

: I don't care what you do. I've forwarded it to our attorney at Avant
: Law. My job is done, and it's out of my hands.

Have a nice day.