The Use Of Images Posted On The Internet

[ColdWaterFshr]

I always enjoyed watching Bob Ross on PBS. I know there are some differing opinions of his work in the art world, but I thought what he did in 30 minutes was pretty amazing. PBS called me one time seeking donations. And during the consversation, while talking programing, I was asked if I watched his program. Well heck yeah I did. They said everybody they spoke to enjoyed his program. He was really something. You would never have believed he was a hardass in the military.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Ross

Good ole Bob. Yeah, we used to watch him just to crack up. That big fro of his and the way he would he would whisper as he was painting, "whats this coming out of the clouds over here? oh yes, here it is, can you see it? its a flock of mallards, coming in to bathe in the cool waters". And the fan brush. Always with the fan brush. Bob loved that fan brush. His show was very very strange I thought. Seemed like the show was attempting to teach people to paint in a colors-by-numbers sort of way, and you can do this, too if you got some white slip-on dress shoes, black polyester pants, a fan brush and can whisper to yourself.

[ColdWaterFshr]

Happy clouds!!

[ness]

No mistakes, just happy accidents

[ness]

" plus several thousand dollars in damages!"

That seems a litlle excessive to me but, that the mindset of people today. Civil lawsuit judgements are the disabilty of the new generation of Americans.

You know Smallie, I know where you're coming from. There are definitely abuses within the process, but I don't see Al's example as one of them. This whole intellectual property thing is misunderstood by a lot of folks. If you make your living from creating things, and someone comes along and swipes it for their use, it's really stealing. Swiping one of the billion or so copies of the Loch Ness monster for an avatar is one thing; swiping a painting, applying it to a product you are selling is another thing. Al gave them a warning and they challenged him. So he stuck it to them. That's fair. Probably felt pretty good too, right Al?

[Phil Lilley]

You have to be careful what you post/write on the internet, screen name or real.

I was sued 10 years ago plus for reporting that a local guy got a ticket - fishing violation. I copied it from the local paper police section. The paper was wrong... we both got served. My insurance co settled for $4000.

I knew I could fight it and win cause I didn't do anything maliciously but the ins co saw it differently. They didn't want to mess with it.

You slander someone and it will come back to get you.

[ness]

So, was this guy's reputation harmed so that it affected him? Or was he just uptight, looking to right a wrong and make a buck?

You didn't mention his name....

[Chief Grey Bear]

Isn't that a matter of public record???

[Phil Lilley]

Actually I'm good friends with the guy now. Water under the bridge.

He was a public figure and didn't like the fact that his name was listed in the municipal court section of the paper. The "Bad Boys List" was continuation. The "list" went away after that.

Yes it should have been public record. The mistake I think was made at the court level. But again- it's past history.

The $$$ was given to charity, directly in his name.

[Jack Jones]

With regards to Al's suit, I don't think the few thousand is a excessive at all. I'm going to assume his lawyer doesn't work for free and with average rates these days of $150 - $225 per hour for legal services, you need to make that kind of recovery to cover the expenses of suing.

With regards to Lilley's, without knowing anything else than what's he's said, the guy does sound like the jerk.

Chief, the newspaper would be public record, if Lilley want's to share the date of publication and the paper he saw it in we could all look it up. As for the suit, most likely it was filed and upon settlement dismissed, so there may not be a record of it that's available publicly.

[Al Agnew]

If I was selling the rights to use the image in the way it was being used without my permission, it would cost them anywhere from $500 to $2500, depending upon how many places it would be used and how big the company was, therefore how much exposure it got. So no, a few thousand for using it without authorization wasn't out of line.

Chief, the reels were Shimano Scorpions, which were basically the Japanese version of the old green Curado 100s. Very sweet reels, but not as durable as the Curados were. Actually, my attorney took, at the time, a third of any settlement, so he took one of the reels. He was just getting into fly fishing and was under the mistaken impression it was a fly reel. I still use one of them, although it's been overhauled once.

I don't know what their attorney said to them, just know that they immediately settled, so they knew they didn't have a chance in court.

Over the years I've had a lot of copyright suits. All of them settled out of court, and only one went so far as to get to the discovery process, where I actually had to meet with the opposing lawyer.

The amount they've settled for has depended mainly on what the infringement would have made for me if I'd been getting fees or royalties on it. It's not like the infringing people are getting "punished". If it's used on a logo, packaging, or advertising, the settlement is based upon what I would have charged for the use of the image. If it's on a product which I would have gotten royalties from, the settlement is based upon how much money I would have made, so the company has to report how much money THEY made on it.

Perhaps the funniest, as well as the most lucrative settlement I ever got started out when my niece's husband showed up at a family gathering wearing a sweater with an very good embroidery of a brown trout on it. I immediately recognized it as a brown trout I'd painted in a very distinctive position, that was used in several different places. We asked him where he'd bought the sweater, and it was at one of the huge department store chains. So we went to the nearest store, and sure enough there it was. We bought one and sent it to my attorney.

A couple weeks later, the attorney called us and asked, if by any chance, that image had been an Outdoor Life magazine cover. Yep, it had. On the cover, they'd cropped off my signature, but had given me credit for on the contents page. The attorney was chuckling when he hung up the phone, and we wondered why. A few hours later he called back, laughing almost uncontrollably. What had happened was, our attorney was meeting with the company's attorney in person, and the company attorney had done what they almost always do and questioned how I could prove the image they used was mine. But he'd gone a little too far. He'd held up the Outdoor Life cover and said, "See, a trout is a trout is a trout. Our image could have come from this magazine cover, it looks just like it." So when our attorney pointed out that the artwork on the cover was mine, all that was left for them was to get out the checkbook. They'd sold enough of the sweaters that the settlement paid for a major remodel of our whole house!