[WARNING] If you try to sue for copyright infringement over your images being posted without consent over the internet you could make the situation far worse than it already is!
Christopher Boffoli is a photographer from Seattle Washington. According to the website Torrent Freak he has filed lawsuits against Google, Twitter, and others. Allegedly these lawsuits were settled out of court for undisclosed amounts. Maybe I should have my lawyer give Google a call.
However, according to the article the internet has retaliated against his litigation.
**** Christopher Boffoli responds below****
Last month Seattle-based photographer Christopher Boffoli sued Imgur claiming the popular image hosting site had failed to remove a few dozen of his photos. Before the case gets well underway the photographer is facing a much bigger problem, as 20,754 of his photos are now being shared on The Pirate Bay.
The photographer asked the court to order an injunction preventing Imgur from making 73 of his photos available online. In addition, he requested millions of dollars in statutory damages for willful copyright infringement.
Imgur has yet to file an official reply to the complaint. In the meantime, however, Boffoli’s actions appear to have triggered another less welcome response.
A few days ago a user of The Pirate Bay decided to upload a rather large archive of the photographer’s work to the site. The archive in question is said to hold 20,754 images, including the most famous “Big Appetites” series.
**** Christopher Boffoli responds below saying that the article by Torrent Freak is incorrect- As of yet he has not responded affirming or denying his previous or current lawsuits against Google. Twitter and Imgur****
In truth, the Pirate Bay upload was comprised mainly of low-res personal and documentary travel photos on my Flickr page where they are already publicly viewable to anyone. How my situation is “made worse” by people uploading my best friend’s daughter’s 1st birthday party pictures to Pirate Bay is beyond me. Other than this incident being really important to a handful of entitled, anonymous content thieves, my commercially successful photography career is completely unaffected. And it has absolutely no bearing on my expectation that companies with multi-billion dollar valuations should remove copyright infringements when asked.
One of the biggest myths is that you can sue someone without a registered copyright. Just saying your image is copyrighted will not hold up in court. Image copyrighting is fast, easy and affordable. On the next page is a video with attorney Ed Greenberg. He explains the how and why of copywriting your images.
GO TO THE NEXT PAGE FOR THE COPYRIGHT VIDEO
You can read the rest of the article over at Torrent Freak
Source: Torrent Freak
Eel pirate bay is currently off line due to another raid by police.
Kinda sad 🙁
Rachel: What’s really sad is that 20 years after the Internet went mainstream people still read things online and believe them. Also sad when websites with no editorial or journalistic integrity are used to source so-called news stories. In truth, the Pirate Bay upload was comprised mainly of low-res personal and documentary travel photos on my Flickr page where they are already publicly viewable to anyone. How my situation is “made worse” by people uploading my best friend’s daughter’s 1st birthday party pictures to Pirate Bay is beyond me. Other than this incident being really important to a handful of entitled, anonymous content thieves, my commercially successful photography career is completely unaffected. And it has absolutely no bearing on my expectation that companies with multi-billion dollar valuations should remove copyright infringements when asked.
So Christopher I have updated this with your response. Is it true that you sued both Google and Twitter and are now suing Imgur?
Interesting.