[- Paul -]

You may remember my thread re my stuff being used elsewhere without my permission recently.

I had a legal draft written up to send onto Dell who were the biggest company I found using my images.

I also thought I'd drop this guy http://www.thexboxdoctor.com/contact-us.html
an email through his contact page as that image on that page is also mine and is being used without consent.

This is my email to him :-

Dear Sirs
Copyright Infringement of my work by yourselves
I am the owner of the copyright in the photograph of the xbox controller used on your page where I'm typing this now - http://www.thexboxdoctor.com/contact-us.html ,.
The Photograph is an original artistic work which was created by me on June 27th 2008. I had posted the Photograph to my webpages on Flickr, where it is (and has always been since the date of original upload) clearly marked as having all rights reserved.
I have recently discovered in October 2011 that your company has been using my Photograph to display on its webpage.
This use of the Photograph occurred without my consent as the copyright owner. I had explicitly reserved all rights in the use of the Photograph and am not aware of any attempt by you or your agents to contact me to request the use of the Photograph, or any other of my works.
I therefore put you on notice that the use that your company has already made of my Photograph is a clear infringement of my copyright in the Photograph, and that any future repeated use of the Photograph without my consent would also constitute a further infringement of these rights.
The infringement is unacceptable to me . In the circumstances, I would expect you to pay an appropriate licence fee for the past use of the Photograph since this has already taken place and you have already had the benefit of the Photograph for that use without my permission. As part of this I would expect you to confirm to me in writing where, how and how many times the Photograph has been used in your company/group.
Any such payment that you may make is retrospective for the use already made by yourselves of my Photograph as specifically indicated in this letter, and does not constitute implicit consent either for you to use the Photograph again in the future, or to retrospectively authorise any other past or continuing use of the Photograph by yourselves or its group of which I am currently unaware. If the company or any company within the your group wishes to make further use of the Photograph (or any other of my works), or if I later discover that additional use has already been made of the Photograph by your group of which I am currently unaware, this will be subject to further agreement with me, for which I would also expect adequate recompense.
I look forward to hearing from you by close of business on Jan 13th 2012. If I do not hear from you by this date then I will instruct lawyers to take action on my behalf. In the meantime, I reserve all of my rights in this matter.
Yours faithfully


His response - a bit harsh but a fair point - I've since sent him some screengrabs of my flickr account with me signed in - whether this will be good enough, I've no idea but I don't hold out much hope.

Dave Marin <xboxdoctordave@gmail.com> wrote:
Eat shit u mother fucker. you offer no proof it it created by you in your rambling email drop dead, eat shit and go fuck your mother

P.O. Box ------ Hayward CA. 94541

I wished him a Happy Xmas and then sent him my email with the grab.

What next?

[- Paul -]

Should add that I've also now contacted the company that provide his website.

[rodi]

HA!! i can't believe he said that!

[- Paul -]

It wasn't the response I was expecting either but there you go!

[skinrock]

Originally Posted by - Paul -

It wasn't the response I was expecting either but there you go!

Hayward? No, it sounds about right.

[rodi]

if i were you, i wouldn't worry about that site. 560 site views at $0.10 per view of a page that might have less views, is not worth your time or legal expense.

what happened with Dell??

[- Paul -]

I agree - I won't be chasing too hard!

Still formulating my Dell response - I'm posting that one and I want everything to be right before I send it.

[- Paul -]

Forgot to ask - Is chipping/flashing an XBOX legal in America?

[skinrock]

Originally Posted by - Paul -

Forgot to ask - Is chipping/flashing an XBOX legal in America?

If it bypasses the copy protection system (which is what most do), then it would be in effect outlawed by the same thing you're using against him: DMCA.

[TL]

sounds like you're dealing with a young kid....like what Rodi said it's not worth your time.
I would just disable the right click download option on Flickr. It's under the You--> Your Account --> Privacy&Permissions --> Who can access your original image files? and hit edit and check Only you

[san~man]

Must be a kid, as no "adult" would reply like that.

[- Paul -]

Kid or not - he's changed it now anyway. I don't have the download option enabled but it's easy enough to get round it (screengrabs etc)

[MaximusJ]

Originally Posted by - Paul -

Kid or not - he's changed it now anyway. I don't have the download option enabled but it's easy enough to get round it (screengrabs etc)

Glad to hear; because when I checked, I saw the picture that is online NOW; and not yours. So I was like; well how the hell can he tell its his picture. LOL

A pixelated pic of the remote's buttons isnt worth fighting for ahah.

And btw, yes, flashing consoles is damn straight illegal in north america.

[immiketoo]

NExt step is send his web address to Microsoft. They have a whole division for investigating fraudulent activity.

[The1]

best/worst reply from guy ever....

Sorry you had to go through this. But it's a good learning experience for all of us to see.

Let us know how the Dell one goes! (though i'm sure you planned to)

[Seminole]

I wish I was talented enough that people would want to steal my pictures, haha. Good luck with Dell. Might get some good money out of that one.

[MaximusJ]

Originally Posted by immiketoo

NExt step is send his web address to Microsoft. They have a whole division for investigating fraudulent activity.

Or just the local police.