
2600 Accused of Using Unauthorized Ink Splotches (2015) - handedness
https://2600.com/print/27097
======
rinon
Followup apology from accuser:
[https://www.2600.com/node/27106](https://www.2600.com/node/27106)

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alex_young
I was expecting this to be about Rorschach slides for some reason. Somehow
this is even sillier.

Maybe there should be some kind of way to sue for damages for claiming damages
from work you don't own. What a waste of time.

~~~
DenisM
But it is about Rorschach slides.

\- What do you see when you look at this picture?

\- I see a copyright infringement.

\- How do you feel about it?

\- Rather litigious...

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bomb199
Should be illegal.

I'm sure countless people pay these kinds of fines, just assuming that the
company threatening to sue them is legitimate.

What's to stop me from just making a cool company name and sending cease and
desist letters asking for fines for all kinds of "IP"?

~~~
ghusbands
The company issuing the threat had identified what they thought was a copied
bit of artwork. This isn't a company just randomly attacking anyone - they
honestly thought (via automated system) that one of their images had been
partially copied.

~~~
gruez
>they honestly thought (via automated system)

that sounds like passing the blame to someone else ("automated system")

~~~
ghusbands
I was responding to a claim that it was entirely spurious. It did show signs
of being a copy of a portion of the image. It turned out that that portion was
a copy of another image, which they (or their system) didn't realise. But none
of this is (as the top post in this thread claims) just invented. Had 2600
copied that portion of that image, court action against them may well have
succeeded.

All of this could easily have happened without an automated system involved.

~~~
bomb199
If it wasn't an automated system, they would have the cost of someone going
through everything.

Do you really doubt that this is constantly happening and people are paying?
Just look at the people who get DMCA'd for content they made themselves. Same
system, just instead of paying a fee they lose their youtube/Twitch.

~~~
ghusbands
I agree with you that people are unfairly impacted by such practices; the
whole thing even discourages some people from producing things.

Again, I was arguing against the claim it was without merit. A large team of
people could have made the same mistake.

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paulgb
I had a run-in a few years back where a company claimed rights on a screenshot
of work I did and tried to shake down bloggers who reproduced the original
image saying that it was a derivative work of the screenshot. It turned out to
be a completely innocent mistake, but with no disincentive to making such a
mistake it will no doubt keep happening.

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russdill
I got a copyright ding on YouTube for children singing come all ye faithful. I
challenged it and they never responded, but the claim remained on the video
for 30 days.

It's especially frustrating because the companies involved in claims and even
the content is rarely identifiable and of course has no consequence.

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ghusbands
Their claims that such copying would have been fair use are spurious at best.
If they had copied that portion of the other image directly, it would have
been copyright infringement. The fair use provisions are for specific
circumstances, not just randomly copying. But they didn't copy it and had
instead used a freely licensed common source, so they're in the clear, anyway.

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trav4225
This is nothing more than taking IP law to its logical conclusion... ;)

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pavel_lishin
When was this published? The letter from Trunk Archive is dated August 2015.

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gumby
I believe this is from 2015

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detaro
That's why there is a (2015) after the title.

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gumby
Seems there wasn't when I made the comment.

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quadrature
this has got to be automated right ?

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foodstances
(2015)

~~~
sctb
Thanks! Updated.

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nsxwolf
They literally took a portion of someone's image and duplicated it wholesale.
What's so ridiculous about the original copyright infringement claim?

~~~
piracykills
The original artist had licensed it freely, both 2600 and the Trunk author had
used that freely licensed work.

~~~
nsxwolf
2600 didn't mention that in their original post. Did they know that at the
time they chose to use the image?

The argument they originally used seemed to be that the original work isn't
actually worthy of copyright protection because it's just ink splotches.

~~~
detaro
From the article:

> _But it gets even better. You see, not only are they trying to get us to pay
> them for using a few ink splotches, but as it turns out, the ink splotches
> don 't belong to them in the first place! Our cover artist happened to keep
> meticulous records (probably not something they anticipated) and traced the
> source of the ink splotches to a Finnish artist at this page. [3]

And as you can see below, the Loadus image (which is at least five years old)
is a background to both our Spring 2012 cover and "Harry Potter in a Vest" or
whatever Trunk Archive is calling their image (which also may not even be
theirs)._

~~~
nsxwolf
Here they are still expressing their willingness to infringe copyrights.
They're still unaware of the license of the work at this point. They're only
lamenting that the wrong party has lodged a complaint.

~~~
misnome
> They're still unaware of the license of the work at this point

No, they actually link to the original work, which if you follow, it's licence
is pretty clear. Not reading the article the first time is fine (and common),
but repeatedly insisting that people who have are in the wrong is kind of
inexcusable.

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GrumpyNl
You used the image without permit, you dint ask. I would do the same and go
after you. Good image recognition software they have. Are they still able to
read the watermark within the pic?

~~~
detaro
They link to the _freely licensed_ source splatter image they used in the
article. Someone else used the same _freely licensed_ splatter in their photo,
and they then got a claim because of that.

