Hello guys,
Good day.
We just received a surprising letter of demand from Ryde / KodakOne from Germany asking for an unreasonable amount of money, 900 Euros, for an image on a website used by us. We have no idea how the image was up there except for the possibility that a sub contracted web designer or developer put it up quite some time ago.
KodakOne and Ryde emailed us a series of screenshots, as well as a letter of demand demanding that we pay them or "face the consequences".
We had googled around about Getty images etc and read that most infringers would only want to pay the fair market value. The amount demanded from KodakOne and Ryde is just really like extortion, no different from Getty Images and other image companies. This seems like a new company using old style tactics.
We are located outside not in the United States nor are we in the European Union. Upon receiving the letter, we took down the image.
Personally, they could have issued us a cease and desist letter instead of right up demanding hundreds of Euros as though they are the mafia and some sort of collection agency.
Can we just ignore them as we consider them to be outright copyright bullies, using scare tactics on even people who might have innocently and unknowingly infringe upon their "copyrights"?
Will they sue us outside of Europe and US or will they just buzz off if we completely ignore their unreasonable demands for hundreds of euros for a single image?
If they had asked nicely using a fair market value system, we might have replied to them.
We ignored the their email and we received a 2nd email after that from KodakOne and Ryde, threatening us with "legal action" if we do not pay up.
This is simply unacceptable.
We had also googled and came across "The Prenda Law" in the States, where the extortion scheme backfired very badly with a severe prison term handed out.
So we have a few choices
a) Totally ignore this crap
(We did not know the image was copyrighted (they had yet to show absolute proof) and even if it was copyrighted, we probably did it very unknowingly, and the demand of hundreds of euros is outrageous and appears to be a form of extortion)
b) Consult an attorney / lawyer (that costs money and the money should in theory be billed to them since they are the ones who started extorting big amounts of money)
3) Fire an email back to KodakOne and Ryde but we guess that will only prolong their harassment?
We are not in the EU and USA, so will these jerks still waste their bloody time on us if we just ignore all their ridiculous extortion letters of demand asking for hundreds of euros for a single image?
Seriously, the Prenda Law should be applied to them and these modern day extortionists should be sent to prison. They might have received a better response had they asked for fair market prices but considering the huge backlash from tens of thousands of angry recipients, do you think they will even initiate tens of thousands of lawsuits worldwide? Are they nuts?
Let me know your thoughts and recommendations as they have threatened to escalate to their legal department. We will NOT go down without fighting when we are being asked to pay hundreds of Euros for a single image which we have no idea why it was there. We might even counter sue them for extortion, harassment, wasting our productive time etc. for millions of Euros in damages to us.
Do note that we are not in the EU nor the United States.
Alistair Roy
Good day.
We just received a surprising letter of demand from Ryde / KodakOne from Germany asking for an unreasonable amount of money, 900 Euros, for an image on a website used by us. We have no idea how the image was up there except for the possibility that a sub contracted web designer or developer put it up quite some time ago.
KodakOne and Ryde emailed us a series of screenshots, as well as a letter of demand demanding that we pay them or "face the consequences".
We had googled around about Getty images etc and read that most infringers would only want to pay the fair market value. The amount demanded from KodakOne and Ryde is just really like extortion, no different from Getty Images and other image companies. This seems like a new company using old style tactics.
We are located outside not in the United States nor are we in the European Union. Upon receiving the letter, we took down the image.
Personally, they could have issued us a cease and desist letter instead of right up demanding hundreds of Euros as though they are the mafia and some sort of collection agency.
Can we just ignore them as we consider them to be outright copyright bullies, using scare tactics on even people who might have innocently and unknowingly infringe upon their "copyrights"?
Will they sue us outside of Europe and US or will they just buzz off if we completely ignore their unreasonable demands for hundreds of euros for a single image?
If they had asked nicely using a fair market value system, we might have replied to them.
We ignored the their email and we received a 2nd email after that from KodakOne and Ryde, threatening us with "legal action" if we do not pay up.
This is simply unacceptable.
We had also googled and came across "The Prenda Law" in the States, where the extortion scheme backfired very badly with a severe prison term handed out.
So we have a few choices
a) Totally ignore this crap
(We did not know the image was copyrighted (they had yet to show absolute proof) and even if it was copyrighted, we probably did it very unknowingly, and the demand of hundreds of euros is outrageous and appears to be a form of extortion)
b) Consult an attorney / lawyer (that costs money and the money should in theory be billed to them since they are the ones who started extorting big amounts of money)
3) Fire an email back to KodakOne and Ryde but we guess that will only prolong their harassment?
We are not in the EU and USA, so will these jerks still waste their bloody time on us if we just ignore all their ridiculous extortion letters of demand asking for hundreds of euros for a single image?
Seriously, the Prenda Law should be applied to them and these modern day extortionists should be sent to prison. They might have received a better response had they asked for fair market prices but considering the huge backlash from tens of thousands of angry recipients, do you think they will even initiate tens of thousands of lawsuits worldwide? Are they nuts?
Let me know your thoughts and recommendations as they have threatened to escalate to their legal department. We will NOT go down without fighting when we are being asked to pay hundreds of Euros for a single image which we have no idea why it was there. We might even counter sue them for extortion, harassment, wasting our productive time etc. for millions of Euros in damages to us.
Do note that we are not in the EU nor the United States.
Alistair Roy
