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Letter of demand from KodakOne/Ryde demanding 700 Euros for 1 image - To All in UK
Hello there,
Greetings to all.
Our business enterprise received a letter of demand from KodakOne and Ryde from the city of Berlin, Germany demanding for an atrocious amount of money, 700 Euros, for an image on a website belonging to us. Tbh, the management have no idea how and why was the image up there except for the possibility that a past developer uploaded it quite some time ago. This is definitely an innocent infringement.
KodakOne / Ryde sent a screenshot to our email address, alleging that the image had been up there since 201x till now. We have no idea how they come up with the 201x date. They also sent us a letter of demand and invoice and demanded that we pay them.
We googled around and found out articles and discussions about Getty images and other similar companies operating on a similar mode and most infringers should pay on the fair market value of an image as far as we are concerned.
We removed the image in question from our server.
Upon researching further, we found out that KodakOne / Ryde had its KodakCoin project failed and they are now pursuing "infringers" worldwide along with ImageRight for damages amounting to a few hundred Euros per image and I suppose that include UK citizens who had unknowingly downloaded those images as well.
Further probe using a simple Google search revealed that KodakOne and Ryde had a checkered past. They had been accused of paying late to their contractors and staff and their crypto KodakCoin did not take off. ImageRight doesn't seem to have a glorious history either.
KodakOne / Ryde could have emailed us in a polite and tactful manner and issued us a cease and desist letter to remove the image and ended the case just there. But instead, they demanded hundreds of Euros for one image as though they are some kind of "extortion" agency.
Do you guys think we should not give a F about that and just ignore them? These guys seem to be IP trolls and copyright bullies, using psychological scare tactics on poor folks who might have unknowingly infringe upon their images?
Our enterprise is not located in the UK, US or the EU but somewhere else.
Will these very unethical people sue us outside of Europe, UK and US or will they just back the F off if we totally, absolutely and resistantly ignore their demands for hundreds of euros for a single image?
We received their email in late Sep. We ignored the their 1st email and 7 days later, we received a 2nd email from KodakOne and Ryde, threatening us with an escalation to their legal department if we do not cough up 700 Euros for the image.
This seems to be an outright extortion scheme. We googled a bit more and came across the Prenda Law in the States, where the extortion scheme backfired very badly with a severe prison term handed out to the perpetrators.
We seem to have a few options to consider now.
1) Completely ignore them and block their emails as this is actually a form of mental harassment which we can sue them for damages and also their email constitutes spam which they are also liable to pay damages to us for spamming us without our express permission.
2) Discuss with a lawyer - We don't feel like going down this path as its not fair that we should be paying money to solve something that is coming from extortionists. But WE WILL counter sue them for significant amounts of damages if we have to.
3) Respond back to KodakOne and Ryde. Our guess is their admin clerks will say "Hey, they took the bait" and you can imagine what's gonna happen next.
Our corporation is not in the EU and USA, so will these bloody a holes still waste their g** damn time on us if we completely ignore all their extortion letters of demand asking for hundreds of euros for a single image? We have received 2 emails from them. The 2nd has threatened to "escalate" to their legal department. We expect their 3rd email to be automated and raising the amount asked.
On a side note, the force of the Prenda Law should be fully given to them for them to be dealt with in our opinion.
Interpol, the United States, the UK and the EU must take a hard look and take action against these copyright trolls as it is simply so wrong to demand hundreds of Euros for an image based on that post-licensing crap. Imagine if they sent a letter of demand to a grandma in UK just trying to survive on welfare and who also happened to post some blog with an innocent image that is supposed to be free from a free website? How much damages are they going to pay to the grandma for causing emotional distress to her?
Good forummers. Let us know your thoughts, advice and recommendations. Our management as of now, is actually very very pissed off as they have a ZERO TOLERANCE policy towards threats and extortions. They have vowed NOT to PAY for the hundreds of Euros as it is an unfair demand. They will hire attorneys / lawyers in their country of operation to defend their case and fight to the bitter end and might counter sue the ones who demanded for payment for hundreds of thousands of EUROS in damages for causing undue anxiety among the staff, that's what we heard. They are even considering escalating the matter to all social media and worldwide news agencies and government authorities.
From what we gather at ELI forum, most of the experienced moderators recommend going dark and totally ignoring their threats as these IP trolls seem to be preying on easy targets that cave in easily and write them a cheque.
Another lawyer from New Zealand recommended completely IGNORING them and BLOCKING their email address.
So UK lawyers and those who might have experienced these irritating experiences, let us know your thoughts, advices, recommendations and experiences.
Best regards,
Fowler.
Greetings to all.
Our business enterprise received a letter of demand from KodakOne and Ryde from the city of Berlin, Germany demanding for an atrocious amount of money, 700 Euros, for an image on a website belonging to us. Tbh, the management have no idea how and why was the image up there except for the possibility that a past developer uploaded it quite some time ago. This is definitely an innocent infringement.
KodakOne / Ryde sent a screenshot to our email address, alleging that the image had been up there since 201x till now. We have no idea how they come up with the 201x date. They also sent us a letter of demand and invoice and demanded that we pay them.
We googled around and found out articles and discussions about Getty images and other similar companies operating on a similar mode and most infringers should pay on the fair market value of an image as far as we are concerned.
We removed the image in question from our server.
Upon researching further, we found out that KodakOne / Ryde had its KodakCoin project failed and they are now pursuing "infringers" worldwide along with ImageRight for damages amounting to a few hundred Euros per image and I suppose that include UK citizens who had unknowingly downloaded those images as well.
Further probe using a simple Google search revealed that KodakOne and Ryde had a checkered past. They had been accused of paying late to their contractors and staff and their crypto KodakCoin did not take off. ImageRight doesn't seem to have a glorious history either.
KodakOne / Ryde could have emailed us in a polite and tactful manner and issued us a cease and desist letter to remove the image and ended the case just there. But instead, they demanded hundreds of Euros for one image as though they are some kind of "extortion" agency.
Do you guys think we should not give a F about that and just ignore them? These guys seem to be IP trolls and copyright bullies, using psychological scare tactics on poor folks who might have unknowingly infringe upon their images?
Our enterprise is not located in the UK, US or the EU but somewhere else.
Will these very unethical people sue us outside of Europe, UK and US or will they just back the F off if we totally, absolutely and resistantly ignore their demands for hundreds of euros for a single image?
We received their email in late Sep. We ignored the their 1st email and 7 days later, we received a 2nd email from KodakOne and Ryde, threatening us with an escalation to their legal department if we do not cough up 700 Euros for the image.
This seems to be an outright extortion scheme. We googled a bit more and came across the Prenda Law in the States, where the extortion scheme backfired very badly with a severe prison term handed out to the perpetrators.
We seem to have a few options to consider now.
1) Completely ignore them and block their emails as this is actually a form of mental harassment which we can sue them for damages and also their email constitutes spam which they are also liable to pay damages to us for spamming us without our express permission.
2) Discuss with a lawyer - We don't feel like going down this path as its not fair that we should be paying money to solve something that is coming from extortionists. But WE WILL counter sue them for significant amounts of damages if we have to.
3) Respond back to KodakOne and Ryde. Our guess is their admin clerks will say "Hey, they took the bait" and you can imagine what's gonna happen next.
Our corporation is not in the EU and USA, so will these bloody a holes still waste their g** damn time on us if we completely ignore all their extortion letters of demand asking for hundreds of euros for a single image? We have received 2 emails from them. The 2nd has threatened to "escalate" to their legal department. We expect their 3rd email to be automated and raising the amount asked.
On a side note, the force of the Prenda Law should be fully given to them for them to be dealt with in our opinion.
Interpol, the United States, the UK and the EU must take a hard look and take action against these copyright trolls as it is simply so wrong to demand hundreds of Euros for an image based on that post-licensing crap. Imagine if they sent a letter of demand to a grandma in UK just trying to survive on welfare and who also happened to post some blog with an innocent image that is supposed to be free from a free website? How much damages are they going to pay to the grandma for causing emotional distress to her?
Good forummers. Let us know your thoughts, advice and recommendations. Our management as of now, is actually very very pissed off as they have a ZERO TOLERANCE policy towards threats and extortions. They have vowed NOT to PAY for the hundreds of Euros as it is an unfair demand. They will hire attorneys / lawyers in their country of operation to defend their case and fight to the bitter end and might counter sue the ones who demanded for payment for hundreds of thousands of EUROS in damages for causing undue anxiety among the staff, that's what we heard. They are even considering escalating the matter to all social media and worldwide news agencies and government authorities.
From what we gather at ELI forum, most of the experienced moderators recommend going dark and totally ignoring their threats as these IP trolls seem to be preying on easy targets that cave in easily and write them a cheque.
Another lawyer from New Zealand recommended completely IGNORING them and BLOCKING their email address.
So UK lawyers and those who might have experienced these irritating experiences, let us know your thoughts, advices, recommendations and experiences.
Best regards,
Fowler.
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