copyright on inet images

Recently I've seen articles on Dutch forums and weblogs about a certain Dutch photographer living in Belgium.

First he makes bucketloads o' photos, then he spreads them on internet like a madman and makes sure google ranks those images high. Then, he waits until on some small website/blog a user links to those images. After he has found such a ridiculous 'copyright violation', he'll send out an official snailmail letter to the owner of the site (not the one who wrote the blog entry or forumpost containing that link!), and informs them about the (c) violation. In addition to that, he demands a sum of over 1000 euros within 7 days, or else he'll bring the case to the courtroom. Even if such forums or blogs remove that image right away, even then it's not settled in eyes of the photographer, who still keeps up his financial claim! Now, I'm not sure whether this has any legal fundamentals or not, I think not btw, but some of the scared ppl are actually buying it, and are thus paying him!

One of the world's biggest forums (Dutch), in babalfish

Anyhow, I thought I'll inform you about this, since every country has its own cons.. :P

I'd call him a finacial genius, this is how people get rich !

And he is in his full right to do this.

I'd compare it to making a game and trying to get
everyone to buy it. To spread the word I have to
get Google and others rank it high. Spreading it
to several gamesites (like a mad man) sounds like
a very good idea.

If I, after this, find that someone is using a pirated
copy of the game, using your mindset, I have no right to
charge the "owner" of the game since I was stupid enough
to spread the word about my game like a "madman" ???

This is not a con, it's just business !

The pictures are his property, even if they're crap, over-exposed and out of focus. Copyright still applies to rubbish stuff and he's perfectly within his rights to sue anybody who uses them without permission.

That said, it'd be interesting to see one go to court.

In normal situations, a (c) owner first asks to remove the subject, and usually after that both parties can continue to live happily ever after. This is different..

you really ARE a lawyer aren't you?

Yeah but the copyright owner is not obliged to do this. They can just wheel out the big guns if they want to.

Oh, and a letter 'c' in brackets is meaningless. You'll need © (ASCII 169) when referring to copyright.

I'd like to smash his maggot mouth in with my paw.

Where are his maggot images and stuff?

Is he called "Peter Vincent Schuld"?

I shall lesson him.

His maggot mouth may open and close, but I don't hear any words coming out of it. He can type a maggot letter with his maggot head, but I shall not fear it.

I'm going to find out where he lives and have my usual fun that I do with his type.

I take strong offence that he is doing this on purpose to make money. Trying to fill his little maggot money-box.

Wait a minute!

I just found some of his images - they are clearly tagged - © Peter-Vincent Schuld/Horstmüller - Horselover???

If people steal those then that is their tough luck.

I thought he was just blind posting images and hoping somebody would link to them. If I catch him doing that then he will be in trouble.

Mmm, might buy myself a nice little camera and do the same thing - CLEARLY INDICATING THEY ARE MY IMAGES. Sounds like a nice little earner.

No. They guy who did the "Million Dollar Pixels" thingy, or the "One Red Paperclip" was a financial genius. This guy is no more a financial genius than Kevin Poulsen, preying on other peoples ignorance.

He isn't just spreading the word tho'. He is spreading the goods! Your analogy fails on this one critical point. It would be the equivalent of giving a game away for free, then later, once it's popular suing everyone for copyright infringement. It's called "Bait and Switch", and it's the oldest con in the book.

Fair use has a posse! I'd love to see this go to court too. This guy is counting on companies not wanting to fight him - a bit like those companies who send out phony invoices to large corporations, for amounts small enough to get them to simply pay, rather than verify the invoice is accurate.

@Cygnus: nope, just a nurse...

@Flamey: I don't like him either but he is entitled to do this and to get rich it is a good thing to not care for other people. I'm pretty close to piss-poor myself, nuff said ! ;)

Well... they had it coming - images from the net are NOT free unless clearly so stated. Thumbs up for Peter-Vincent!

I think if they guy clearly marks his images as copyrighted and it says so on the image and on his site then he certainly has the right to go after anyone to the full extent of the law.

He's not MAKING people violate his copyright or luring them into a copyright violation, just pursuing people that do.

I don't like what he's doing and I think it's very tough on those people hosting the content but if you take away his legitimate right to pursue those claims isn't that worse?

There should probably be more guidance about what kind of compensation should be made available for this kind of trivial violation.

Darkheart