I asked once nicely—Now what?

On February 3rd Linoge sent me an email telling me that CSGV was using daughter Kim’s picture from the Too Many Victims video on their blog in a manner that erroneously shows gun owners in a poor light. He suggested I might want to ask them to remove it.

On February 6th I did just that:

From: Joe Huffman
Sent: Monday, February 06, 2012 9:46 AM
To: Ladd Everitt
Cc: Kimberly Frederick
Subject: Please remove my daughters picture.

Neither my daughter nor I gave you permission to use her image on the left sidebar of this web page: http://csgv4.blogspot.com/. Please remove it.

Use of the entire video is fine because it includes the proper context.

Thank you.

-joe-
http://blog.joehuffman.org/
http://www.boomershoot.org/
http://www.modernballistics.com/

Sent via Windows Phone Seven.

On February 10th I received a reply:

From: Ladd Everitt
Sent: Friday, February 10, 2012 9:08 AM
To: Joe Huffman
Cc: Kimberly Frederick
Subject: RE: Please remove my daughters picture.

Joe,

Thanks for your email.  We’re running this by our attorneys and will get back with you soon.

Best regards,

Ladd Everitt
Director of Communications
Coalition to Stop Gun Violence
1424 L Street NW, Suite 2-1
Washington, DC 20005
W:  [deleted by Joe for privacy reasons]
Cell:  [deleted by Joe for privacy reasons]
Email:  [deleted by Joe for privacy reasons]
Website:  www.csgv.org
Twitter:  http://twitter.com/CSGV
Facebook:  http://www.facebook.com/CoalitionToStopGunViolence/

It is now five days later and I still have not heard back from them. Although I am capable and willing to get my own attorney involved are there some “magic words” involving copyrights I need to invoke that might “encourage” them to remove the picture without the involvement of my lawyers?

Thanks.

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15 thoughts on “I asked once nicely—Now what?

  1. They have a strong fair use claim, so copyright would be a tough angle. Also, beware the Striesand effect – you’ve probably tripled daily uniques over there

  2. Ry I’m not really seeing the fair use claim. I put a bunch of my thoughts over here.

    They aren’t adding commentary or actually using the frame in a manner to cause conversation or discussion. They have taken a single frame and are using it like the equivalent of a stock photo.

  3. I agree that you should file a DMCA takedown. You’ve given them more than enough time to respond.

    Personally, the first time one of them steals one of my images, I’m going right to the takedown letter, with no other “polite” contact first.

  4. “Best regards,

    Ladd Everitt
    Director of Communications
    Coalition to Stop Gun Violence”

    That got me laughing! Oh yeah he wishes us all well! Snerk!

  5. Send him a DMCA takedown notice. CSGV, VPC, an other anti-gun groups have done this in the past, most notably when they’ve poached photos taken by Oleg Volk.

    It’s unsurprising that an organization with no respect for one right would have no respect for others.

  6. Send him a DMCA takedown notice. CSGV, VPC, an other anti-gun groups have done this in the past, most notably when they’ve poached photos taken by Oleg Volk.

    It’s unsurprising that an organization with no respect for one right would have no respect for others.

  7. I’m strongly anti-copyright and anti-patent for reasons why I won’t go into here, except to say that these instutitions have their root in censorship and monopoly; even so, it’s amusing to see anti-gun sites get hit with lawsuits for this kind of thing. At the very least, it should be easy for them to create such a picture themselves…except, for CSGV to get a picture like that themselves, they’d have to purchase a gun. The irony would be rich!

    Since I’m anti-copyright, if I were in their shoes, I’d just call attention to it and make fun of how they are taking everything out of context–and how, yet again, they are showing themselves to be dishonest, disingenuous liars. But while trying to sue them would produce a “Streisand Effect”, what would tripling their viewers do? Probably increase their daily uniques to about 17 or 18, and it’s likely that the majority of those hits will be from gun rights people anyway.

  8. “Thanks for your email. We’re running this by our attorneys and will get back with you soon.”

    I believe that’s C Vocabulary doublespeak for “Kiss my ass”.

    Load the DMCA takedown-torpedos.

  9. Is the picture of a Minor child? If so you have some legal ground based on that. My suggestion would be a DMCA letter, with a cease and desist order. Was the video uploaded to youtube? If so there are copyrights associated with it being on youtube, and you can use them to threaten them. Basically something like my lawyer has advised me to send you a DMCA infringement notice, that they are to cease and desist from showing the picture, or legal action will be filed, and a claim on their domain for DMCA violations will be made. Basically threatening to take ownership of their domain address if it goes to court. I am not a lawyer, this is only my opinion. Otherwise a letter from your lawyer will probably scare them.

  10. It looks as if CSGV has changed the image to a man holding a candle, still from the video, still a copyright issue. And no link to the video itself. I’m sure if you used a picture of a screenshot from one of their videos on your site they’d send you a DMCA letter.

  11. Ah, good, you did get that email…

    I confess that my knowledge of copyright law and the such is not tremendously strong, but given Oleg’s success with a DMCA-torpedo against the CSGV, I cannot see why it would not work again in this case.

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