RustyBug Offline Upload & Sell: On
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E-Vener wrote:
It's always much more fun to whine than to take action. The only thing dumber than getting legal advice from a random bunch of photographers is getting it from wikipedia.
I've already taken initial action of emailing Carolyn, I couldn't find an email for Ed ... will continue to look & will register images this week (ACTION IN MOTION).
I was looking at Wikipedia for a simple expanation of statutory damages to help explain it to someone else, when I happened to notice the differentiation between "willful" and "not aware". It just made a 'neat & easy' way to show a correlation about the number of $15,000 that you commented about earlier had some basis (1/2 of the $30,000), rather than some 'pie in the sky' / fairly tale made up number. It's not that I expect to get anything like that necessarily, but it does show the seriousness and magnitude to which the violation is valued by the legal system.
The Wikipedia article refers to the U.S. code, which I'll study up on while I'm trying to make contact with Ed & Carolyn ... just thought it would give a bit of credibility to your earlier comment.
There are a ton of people who will 'cheerlead' the cause ... but I hope that the Wikipedia article would show at least a little bit of the 'legal-ease' behind the cheerleading. For me, I found this tidbit of information (no substitute for legal counsel or reading the U.S. Code itself) VERY EMPOWERING to realize that the legal system has provisions that are ...
WAY BEYOND ACTUAL DAMAGES
Not being able to quantify or answer the question of what 'actual damages' have I incurred is probably what renders most people to say 'what's the point', my actual damages aren't worth the fight.
Realizing that statutory damages are very real and very possible, makes the fight worthy. It goes beyond the rhetorical cheerleading of 'you can't let them get away with this'. I just thought others might be SURPRISED by the level of support for statutory damages and the 5 fold increase it may award for willful violations ... WOW, powerful information (even if needing to be corroborated and requires legal counsel assistance).
BTW ... all you RANDOM PHOTOGRAPHERS have been very helpful in enlightening me on the matter, not legal advice ... but en-light-ening none the less ... WAY COOL !! As usual FM ROCKS !!!
NOTE: I edited the title to include copyright / copywrite spellings to assist others who might be future searching for subject matter (semi-sticky).
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