I Got A Cease And Desist Letter
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Blogging, Cartoons, LawWhat for? Well, take a look…
Date: April 3, 2007donklephant.com
(my email removed so spammers won’t get at it)
Re: Copyright Infringement Claim
Dear Justin:
We represent RJ Matson, the copyright owner of the editorial cartoon [or cartoons] attached hereto.
It has come to our attention that you have reproduced a copy of my client’s cartoon on your personal blog on http://donklephant.com/2007/03/09/one-advantage-to-the-fema-trailer-sale and http://donklephant.com/2007/03/08/you-mean-lewis-libby identified below. My client has no record of licensing use of this copyrighted cartoon to you.
As a result, such use would appear to constitute willful copyright infringement by you, your company and each individual who knowingly participated in such infringing activities.
I suggest that you immediately contact me at our office to discuss such a resolution, including the grant of a possible retroactive license agreement. You may reach me at 800-758-1666.
Unless this matter is immediately resolved, we will be forced to notify your internet service provider of such infringing activities and demand that your blog be taken down. We also reserve the right to institute copyright infringement litigation in the United States District Court as necessary.
Sincerely,
Brian Davis
Sales Manager
brian@cagle.com
Fun, no?
They could have informed me politely of the infringement and offered a subscription, but instead they threaten to contact my service provider and sue me if I don’t take TWO CARTOONS DOWN.
Now, Donklephant isn’t that big. We get about a thousand readers a day, most of which finds us through Google. So I looked at how many unique hits those posts got. Hardly 50 between them.
I suppose I could fight this and try to convince a judge it’s fair use, but I’m not going to.
I’ll just take the cartoons down…sooner or later…
This entry was posted on Friday, April 6th, 2007 and is filed under Blogging, Cartoons, Law. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
April 6th, 2007 at 3:38 pm
I don’t know about you Justin, but when you posted those cartoons, I, at least, got an educational value from them, which would put them firmly in the area of fair use. If you want me to deal with a bully, e-mail me. I won’t even charge your libby-dibby ass.
April 6th, 2007 at 4:31 pm
I’ll host ya…
April 6th, 2007 at 4:39 pm
[...] Link to Donklephant » Blog Archive » I Got A Cease And Desist Letter [...]
April 6th, 2007 at 5:10 pm
Hmmm, that’s tempting DP.
I certainly think this could be argued, but I’m wondering if it’s worth the time.
Thoughts?
April 6th, 2007 at 6:03 pm
Personally? I just removed all the cartoons from my site… It probably could be argued successfully… but I wouldn’t have the time or the energy to do something like that.
April 6th, 2007 at 8:33 pm
This guy brian@cagle.com is a sales manager, not a lawyer…he may not even have anything to do with the entity which holds copyright to the cartoons. Don’t fall for scams, and if the guy is for real, don’t worry about retroactive license. If you cease when notified, most courts won’t make you pay…most lawyers wouldn’t take it to court if you complied with a CnD letter…plus…PLUSSS…they have to serve you papers to sue you…which means they need your address…he wants to scare you into agreeing to pay him money.
April 6th, 2007 at 8:43 pm
No, it is not worth it. And in all serious, I doubt a Fair Use defense is very strong here. However, it does seem like it wouldn’t be cost-prohibitive for them to go after you. Better safe than sorry when nothing is involved.
April 6th, 2007 at 8:51 pm
What happens to people who get too rigid about their copyrights.
April 6th, 2007 at 9:04 pm
I just checked their price list for cartoon licenses…it’s$10, since your website is personal. Their lawyer wouldn’t even talk to them on the phone for a $20 license, much less file papers in court, which costs up to $200. I say, if he actually CONTACTS you (by mail or phone), offer to link to his page…if he says no, advise him that you’ll no longer be providing him free marketing…but leave up what’s already up. By the way, he’s concerned about HIS money, not the cartoonists’.
(I have to give you advice offline, so I will email you.)
Here’s a link to their pricing:
http://politicalcartoons.com/cartoon/34bafbce-4156-4483-98e9-b64237d38b17.html
April 6th, 2007 at 9:45 pm
What a load of crap. Don’t worry about it at all man. No body’s going to really take anyone to court over this.
April 6th, 2007 at 11:00 pm
[...] Find out why. [...]
April 6th, 2007 at 11:07 pm
Joe. Email me again. I didn’t get it yet.
My email addy is justinpgardner at yahoo dot com
April 7th, 2007 at 12:16 am
Justin. You eliminated your email address from the letter to better avoid spammers. Then you post it later in your blog. WTF?
Your blog seems to indicate you borrowed your cartoons from this outfit. Now ask yourself, “Self, is it really ethical for me to do this.” Just create another image., or talk with them about the offer of retroactive permission to use them. Neither of you can afford any kind of a court fight. when it relly comes down to is, “How important is it?”
April 7th, 2007 at 12:31 am
Thanks for this warning….
I will try to make sure I avoid using ANYTHING listed on the Cagle site.
Anyone know of any Non-Cagle cartoon sites?
April 8th, 2007 at 6:18 pm
Justin. You eliminated your email address from the letter to better avoid spammers. Then you post it later in your blog. WTF?
Ah, but he put it in a format that is unusable to spammers. Spammers looking for e-mail addresses don’t troll Web sites themselves looking for e-mail addresses; they use bots to do the searching for them. But the bots are looking for text in the format of an e-mail address (username@domain.ext). The “@” and “.” characters are the key.
Another alternative might be to create a GIF or PNG graphic file showing your e-mail address, upload it to an image-hosting service and call it as needed using HTML. Blogs may or may not support posting images in their comments sections, however, and since I’ve not had occasion to try it here, I have no idea whether Donklephant does or not.
April 9th, 2007 at 12:20 am
bob, what Joshua said.
The GIF or PNG idea is a good one. I’ve seen that done elsewhere, but I have yet to get around to it. Thanks for the remind.
April 10th, 2007 at 8:37 pm
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