Sideblog
Police announced this afternoon that their investigation into what was initially believed to be a fatal fire on Rugby Avenue is now a homicide investigation. #
The Virginia Supreme Court has denied George Huguely’s appeal. His second-degree murder conviction will stand, WRIC reports. #
In a carefully worded story, and not citing specific sources, WTVR reports that forensic evidence belonging to Jesse Matthew Jr., the main suspect in the disappearance of Hannah Graham, matches forensic evidence collected during the investigation of Morgan Harrington’s 2009 murder. #
In the wake of Hannah Graham’s disappearance, and the evidence that came from private security footage, city officials are revisiting the question of installing security cameras on the downtown mall. #
Both Charlottesville Registrar Sheri Iachetta and former Electoral Board member Stephanie Commander have turned themselves in to the police on
foursix and four felony counts of embezzlement, respectively. #Ten years ago, the National Institutes of Health budget doubled and schools like the University of Virginia built massive new research facilities. A decade later, those buildings remain largely underutilized. NPR visits UVA in this story on the effect of federal binge and spurge spending in the sciences. #
In 2012, Council approved a new student housing complex on West Main—now some council members are questioning whether what they were shown matches what was built. #
The Architectural Review Board has approved a bike-themed mural on West Market, below the McGuffey Art Center, although at least one member expressed concerns that it might look like the bicyclists were riding away from Charlottesville’s downtown. #
City Police Chief Tim Longo is meeting with city leaders to work on protocols regarding the use of military surplus police weapons in Charlottesville. #
A 100-year-old Colonnades resident received military honors for her service in the WWII Women’s Army Corps #
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Wish you could have been at the Pie Down. It was amazing. Late September — Fall Pie Down at Mudhouse in Crozet. Watch for it!
It looks like he also sues people:
http://cvillain.com/
I think it will be interesting to see how that one plays out.
Fair enough. People steal his work and he asks for compensation. Maybe cvillain will learn not to take what doesn’t belong to them.
Perhaps there are damages there but $300K? Couldn’t they settle this out of court?
The purpose of a number like that is usually a strong signal that the goal is a settlement. Garrett suing The Hook for $20M wasn’t to get $20M, but to get a five-figure settlement, or so I believe.
Harry: If true, cvillain offered to compensate him originally.
Apparently Mr. Rosenberg wants to make a name for himself. And a whole bunch of enemies along the way.
I’m a photographer – I wouldn’t like someone stealing my work – but this is someone I have zero respect for.
I’m not a party to any of that, but it isn’t clear yet that _Cvillain_ stole anything at all, and it isn’t clear to me that the CDDA won’t come into play here. I am not an expert on the facts here nor on the CDDA, but I believe the infringement in question (both instances) were cases where a user posted an entry on Cvillain including an image owned by Rosenberg. Once Cvillain proper was alerted that the image was owned, it appears that the image was removed.
It strikes me that this is very similar to when Mssr Jaquith changes someone’s cut-and-paste of an entire article to an excerpt and a link (which I believed has happened recently, if memory serves). A user has ostensibly posted a copyright violation to a website, and when the website owner’s realize this, they remove the violation.
If that is the case, then I think Rosenberg’s claim is only against the John Doe poster(s) of the entries in question, and I think that Redinger and Cvillain may well be shielded from liability by the CDDA.
Again, though, I am almost certainly wrong about important elements of both the facts and the law at issue.
I am also not an expert on proofreading, it appears. My apologies.
According to the text of the lawsuit, and the screenshots therein, these images weren’t posted as comments, but as blog entries, all of which would require approval from Kyle Redinger to be posted to the blog, or so I’d have to assume. Unless anybody can post a blog entry to Cvillain without his review—something that strikes me as enormously improbable—I don’t see that any safe harbor aspect exists here. Also, note that Matthew Rosenberg claims in his lawsuit that he notified Redinger twice, via fax, of the infringement, and Redinger took no action. (Redinger, in turn, claims that he never received any such communication.) I’m inclined to believe that Rosenberg is being truthful, because lying before the court isn’t something most people are foolish enough to do.
Also, you’re thinking of the Safe Harbor provision of the DMCA, not the CDDA. I don’t actually know what the CDDA is. :)
Waldo: You can believe Rosenberg is being truthful, but that doesn’t alter the whole molehill/mountain aspect of this.
Okay, I’m a photographer. I notice that someone on a little local website has used one of my images without my permission. I call them up and say “hey guys, this isn’t cool, how about a little compensation, or at least a photo credit?”
What does Rosenberg do? He makes no effort to call or do anything to actually speak to a human being. They eventually take his image down, and they offer, as a sign good faith, to pay him $200 (like he was really damaged that much?). So he turns around and sues them for $175,000.
My point is that this is a small town. We all live here, we all try and make en effort to get along. If someone does something wrong, don’t make a federal case over it, walk over and talk to them about it.
My point is not that Rosenberg is lying, my point is that antics like this win you no friends and make you look like an asshat.
I’m only remarking on the legal aspect of this. The social dynamic is quite a different matter, as you describe, but it also requires access to information that I do not have. I don’t know what conversation was had between Rosenberg and Redinger. I don’t know what Redinger offered Rosenberg, and what Rosenberg’s response was. I don’t know what history that they might have, I don’t know what each person’s attitude was when they communicated, etc., etc. While I suspect that it’s a great oversimplification to assume that $200 was offered and rebuffed, I don’t know that. Also, I don’t really care about any of this, other than in the legal sense. I never use others’ copyrighted materials without permission, and I don’t allow others to do so on any of my websites. The alleged legal breach is a clear case of copyright infringement, at based on the (limited) available information, so that’s not particularly interesting, either.
A molehill turned into a mountain? Maybe, but I really can’t say.
Waldo,
Thanks for the lesson – as was clearly needed. It isn’t clear from the lawsuit (or from a quick check of cvillain) whether the posts (as opposed to comments) are pre-screened or whether certain users can post without pre-screening. In any case, I didn’t realize that any pre-screening kicked you out of the safe harbor entirely.
Regarding the fax, that’s just a credibility fight, and one that should have been easily resolved when this (apparently) first came up by phone records.
As for CDDA, that is my poor memory reaching back for Internet-related legislation, grabbing the Communications Decency Act, and adding a second D just for kicks.
A friend of mine who makes part of his living by taking photographs and then selling them runs into similar problems frequently. Most amusing is when someone doesn’t bother to steal the picture, but just does an img src= link. He sees the traffic jump on his site, and then he often just replaces the image with something watermarked. I always suggest he be a bit more obnoxious about it (i.e., replace the image with something a bit less kind than a watermark), but he’s much more of a gentleman than I am.
Waldo, I am shocked you would question my integrity about the facsimile issue and claim that I (or anyone else at Spicy Bear) would blatantly ignore two requests to remove anything from our site. We have a history of quickly responding to issues like these.
Secondly, since you are not a lawyer, nor are you privy to all the facts of this case, I suggest, to be fair to me and my business partners, you don’t mislead your readers about the supposed “clear case of copyright infringement.”
Blogfight! ;-)
Waldo: Point taken. I don’t know the whole story, just what I reads on the internets. I can agree that there’s probably a whole lot more to this story than what we’re hearing. As with most stories.
But I disagree with you here: I DO care about this stuff. As both an artist/photographer and as a reasonable human being, who thinks (admittedly without knowing all the details) that there should be a better way of dealing with disputes like this.
I mean, even if you were to assume that Rosenberg is all right and Kyle is all wrong (which I frankly doubt, but whatever…), I guess I just question, in both the grand scheme of things and the Rosenberg scheme of things, whether having somebody use a picture of yours on their website for a few days is worth all of this hatefulness.
Yes, as Rosenberg would be “shocked” that I would question his integrity about “the facsimile issue.” Listen, this is what a lawsuit is all about—when two people disagree about something, and require a court to sort out who is right or wrong. I wrote: “I’m inclined to believe that Rosenberg is being truthful, because lying before the court isn’t something most people are foolish enough to do.” It’s perfectly plausible that Rosenberg sent such a fax and that you didn’t receive it. I never stated or implied otherwise.
If you’re getting the vapors over such a mundane statement, I really can’t help you.
You know where I’ve read all that before? My last comment, in which I spelled all of that out quite clearly. Nobody is being misled. As I wrote, “[t]he alleged legal breach is a clear case of copyright infringement, at [least] based on the (limited) available information.” Every lawsuit makes a clear case of a civil offense taking place, at least one not filed by a total buffoon. That’s their purpose. If you can’t recognize that, then I suspect that you’re in over your head here.
That’s not really disagreeing with me—I don’t think that there’s anything wrong with anybody caring about this. :) I just don’t happen to. To your point, it’s entirely possible that a better way was attempted, in a manner that we don’t know about (as Redinger writes, we “privy to all the facts of this case”), and that the lawsuit was the solution of last resort. Of course, it’s also entirely possible that nothing else was attempted. I have no idea.
I imagine. That’s why I release all of my photos under a Creative Commons license. I’m not a professional photographer, I’ll never be a professional photographer, my photos aren’t good enough to be taking any business away from professional photographers, so I’d rather just give them away and be done with it.