George Riddick — the One-Man RIAA of Clip Art 175
An anonymous reader writes "Pages at ireport.com and extortionletterinfo.com have been documenting and researching the activities of George P. Riddick III, previously known for his lawsuits against IMSI and Xoom at the turn of the century. In 2007 he issued a largely-ignored press release claiming the majority of clip art online infringes a copyright and has ranted about how Microsoft and Google are stealing from him. In recent months, he's apparently made a business model of going after web site operators who were using clip art they believed to be legally licensed or public domain, telling them they're infringing clip art collections he hasn't offered commercially in years and making outrageous settlement demands. He seems to have tested the waters on this some years back, but emboldened by the passage of the PRO-IP act, he's gone aggro with it. A few dodgy anonyblogs had popped up to 'out' him as a copyright abuser, but these recent ireport.com and extortionletterinfo.com reports go much deeper in documenting and researching Riddick's recent one-man campaign to be the RIAA of clip art."
I've patented a method of trademarking a copyright (Score:3, Funny)
I'll make millions!
Growing network of victims! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Growing network of victims! (Score:5, Funny)
the majority of clip art online infringes a copyright
Notice, too, that he doesn't state outright that it infringes his copyright, only implies it.
I wonder if he has a copyright on a single black pixel, and is trying to count everything else as a derivative work......
Re:Growing network of victims! (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah. I've found in my cynicism that when you're dealing with somebody with a vested or political interest in something like this, what they don't say is much more important than what they do say.
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Re:Growing network of victims! (Score:4, Funny)
Quick! Somebody copyright a single white pixel and save all the greyscale clipart at least!
Alternatively, don't use any black pixels, just really really, really, really, really dark blue ones!
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Hah, I'm off to patent a method for substituting very dark blue pixels in replacement of copyrighted black pixels.
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I wonder if he has a copyright on a single black pixel, and is trying to count everything else as a derivative work......
No, that's me. Best $40 I ever spent! I'm going to sue all your asses for infringing on my 42 byte "blank.gif", containing a single black transparent pixel.
And thanks to web.archive.org, I can track down millions of violators! I'm going to be rich!
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Someone should create a chronicle of all these Riddick threats. Who knows... it might someday make a great movie too.
And why am I not surprised that someone who insists on using such a pompous, bloated name has been accused of such tactics? Also see "Colin James III" who was the single most voted person for the "Kook of the Month" award years back:
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.cyberspace/browse_thread/thread/4531d778be9f0bf9 [google.com]
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Someone should create a chronicle of all these Riddick threats. Who knows... it might someday make a great movie too.
Yeah, and why don't we call it "The Chronicles of Riddick" and lets get Vin Diesel to play the lead role...
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By going gartul?
Same way as usual... (Score:4, Funny)
Give one person with high HP all the health powerups and defense boosters, get that person to tank, get a healer to stand nearby to assist, and everyone else wails on him, duh.
And they called it (Score:5, Funny)
"Pages at ireport.com and extortionletterinfo.com have been documenting and researching the activities of George P. Riddick III
they call the document "the chronicles of riddick"
*bad-dum-dah*
I'll be here all week
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cabin fever causes bad puns, riddickorating your home can help
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Riddick.... (Score:2)
Time to sicc Toombs on his rump.
No jail that serves waffle-eating pussies will be for him.
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And the Internet would be a better place if we get RID of this (insert last four letters of his name here).
Use the web (Score:5, Informative)
Although the web makes this sort of thing possible, the same web will help to mitigate the damage. I'm very happy people post this thing for all to see.
After reading all of these letters, I don't think that anybody would really take this guy seriously. He is running the equivalent of a modified 419 scam (pay us a little to prevent a big payout in the future.) The repeated requests for confidentiality should be a tipoff.
Hopefully not too many small websites without proper legal counsel to advise them on this sort of thing have not been taken....
Re:Use the web (Score:4, Informative)
Although the web makes this sort of thing possible, the same web will help to mitigate the damage.
Riddick's thought of that. He's a domain squatter too:
http://www.islandview2.com/index3A.htm [islandview2.com]
Usually, when someone takes advantage of one facet of the World Wide Web [what-is-what.com], they take advantage of all of it.
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Why exactly has this been modded as Troll? Is Riddick or one of his minions haunting this discussion as a faceless anonymous moderator?
Re:Use the web-Nailed It! (Score:4, Insightful)
You've nailed the point. Most people don't see all the letters. They only see the one they received and few know the actual history of any art they might be using.
And that's not a 419 (Nigerian) scam. It's the classic mob extortion line: "You've got a nice little web-site here. Be a shame if anything happened to it - along with personally bankrupting you for copyright infringement. Remember those huge statuary damages the RIAA is always suing for...?"
How to call it (Score:3, Funny)
Let's call it The chronic LES (Lawsuit Egocentric Syndrome) of Riddick
Mr. Johns should have just killed the bastard (Score:2)
Ahh, fair use (Score:5, Insightful)
make no mistake, this is an assault on "fair use" of work.
The logos and art in question are not representing Google or Microsoft, they are mere representations of what was found on the external sites which are assumed to be displaying lawfully acquired content.
Google and Microsoft are not the police or the courts. If you have a valid issue with their display of an image, issue a take down notice.
Re:Ahh, fair use (Score:5, Insightful)
This is one of the first things I noticed when my SO was looking at sewing machines. We looked into the extra costs in doing embrodary and was appalled at the total lockdown of the artwork for any of the machines. It resulted in a simple no sale as the machines were unusable for any hobby applications as everything was tied up in royalties and legal risk.
This is a field that could have had lots of interest, but due to greed and closed formats, etc, it appeals to very few.
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We looked into the extra costs in doing embrodary and was appalled at the total lockdown of the artwork for any of the machines.
Is there no one who's hacked them yet? Home CNC paper-cutters which don't have built-in support for custom patterns have had third-party software published that lets you e.g. import SVGs.
Re:Ahh, fair use (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, this is an often under-noticed area of copyright infringement (It looks like actual illegal infringement to me, but IANAL). My mother has several CDs full of images that she uses to decorate shirts, blankets, etc for her grand-kids. They cost her ~$5 apiece and are filled with lovable Disney characters that have been copied out of movies or TV shows, interpretted into embroidery patters, burned in bulk to CD, and then sold. My mom, of course, uses the logic that, since she paid for the discs, there's no way that she could be doing anything wrong. I'm sure that Disney is aware of the situation and is frustrated that they can't suck the blood from these spinster pirates because of the bad PR involved with suing confused grandmothers. At least that's my take on it.
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If anything, they'll go after the people selling the discs in the first place. Confused grandmothers are not known for their deep pockets.
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If anything, they'll go after the people selling the discs in the first place. Confused grandmothers are not known for their deep pockets.
That wouldn't stop the RIAA. The Embroidery Inustry Association of America is obviously not made of the same stuff.
Re:Ahh, fair use (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe Disney would still go after the buyers of those discs anyway. There's probably not much parity in the example I'm about to give, but I remember many years ago that Disney went after several independently owned daycare centers and home daycare businesses which used depictions of Disney characters on walls. Sometimes these depictions were painted, but often the depictions were vinyl or wooden cut-outs presumably purchased from a source licensed to use the images.
Re:Ahh, fair use (Score:5, Funny)
Your clever attempt at deflecting the pointing finger has failed.
*(of course it exists!)
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I'm sure that Disney is aware of the situation and is frustrated that they can't suck the blood from these spinster pirates because of the bad PR involved with suing confused grandmothers.
Never stopped the RIAA. Maybe that's why Disney is a thriving concern and the RIAA is in its death throes.
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There are third-party applications (Embird and Drawings) that can import vector art and export to many proprietary stitch formats.
Corel used to own Drawings and had a free plugin for CorelDraw that lets you get a preview bitmap of stitches derived from a vector drawing. I don't know if it is available for the latest verson though.
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No, it's due to the insane lengths of modern copyright. Why should copyright outlast a patent?
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Why should copyright outlast a patent?
Good question. I've never seen or heard an answer to it.
Twenty years protection at most, then into the public domain. That's long enough to allow inventors to profit from their inventions, and would be a tolerable term for copyright also.
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So why do copyrights deserve more incentives than patents again?
Because that right was bought from Congress. This is the U.S.A., you must be new here.
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The late Ed Foster talked about this on the [now defunct] Gripelog.
Professional Indemnity Insurance (Score:4, Interesting)
In the UK, it is highly advisable for any business to take out Professional Indemnity Insurance. This covers this type of eventuality - and faced with a professional legal opponent these type of people will invariably back down.
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Read the GP again:
faced with a professional legal opponent these type of people will invariably back down.
Insurance companies love taking money as much as they hate paying it out; they know better than to feed litigious trolls.
Even stupider... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Even stupider... (Score:5, Interesting)
Riddick's designs are so simple and generic [imageline2.com] that they could easily have been drawn (or typed) by someone else from scratch without ever having seen Riddick's version.
It's also highly likely that versions of at least some of them were around before Mr Riddick's businesses claim to have 'designed' them. In the early days of graphical computing clip art got copied around even more than it does now. In this case if someone had authentic prior art, and could demonstrate it, they could sue Mr Riddick for copyright infringement, which would be deeply sweet.
If you were producing graphics on a computer before about 1986, it could be well worth scanning your collection for images which match any of the disputed images...
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There's a difference between 'looks like' and 'is'. Most notably in terms of fonts where using copyrighted fonts, even for 'generic' looking fonts can easily land you on the receiving end of a lawsuit.
Given that vector Clip Art shares a lot of parallels to fonts, why should they be different?
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The hand graphic could have been copied out of any Beagle Bros. book, or even the math book that came with my old TI calculator.
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Does he have this image copyrighted?
Bird [wordpress.com]
I believe I have proof of Prior Art [johnnycashonline.info] !!!
Re:Even stupider... (Score:4, Interesting)
Taking credit for clip-art, and not clippy? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Taking credit for clip-art, and not clippy? (Score:5, Funny)
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Is there any way he could take credit for Clippy the dancing paperclip?
He is smart enough to realize that he won't enjoy the money very long before the assassination.
What a joke. (Score:5, Informative)
The letters at extortionletter.info are hilarious. As Walter would say, "Fucking amateur! George Riddick you're out of your element."
One of my fav lines:
"I would be happy to send you a rough draft copy of our standard Settlement and Release Agreement, which we have used over 100 times over the past few years (unfortunately)."
Is it really a "rough draft" if you are using it?
Or how about:
We are very disappointed that you have chosen litigation for you, your family, your business partners, your distributors (i.e. XXXXXXXXX), and your end user customers. The amount of money spent bringing all of these people and companies to court is going to be enormous. But since our designs are all registered with the U.S. Copyright Office, you will end up paying every dime of these legal expenses on all sides, in addition to all infringement and DMCA (Section 1202) penalties as well. These penalties could easily exceed $35,000 per design infringed. What a shame!
What a shame? What a dick! and what's an "end user customer?" Isn't an end user a customer? I love the fact in his letters he always "hopes to keep this confidential." That always works when the internet is involved.
fucking lamer.
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I think you may misunderstand the reason he writes that he "hopes to keep this confidential".
It's not about protecting himslef, it's part of the threat package: "Pay me now or spend a fortune paying me later... oh, and by the way... nice reputation you have there. It would be a shame if anything *happened* to it."
A Neutral Observation (Score:5, Insightful)
claiming the majority of clip art online infringes a copyright
I'm actually fairly willing to believe this.
Of course, that's not the same as proving that HIS clip-art is being used at all the sites he sues. If it is, then I'd find it hard to actually get mad at him.
Did anyone read the linked to "rant"? It's actually fairly cogent. First he basically says "If I was to steal your copyrighted stuff, you'd sue me into the ground because you're a huge company. Yet you steal mine all the time. That's rather unfair." Doesn't this sound like the Official Slashdot Position? Next he goes on to say he's mad at Google and Microsoft's image search tools because they continue to cache the image even after the site has removed it. Microsoft claimed they weren't caching them and he showed them an example that proved them wrong. Isn't this also a very Slashdot thing to do?
All in all, it sounds like he wasn't pissed that the image search features exist, but that they kept caching them even when he got people to yank his clipart off their server. Then they get money for ads on pages with the cached picture. And then people would copy the clipart again from the returned image results, making it easier for people to continue copying his clipart.
I've went to the links in the summary and they actually make me sympathize with the guy MORE. And I'm a bittorrenting fiend. One of them posts a picture of him accompanied by "Maybe if he makes enough money, he can go on a diet course, or at least buy a bigger belt to hold up that fat, obese stomach." Especially petty considering he looks like just about any old man his age, not actually spectacularly obese or anything.
I haven't been able to find widespread claims that he sues over clipart he doesn't own the copyrights to. Just that he's a jerk because his letters say "you put our clipart on your page, pay up" and don't give the target a chance to say "I'm sorry, I'll just take it off and we can pretend it never happened." The only other thing I can find other than personal insults was that they claim his clipart sucks anyway (sour grapes, anyone?). True, he does sell a lot of clipart that looks straight from the 80s, but there's also things like this:
http://www.imageline2.com/pages/ipics2_LOGOSNature.htm [imageline2.com]
http://www.imageline2.com/pages/ipics2_OTHERWorldRel2.htm [imageline2.com]
http://www.imageline2.com/pages/PRESENT_Index.htm [imageline2.com]
This looks like prime fodder for a lot of business use today. It looks better than 90% of what I see in powerpoint presentations even now.
And the last point I can find people make against him is that he has clipart of the UN flag and the Sydney Opera House and those have some very specific copyrights attached to them. First, the UN flag is not protected by copyright but simply by a UN resolution that says "don't use our flag." A resolution that has no actual legal backing. And the question of how much the SOH can legally limit the use of their image is murky at best:
http://www.freedomtodiffer.com/freedom_to_differ/2007/06/photographing_t.html [freedomtodiffer.com]
So really, I just don't get the uproar. Yeah, I wish copyright law was MUCH different to align penalties with actual profit being made by the infringer. But this guy hardly seems to be in the same league as the RIAA and their whole "making available" bullshit.
Entitlement again (Score:4, Insightful)
And here again we see the Entitlement Mentality. The "starving artist" can't earn a living at his chosen profession. Exactly why is the artist *entitled* to make a living at said profession? If his chosen career path isn't economically viable, why am I suddenly obligated to support him? Perhaps the "starving artist" wouldn't be starving if he made better choices in his life.
Further, I work in an industry that relies heavily on copyright law. It is plainly obvious that copyright law is broken, and is detrimental to society in it's current form. The "temporary monopoly" was never intended to grant a semi-permanent revenue stream for you and your children. Copyright Rebels, my ass.
And this is different from Getty images how? (Score:3, Interesting)
Except for the less polished langauge, it's the same thing that happens if you happen to grab an image off a CD from ten years ago which unluckily happens to be in the Getty imagebank and use it in your website. They'll send you a bill for a couple grand for an image they license at $30/yr. And you'll send a check, because if not they'll haul you to court, and any lawyer worth his salt will tell you you're fucked.
The problem is that there is no way to determine if the clip art (or images) you have infringe on anyone's copyright, because there is no way for an individual or small business to match images against the sea of information out there. Your only recourse is to have a physical paper of license in your hands before you do anything. Somehow, I don't think that was the intent behind Article I, section 8, clause 8 of the United States Constitution - that Congress shall have the power: "to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." You may as well just lock up the web and throw it away.
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Pretty much. The story of the goose with the golden eggs comes to mind. There are some people who just don't understand and don't care that they're killing a larger downstream revenue for themselves and everyone else. They just want cash now.
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The raster image of a photo makes it easier to detect a derivative work. A good example of this is the controversy over the Obama poster versus a particular Time photo of the President in the same pose.
Clip art is a bit tricker since it is vector based. If someone ends up with a similar design is it tough to prove whether it is a derivative work or an independent rendition of the same public domain thing/image.
Clip art of a generic bicycle developed independently can't be sued for copyright infringement b
Imageline ? smells to Fruityloops! (Score:2)
Isn't Fruityloops (the music sequencer) made by Imageline ?
Solution to the scourge of copyright (Score:2)
Here's an idea, derived from other bright people (imagine that!):
Anyone that wants a copyright has to declare its value, and pay an annual property tax on it of (say) one percent. They can declare any value they like, but only once, and only within a year of creation.
The kicker: total income for the work, from licensing, sales, infringement penalties, etc., are capped at ten times the amount declared. Upon payment (which cannot be refused) from any source, it goes into the public domain.
Not quite as good
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Hey, yeah, that'd be awesome. We'd get rid of that pesky GPL overnight!
That'd be OK by RMS (Score:2)
If RMS were given a choice between
he'd choose the latter. He created the GPL as the best thing he could think of, since abolishing copyright is not within his powers. In a sense, the GPL is a simulation of abolished copyright. [BSDish licenses are not, because they don't have the level playing field that abolished copyright would provide. (i.e., "I can use yours and you can use mine")]
Check out his writings...
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First, I don't think you've read many of his comments over the years. One of the thrusts of his disgruntlement over software is when source code isn't provided, because the user can't improve or change the software to meet his needs. He also seems to get quite pissed off when companies take a GPL piece of code and wrap it in a bunch more closed source code. This is a guy who will stop you in mid-sentence and berate you if "GNU" isn't put in front of the word "Linux."
No copyright would not level the playi
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First, I don't think you've read many of his comments over the years.
I would hardly presume to speak for him, but your assumption is false.
No copyright would not level the playing field.
My point was that if the three options are (1) code under GPL, (2) code under BSD, (3) copyright is abolished, the BSD option clearly leads to the least level playing field.
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The more I think about it, the more I wonder if no copyright would actually lead to an even worse situation. It would be even harder to get source code for a non-free program. The "service model" works ok for some commercial software, but poorly for most. Most of the companies I can think of that make money off the service model (i.e. Red Hat) are actually using a large percentage of someone else's man hours (the people who make most of the software they repackage and sell support for). So what are my o
The Chronicles of Riddick 2 (Score:2)
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What's to stop him from copying an image, placing it on his site, then claiming he owns the image? He'd be hard pressed to prove he owned the image to begin with.
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He had illustrators and computer artists on staff generating clip art from scratch. He paid our wages at times when I know he wasn't keeping up with his own personal bills. (banker in the front lobby waiting to collect a mortgage check)
If there are other matching images out there for free - great, the copyright s
Re:What's the problem? (Score:5, Interesting)
(Umm, you just triggered my "astroturf" alert. This is the only comment Slashdot has you on record for, so I can't get a grasp of whether you are real or not.)
Your argument is wrong in that it tries to place a burden of proof on every amateur website out there, something that is silly. Cliparts from the Eighties have changed hands many, many times; disks sold at garage sales and copy/paste make it impossible for a hobby webmaster to keep records. If we were to use your metric, then almost all of the web would be easy prey to copyright lawsuits.
No, I have to disagree with you there, Mister Former Riddick Employee. If someone is actually selling cliparts, well, OK. That's worthy of legal action. But merely using a picture and not remembering if you bought it or not? Please. You may as well accuse me of shoplifting because I can't produce the receipt for the jeans on me arse.
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Your argument is wrong in that it tries to place a burden of proof on every amateur website out there, something that is silly. Cliparts from the Eighties have changed hands many, many times; disks sold at garage sales and copy/paste make it impossible for a hobby webmaster to keep records.
That's not a real solid defense. I would say not to use discs sold at garage sales if you're running a professional operation. Using an image when you have no idea who the rightholder is would be a bad idea.
No, I h
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But, just for fun let's say I can prove only I make/sell those jeans. Well, if I know I'm the only one who sells the jeans, and I didn't sell you the jeans, and you're wearing the jeans... ...Then yeah, you either stole the jeans or are in receipt of stolen property. Just like in the current scenario.
Or he bought them from your client who resold them.
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Or he bought them from your client who resold them.
That's where the "comparing physical objects to copyright" thing breaks down. In this case, I'm guessing he didn't provide relicensing rights to his customers. Certainly if he did, that would be a defense.
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Even if he didn't provide relicensing rights, companies and assets can change ownership through restructuring, M+A, court settlements, etc. in ways which may not be limitable through commercial license agreements.
All of which would be extremely easy to document. Certainly "we acquired your client" should quickly end the conversation.
Re:What's the problem? (Score:4, Insightful)
But, just for fun let's say I can prove only I make/sell those jeans. Well, if I know I'm the only one who sells the jeans, and I didn't sell you the jeans, and you're wearing the jeans... ...Then yeah, you either stole the jeans or are in receipt of stolen property. Just like in the current scenario.
To make this about clipart again (since physical items aren't the same as data on a disk), let's say I can't remember where I got the clipart from, but I'm reasonably sure I got it from a backup of an original disk (that had been destroyed) that a friend of mine gave to me because he no longer had any use for it, and he bought the original disk from some guy ages ago, doesn't remember who this was and that person most likely doesn't have a receipt anymore? Would you say it's a clear-cut "YUO STOEL FROM ME!!!111" situation then?
Because that sounds a lot like what's going on, and to take it to the jeans analogy: I got a pair of jeans from a friend of mine, he got them from some guy in his dorm who most likely bought them years ago and now a Levi's just sent me a threatening letter telling me that I've been spotted wearing a pair of their jeans in public and that they have no record of ever selling me a pair of their jeans. Does that sound even remotely sane?
/Mikael
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You're basically proposing we go off the honor system. We might as well scrap the entire copyright system in that case. Not that I'd be opposed to that. But I do understand that you can't have copyright and just trust someone when they say they bought it at some point.
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Nice strawman you got there.
I'd say the system we have now (and have had for quite some time). If a copyright holder observes their copyrighted material being used, they ask the person in question to show ownership.
The main issue I have with the current system is on the value of the penalties imposed.
So, what is your suggestion? No copyrights at all?
Turns out two can play the strawman game.
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You must have missed the word "hobby" in there. Consider the case of someone with an embroidery business, who has the cliparts built in to the machine. They are most likely not even aware that the images were licensed from Company X, only that they are available. Now this little embroidery shop thinks it would be neat to show prospective customers what motives are available on a web page, and makes a page with a bunch of GIF images that look like what the machine can do. Would you sue that person?
Returning
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I realize there's a required minimum number of posts before becoming real - for the moment, I can only aspire to be real with post #2 here.
I just wanted to stick my nose into the conversation to vouch for the effort that I know firsthand George put in to creating the image libraries that he sells in various forms.
From reading tfa & links, I
Re:What's the problem? (Score:4, Funny)
There is also a 2 car analogy minimum.
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I just wanted to stick my nose into the conversation to vouch for the effort that I know firsthand George put in to creating the image libraries that he sells in various forms.
The problem is that it doesn't matter that George put a lot of work into creating his stuff. Instead, what matters is that he is trying to claim copyright on stuff that is so generic as to be impossible to work around. A hand pointing? A crown? I've seen those around long before George. I'm sure he has clip-art for arrows, and buildings, and all kinds of generic shit that everybody who ever drew a symbol has pretty much drawn before.
My beef with George is that he doesn't care that his stuff isn't unique or
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(Umm, you just triggered my "astroturf" alert. This is the only comment Slashdot has you on record for, so I can't get a grasp of whether you are real or not.)
I realize there's a required minimum number of posts before becoming real - for the moment, I can only aspire to be real with post #2 here.
Yet oddly, despite having just posted your first comment, your user ID number is in the 800k range. IIRC we're up to about 1.2M now, so your account itself must at least a year old, if not two or three.
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That is why I said that, since I'm most likely not the only one. Too many companies have tried to fake grassroots support, so much so that most readers become jaded. I wanted to give you a chance to allay my doubts (and the doubts of those like me).
Yes, I agree with you there: it's the issue of someone selling clipart as their own that should be persecuted, not those using clipart in good faith. Unfortunately, Mr. Riddick's letters poison the atmosphere and make an amicable agreement almost impossible.
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> On the other hand, if they can't point to a free source for that image - then they outta
> be ready to repay George for the all that he invested in creating that image.
First he must prove that he owns the copyright in that image.
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Sorry, George. This is the Internet age now. If it isn't nailed down nothing in the world will keep people from stealing it. And then making use of it however they see fit. This is part of the new bargain we are striking with people everywhere - creativity is now a "mashup" or a "remix" of older works because it is impossible to create anything new - it has all been done before. Therefore, there are no legal rights to anything.
It also means that if I can take something, I can sell it. If you are stupi
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This is the Internet age now. If it isn't nailed down nothing in the world will keep people from stealing it. And then making use of it however they see fit. This is part of the new bargain we are striking with people everywhere - creativity is now a "mashup" or a "remix" of older works because it is impossible to create anything new - it has all been done before.
Puh-leez! I don't mind agreeing that there's rarely if ever anything entirely new under the sun, but claiming that it's all been done and there's nothing left but mashups seems to be pandering to a defeatist and lazy attitude. The fact that the Internet and computer technology has made it *easier* to engage in such manipulation of existing material seems to have blinded our (or rather your) mind to the idea that anything new is possible.
Yes, there are some great mashups and great "remixes" work that quali
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Imageline, Inc registered copyrights on clipart in 1996. The copyright office's search page does not display the actual subject matter of the copyright registrations, so it is hard to tell if the claimed images were in that collection.
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If this guy really owned the clipart, and they are being used commercially without permission, then he has every right to go after any involved party. Obviously they can then choose to settle, if under reasonable terms, or just remove the damn clipart.
I really don't see what's so evil about this guy. *As long as he can prove his assertions.*
It strikes me that there are a few issues going on. First there's the question over whether the guy really does own the copyright to these images. It should be the fundamental question and the ultimate focus of the issue. But a lot of attention is being drawn elsewhere; by the guy (George Riddick) himself.
He's made grandiose claims that search engines are to blame. Either he really believes search engines are to blame or he's using the big names behind those search engines to gain attention.
His letters
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I read a few posts from George Riddick, III is an Ass! [blogspot.com] A couple of statements stood out, namely: his collection of bitmap clip art is vastly out-dated crap that no one in their right mind apart from the odd backwater church community or primary school would ever nowadays use. and George, you are not losing out because of piracy. You're losing out because no one wants to buy your rubbish drawings any more, get over it! and stop pestering everyone and wasting people's time with your petty and hate-fuelled que
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Our economy is falling apart, our courts should be handling more sinister crimes like rape/murder and this guy is off law suiting away (yes, I know the courts are different for copywrite vs. criminal acts- thank you for pointing that out wannabelawyers on slashdot)
Actually, murder can wind up in civil court - OJ was cleared of criminal murder, but found liable for his wife's death in the civil case IIRC. Dunno about rape, but I'd suspect it's the same case.
IANAL. IAAWL.
BTW, what courts handle copywriting? I didn't even know it was illegal...
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Dude. I'm going to have to stop defending if you don't format your posts better. Seriously, it's a giant block of text. Most people won't read more than a half-dozen sentences like that. I'd suggest reformatting this with paragraph breaks and posting it as a reply to your original comment.
Re:George Riddick - the one man RIIA of clipart (Score:4, Informative)
Wow! My Google "clip art alert" system really does work!
Checking my e-mails at lunch today, I noticed this Slashdot article devoted entirely to me and my small electronic graphic arts content development company, Imageline. We are honored.
First of all, I would like to say "thank you" to those of you who chose not to simply jump on the "sensational" bandwagon, but took the time to carefully read what we are saying and understand what we are trying to do here at Imageline. We believe that our efforts, our experience, our creativity, and our tenacity, will benefit practically everyone who wants to participate in the wonders of the digital art world and the Internet legally.
And "hello, Jim!" ... it was great to hear you are still 'active and kicking' after all of these years. I always admired the fact that you were not reluctant at all to speak your mind. That's what successful companies are made up of ... excellent, dedicated, and intelligent people ... with a great work ethic and a common cause.
There's a huge difference between what we trying to do here at Imageline and what the RIAA has been doing for the past few years. I do not believe that the appropriate way to curtail digital piracy over the Internet is to simply try to throw a few college students, uninformed end-users, and/on single moms into bankruptcy ... or into jail.
At Imageline, we ALWAYS go after the "middlemen", exclusively. They are the most flagrant infringers, by far. Not the actual end-users, who, by and large, are the innocent recipients of stolen property, and the victims of the various distribution scams organized and orchestrated by these so-called legitimate "middlemen". The industry calls them "digital pirates".
The "middlemen" I am referring to here are the dealers, the distributors, the "pushers", the web site operators, and the product bundlers (even the counterfeiters), who try to feather their own nests by sub-licensing and re-distributing the hard-earned digital artwork and other property owned by others. From my own personal experience, most of these "middlemen" not only do not respect copyrights or the laws of this country, they do not respect property rights in general, unless, of course, that property is theirs or something they have stolen. It is all very shameful, in my opinion.
Those that have made an honest mistake (and we all do that on occasion) are ALWAYS treated with respect and given several reasonable options by Imageline in an attempt to resolve our disputes and protect their end user customers at the same time. In fact, some of our best friends, and best customers, are people who inadvertently were caught infringing at some time in the past, but certainly do not do that sort of thing anymore. By and large, they are happy people, as well, and have no trouble looking at themselves in the mirror each day.
Every single company we have contacted over the past few years is a "middleman" trying to earn money from goods and services (and sweat and tears) of others, to which they have no rights.
Most of the people responding to this web posting apparently have not even bothered to take the time to read our various communications carefully. Yet they are not hesitant at all to criticize what we are doing. That is a very dangerous, and not particularly useful, way to interact, in my humble opinion.
Imageline owns one of the largest archives of digital vector-based artwork in the entire world, and we have just recently doubled our exclusive libraries with the acquisition of the Image Club Graphics libraries from Getty Images. All of our artwork had previously been developed in-house by talented artists, designers, animators, and digitizers, and by a number of what I consider "world class" independent illustrators under tight "work-for-hire" agreements. The new Image Club libraries begin an entire new chapter for Imageline, and we are all very excited about our future.
Unlike most of our competi
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Much better formatted!
This response sounds far more reasonable and rational than almost all of the people attacking the guy on the summary links.
As a programmer, I frequently need to find icons for stuff. I've done searches for "free icons" before and looked very skeptically on some sites with thousands of images, none of them attributed in any way. How could I tell they're legit? Answer, you can't. Some people in the comments keep harping about watermarking, but how do you watermark a 32x32 pixel x 256
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What sounds *very* fishy is that you go after individual embroidery companies, who may bot be able to afford lawyers and thus choose to settle even if honest. Hence the comparison with RIAA. The threats and the claims of confidentiality and urgency add to this.
It is *very* unfair that a person chooses to settle, while believing he/she is innocent, because settling is cheaper than litigating.
Why don't you go after clipart.com?
If you don't answer this, I find it very hard to believe you have good faith.
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I was about to post an anonymous "TL:DR" reply..but then decided to read.
Thanks for that. You will probably get a lot of replies nitpicking some points, but I think most will get the general idea.
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Sadly, some idiot has modded your quite informative post as Flamebait. This means your post disappeared for anyone reading this site with their comment threshold set at 1. The comment is the thing near the top of the discussion. It lets you weed out comment moderated below a certain score. Unfortunately, there are too many people in the world who are willing to do such a thing.
Be patient, though, as hopefully someone else will come along and moderate your post back up. Until then, you may need to chang
More Slashdot Details (Score:2)
Yes, the designed it this way. It's definitely not a perfect system. But it's a decent system and works that doesn't try to pretend that human nature doesn't exist. It's based on "the wisdom of crowds." Look it up, sometime, it's an interesting theory. Basically, at any given point in time, the system may not come up with the correct result. But the theory is that, given some time, it will work itself out.
You might want to read the section starting "Moderation seems restrictive. Is it really necessary