Photographer Threatened with Lawsuit After Protecting His Copyright

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This is getting weirder by the day.

Read this first:

After discovering that multiple websites had used one of his photos without permission, photographer Jay Lee began sending out DMCA takedown notifications to web hosts in an attempt to protect his copyright. One of the websites was owned by a woman named Candice Schwager, who had 14 of her sites temporarily taken offline as a result of the takedown request. Turns out Schwager is involved in both helping represent special needs children and helping a man named Louis Guthrie get elected as County Sheriff. This is where the story gets weird.

Continued: Photographer Threatened with Lawsuit After Protecting His Copyright

Today Jonathan Bailey of Plagiarism Today posted this:

Recently, a photographer named Jay Lee discovered that a picture he took of Houston was being used all over the Web without his permission or attribution. Lee then did what many other photographers do and began filing takedown notices against that image.

However, what started as a case of simple copyright infringement took a strange turn when one of the sites involved happened to be run by an attorney named Candice Schwager. Schwager, who had all 14 of her domains shut down due to the notice, at least initially believed that the takedown was an attack by political opponents and lashed out at Lee both via email and her blog.

GoDaddy: DMCA Overreactor Extraordinaire

Jonathan has some advice for those who file DMCA with GoDaddy and those who choose to host with GoDaddy.

[Attorney Jaffe]

I am not so sure that GoDaddy's DMCA policy is lawful. While I usually tell my clients not to waste their money with law suits, if a (rich) client wanted to go after GoDaddy with facts like these, I would tell them they had a good chance to prevail.

[Bob Barr]

Originally Posted by Attorney Jaffe

I am not so sure that GoDaddy's DMCA policy is lawful. While I usually tell my clients not to waste their money with law suits, if a (rich) client wanted to go after GoDaddy with facts like these, I would tell them they had a good chance to prevail.

I'd be interested on your thoughts regardong the copyright infringer suing the copyright holder. Do you think that suit could really go anywhere?

[Attorney Jaffe]

Originally Posted by Bob Barr

I'd be interested on your thoughts regardong the copyright infringer suing the copyright holder. Do you think that suit could really go anywhere?

The infringer would be liable to the copyright holder. However, the copyright holder would need to show damages - which is the sticking point in any law suit. However, if the copyright holder has a registered copyright there are statutory damages that would apply.

As for the infringer suing someone, their suit would be against GoDaddy for diabling all their sites and not just the one being complained about. Again proving damages becomes a big issue.

As I said in my earlier post, I do not think GoDaddy is handling their DMCA complaints correctly. The statute is clear on how a complaint is to be handled, and I think GoDaddy went way to far in this example, to the detriment of the infringer, and that the infringer would have a case against GoDaddy.

As I said above, it would take a rich client to persue GoDaddy - a case like this against GoDaddy would probably cost in the neighborhood of $100,000.