Copyright Shock: How a Forgotten Blog Image Turned into a Legal Nightmare with Eric Bjorgum and Daniel Kimbell

Andy Splichal:

Welcome to the Make Each Click Count podcast. This is your host, Andy Splichal. And today we're diving into a topic that many website owners might unexpectedly face, copyright claims. So, about six months ago, I received a letter from a company called Pick Rights claiming that one of my old blog posts from back in 2020 used one of their images without permission and they were demanding $470 in damages. Now, the post barely received any traffic, and quite frankly, I thought it was a scam. I mean, we've all gotten those renew your domain now for like 300 bucks when it'll cost you $35 to do it yourself. I thought this was a scam, but to be cautious, I went ahead and I did remove the image. I replaced it, but I didn't think much of it.

Andy Splichal:

Now, last week, I hadn't been down to my P.O. box for a couple months, and I went there and there were two more letters from Pick Rights, along with a large packet from a legal firm, Higbee and Associates. And now they're demanding $1,422 of damages and resulting from their clients and stating need to pay right now or they'll take me to court, where it'll result in not less than $2,500 and not more than $30,000 in damages. So I started doing some research and discovered this is a fairly common situation for bloggers and website owners. So today I've invited a couple of legal experts, attorneys Eric Bjorngum and Dan Kimball from kb-ip.com to join us. And we're going to discuss how to handle these kind of copyright claims and the right steps to take and what not to do when using online images. So welcome to the show, guys.

Eric Bjorgum:

Hi. Hi.

Daniel Kimbell :

Hi, Andy. Nice to see you again.

Eric Bjorgum:

Yeah, nice to meet you, Andy.

Andy Splichal:

Yeah, nice. Nice to see you, Dan. And nice to meet you, Eric. So let's, let's start by setting the stage. I guess, how common is it for small businesses or bloggers to receive a copyright claim like this. And have you come across this specific partnership, it seems between Pick Rights and Higbee and Associates?

Eric Bjorgum:

Okay, a couple of questions, a couple of things. Yeah, it's increasingly common, unfortunately. And it seems it's always people like you that I've heard from who are very surprised. It's usually an old posting or something that could even be considered a fair use if it's something to do with art or something like that. And they're always shocked that they get these. It actually the last few I have seen have all been involving this law firm that you mentioned and the company which I assume is they may have an interest in or maybe holds a license, they might go around asking people to aggregate their rights and that they'll enforce their rights for them. They'll probably, they're probably using even something as easy as Google Image search to find out where these things are. I think in the past people would use watermarked photographs like specific photographers.

Eric Bjorgum:

Like I've worked for a photographer that Dan, Dan and I both know in Highland Park, Edward Culver, who did a bunch of the famous punk rock photos from the early 80s in LA. And his stuff gets pirated all the time and it's legitimate for him to be upset and it's hard to track it down. And we always talked about watermarking or not watermarking, things like that. But these types of scenarios you're talking about seem to be law firms or group companies that are affiliated with law firms. And as Dan can say, it's similar to what happens in the patent world, what we call NPEs or non practicing entities, where it's like, you know, you hear the huge patent troll cases, right. And they're not what you would think. Just like here it's not some artist who's getting screwed out of his money. It's a company that's purchased these rights.

Eric Bjorgum:

Just like an NPE is a company that doesn't actually make the item, doesn't make the patented item, but they're buying the patents so they can enforce them. Right. And typically happens where you have areas of the law like copyright that have fee shifting. So if someone wins any nominal amount of money, they might have a claim that they're going to get their legal fees. And that's what's, that's what drives a lot of this.

Daniel Kimbell :

Yeah. Another point you should mention is copyright violations are, can be liquidated damages. So you don't have to prove your damages. You could just say, oh, one incident of cupping, it's worth 2500 and you know, it could go up. So it's, it puts a lot of ammunition on the part of the copyright owner or a person asserting it because they can say, We've got a $2,500 cudgel over your head, so we want you to negotiate for 400. And then what they do is they escalate and they figure, yeah, and that's.

Andy Splichal:

That'S what happened here. It started at 400, now they're at 14.

Daniel Kimbell :

That's very typical. And then it's a numbers game. So they're probably sending out these letters there. No one's really preparing them by hand with careful research. They're just going out probably massive numbers. And then a certain percentage of people will pay right away. So it's a, it can be a very highly profitable business for the people who do it. Eric can elaborate more.

Daniel Kimbell :

He's been involved with this a lot more than I have, but I've been on the receiving end with my clients of many of these. And we, we talk about that more later. But it's a very common issue.

Andy Splichal:

So now is, is this claim legitimate or is this a legal scare tactic? And how can somebody tell the difference?

Eric Bjorgum:

It can be very legitimate. Copyright's very esoteric area in a weird way. I mean, because of the statutory damages, I'm just looking at the current statute is I've, I haven't heard that it's 2500. It looks like it's still 750 to 30,000. And then if it's willful, it can range up to 150. But if you, the infringer shows that the infringer was not aware and had no reason to believe it can be reduced to 200. So you're kind of looking at this range from without willful infringement, 200 to 30,000. And so someone came out at 470.

Eric Bjorgum:

Then that's not even the low level of, of infringement. 750, which can be knocked down to 200. So they're kind of starting in this little sweet spot where they know that you're going to be rolling the dice almost anything you do. But so it is legitimate because copyright is intended to protect anything that's fixed in a tangible medium. So as soon as you take a photograph, you have a quote copyright on it.

Andy Splichal:

Right.

Eric Bjorgum:

But you can't enforce it in court until you register it. That costs whatever, 35, $40. So. And someone can't sue you until they have a registration. So a lot of these Guys will register them in a group work or maybe they're not even registered. So that would be the first thing to ask is hopefully they provide you with the registration number and the letter. But that does allow them to go into court. But courts don't look, you know, they don't look nicely at these kind of claims because they know what they are.

Eric Bjorgum:

But what's it going to cost you to fight that? You know what I mean? That's the problem. You're just looking at a nuisance value. So it is, it is legitimate in one respect, but it sort of perverts the purpose of the copyright law, which was to get these small artists some remedy. Right. Because otherwise they'd have to prove damages. It's really hard to prove damages if no one's ever used your photograph. So we have statutory damages, but by combining statutory damages with fees, it really shifts the weight to the copyright holder to hold you up for anything between, you know, two hundred and two thousand dollars. Right.

Eric Bjorgum:

It's just not worth you fighting it.

Andy Splichal:

Yeah. So now in the, in the letter that I got from the lawyer from the legal firm here, but it's encouraging me to give them a call to resolve the issue. And so I haven't done it. I haven't done that yet because I looked online and I saw some mixed advice. So some people were saying, you know, don't, don't call because they, they know they've contacted you correctly and then they'll never stop or. Yeah, call them and see what they'll negotiate down and just make it go away, I guess. What, what would you recommend somebody calling on the situation?

Eric Bjorgum:

Well, that's the hard part. Right. I mean, this is all legal advice at this point that I'm not supposed to be giving out without you being my client because I don't know your situation. Right. I've been on the plaintiff side before with a company that does solar panel ads. Right. You do click ads. So, you know that World solar ads.

Eric Bjorgum:

And you know, if someone really wants to fight you on one of these, you have to show ownership, you have to show a lot of things and like you have to trace that photograph back to the person who took it and make sure that there's an assignment at every point along the way or that it was worked for hire. So sometimes if you really push for all that information, that would be good to know as a defendant, you can really push for the information of. Now, who took this photo?

Daniel Kimbell :

Right.

Eric Bjorgum:

Yeah.

Andy Splichal:

Will they give you that? Because that was the other thing that I read Was, you know, you should call and ask, you know, to see their license on the image and first time they saw it on your website in the last time.

Eric Bjorgum:

Right. Those are, those are all legitimate questions because those are all defenses that you would have in the lawsuit, which copyright law is notoriously sort of picky. Right. It's in one hand, it's simple because you just take a picture, you have a copyright on another hand, I think because of the movie business and all these other things, like you have to really keep track of it, right. So you have to know who took the photo, was it. The question is, first question is who took it? Was it a work for hire or was there an assignment? If it's neither of those things, then they're probably dead in the water because they don't have any rights. And then you could ask for each step along the way. Right.

Eric Bjorgum:

Just like a title to a house. Like you, if you're going to buy a house, you're going to search the title and you should be able, if there's a registration to go to the Copyright Office, copyright.gov and find the registration number and then look for the assignments and find out who has the title to it. They may say they just have the right to sue, which is, which is a different question. But you could also ask for that proof and then those are the kinds of things that you could ask. And now you're going to make yourself a troubled case. Right. So it may be worth it to do those things to get the number to go down, you roll the dice. That eventually these types of people eventually say, well, we have to sue some people so that people don't think that we walk away for nothing.

Eric Bjorgum:

So, you know, are you going to become that person? That's, that's, that's where you roll the dice. But definitely I would ask those questions. And then as far as what people are asking about when the first time they saw in the second time, that's because the damages go back, I believe it's three years in copyright now. So if they saw it more than three years ago, they can't, you know, they can't get damages for that.

Andy Splichal:

Oh, because I, I was reading and it seems to be there's some mixed messages on there that, yeah, there's a three year statute of limitations, but you know, like the Internet, like everything there's false information. Right. And so people are saying that if it appeared more than three years ago originally, then you, they might not be.

Eric Bjorgum:

Able to see you. No. Okay. So yeah, that's the, that's the pro. The law's got so many distinctions. So it's a three year statute on damages. Right. That means they can only go back three years on damages.

Eric Bjorgum:

But there was a pretty famous case that came out just a few years ago by the Supreme Court called Petrella that had to deal with the, I think it was Raging Bull, the script. Someone sat on that script for a long time and then they filed a lawsuit many years later. And the court said, well, they can file the lawsuit, but they could only get damages for a certain number of years because sometimes you might create something and it might not be worth anything. And years can go by and all of a sudden it becomes a classic movie and there's a lot of money there. So you, you should be entitled to enforce your rights, but you shouldn't be able to go all the way back. That's kind of the compromise. So they're not barred from suing you, but they are barred on the far back, the damages.

Andy Splichal:

So I mean, for, for business owners out there who might have done, I mean, and I, you know, for our blog post, typically we're, we're using images where we're purchasing and so this one, I, I assumed it was looked, I, I could not find it in our subscription. So maybe, you know, somehow One of our VAs used it and I didn't know, but certainly used them.

Eric Bjorgum:

Certainly if you've purchased the image.

Andy Splichal:

No, and I, I couldn't, I couldn't find it. I assumed it was, but I couldn't find it. So I'm assuming, you know, somebody that worked for me just, just grabbed it offline and.

Eric Bjorgum:

Right.

Andy Splichal:

You know, I had no idea they didn't use my, my account to purchase images.

Daniel Kimbell :

And Andy, that's, that's a very good practice. You should not take images like. And you have to be careful. All these free image websites are usually not free. So just, it's kind of false advertising, I think. But you would have to make sure you have rights to them. It's an interesting thing now that's happening is people are using like image, AI image generation.

Eric Bjorgum:

Right.

Andy Splichal:

Yeah. That's really changed it. Right.

Daniel Kimbell :

Yeah. To create, you know, copyright free images, which, it's going to create a whole new set of issues because they, the AI is trained on existing material. So a lot of artists are saying, you know, we're suing the AI companies because you, you copied all our art to create your AI models. So.

Andy Splichal:

But will they be able to sue like somebody like, like a small business owner using that?

Daniel Kimbell :

I don't Think so. But, but again you're, you're doing the right thing by you know, licensing images and that way you can always point a finger and at least you're innocent because you, you were doing, you're doing it the proper way.

Eric Bjorgum:

One, one thing I would say about that though unfortunately is unfortunately you have to read the fine print. Because I remember a case now that where someone actually did purchase images, it was for a, it was for a home, for some kind of background for a product that they were filming or shooting or something and the company had basically put in a fine print. Like you can't use high resolution images, right. You, we're giving you this dvd but you can only use these low resolution ones. So then when someone would use the high resolution, oh, you exceed the license. Right. And so you got to be very careful. That's true.

Eric Bjorgum:

When you go to a free site. Exactly. And the line's going to usually be commercial. So they can say, oh yeah, this is free for schools and art projects. But if you're going to have click through advertising, you know, and that's where you got to be careful is don't. If it's too good of a deal to be true, it might be right. So take a quick look and try and figure it out. I hate to tell people to read the fine print, but yeah, in copyright and I'm getting, I get very theoretical, I try not to do that.

Eric Bjorgum:

But basically the way it works is because the rights are divisible. You know, it's like doing a movie. You have to get the song right, the recording right. There's just a lot of minefields in copyright law. So you got to be careful about that. So if you bought it. But one second would be if you bought it or even if you got it for free, the service that you signed up for, I would contact them immediately and say, hey, what, what's up? You know, because they should make some kind of warranty that what they're giving you, they have the rights to give you. Right.

Eric Bjorgum:

Certainly Getty Images or someone like that would be doing that. Some fly by night place. They should still. There's still an implied warranty that it's, it's useful or it's okay for what you got it for. So I would go to them first. I haven't heard of anyone getting approached on that kind of situation. That's, that's pretty shady.

Andy Splichal:

So now for listeners who might have, have images that they've just, just copied online. But even if they're their blog post from who knows, right. 15, 20 years ago, going back.

Eric Bjorgum:

Right.

Andy Splichal:

Could they be facing this kind of issue? Is there. No, there's no. I guess it doesn't matter when it was posted.

Eric Bjorgum:

Well, it does matter to some extent, but to prove that, again, I would just use that as ammo to get the number down. Right. Because the older it gets, the less likely the courts are to really enforce it. And one of the tricks they do is they'll say if it's an ownership issue, should be resolved within three years. Infringement issues, maybe you get damages, but they'll try and make everything an ownership issue so that, so that the court doesn't have to look at it.

Andy Splichal:

But now this is a. Yeah, go ahead. Well, I was just gonna say this is.

Eric Bjorgum:

I'm sorry.

Andy Splichal:

Yeah, I was just gonna say. So this is a French company too. Does that, does that matter? Because they have a US Based attorney, the French company.

Eric Bjorgum:

That what, that has the rights. Oh, well, I mean, I would see if they have a registration in the.

Andy Splichal:

U.S. that would be Agent Agents. France Press is the, the name.

Eric Bjorgum:

If they don't have a registration in the U.S. i mean, what are they going to do? Sue you in France and like get damages against you? I mean, I'm not, I'm not sure about. These are all things that make the argument weaker for the plaintiff. Right. I'm not saying they're slam dunks and by the time you talk to someone like me for two hours, you might as well just pay them, you know, but you don't want to be on their list of hit people. And these are questions that you should be asking about the ownership, about the registration. And another one would be some people, like, if you're using it for art, like, like one of these guys that I know got this, was using it for just a kind of a website that talked about, hey, these are the exhibits that are in LA this week, right? Go check it out. Right.

Eric Bjorgum:

And he used a photo that happened to be a copyrighted photo that someone sold to one of these guys. And he, he had an argument that it was like a fair use, right? That, that it was really just reporting on an exhibit. And that's not always a slam dunk. But the less commercial the use is, the better. And that probably doesn't help people in your field. So there are these claims and there's also claims like derivative works, like, hey, I just took a little bit of it and put it in a collage, or I created something else with it. Like there's all these things you can argue, but none of them are necessarily slam dunks.

Andy Splichal:

Now I thought, you know, once I would take it down, that would, that would be it. Because you know, you hear especially in election season, I mean, some news been heard like where Trump is playing a song, right? Donald Trump's playing a song in his campaign rally and the artist tells them to stop and if you do it again, we'll sue.

Eric Bjorgum:

Right?

Andy Splichal:

But that's not the case with this. They're not saying taking it down's good. They want some sort of damages. And I guess how do they consider because again, this is for a blog post that received just limited, limited traffic. How are they even arguing what damages were incurred?

Eric Bjorgum:

Well, that's why you have statutory damages, right? That's what the point of those are, is that in a non statutory damages case, the copyright damages are lost, your lost profits or their profits that they gained. Those are hard to quantify. And so they have statutory damages which creates this little amount of money that's supposed to de. Incentivize people from stealing and saying, well, I can steal it because they're never going to be able to prove damages. Well, statutory damages and fees, they can, they can get something out of it so they don't have to prove the damages. That's what Dan said. Liquidated damages or statutory damages, those are the same thing. Those are like predetermined damages that the legislature says, you know, this, this kind of thing we want to discourage.

Eric Bjorgum:

So we're going to give you a little penalty for that. So it is hard to quantify it. I guarantee you if it was, you know, something that was sold, like a diamond ring or something that sold a lot, they would go for actual damages. But the statutory damages on something like this is much more common. And so, yeah, I mean these are all just kind of like a decision tree, right. Of you're going to argue ownership, you're going to argue how long it's been, you're going to argue that it was fair use or derivative work. These different things you can argue to try and the numbers down. But you said sue, right? The, the Donald Trump thing, that's another common thing you said.

Eric Bjorgum:

Well, they said take the song down or we're going to sue you. Well, they probably still got money from it. They probably just gave them like a release. They didn't file a lawsuit, but they still got money from it. You just don't know about that because it's not in the press, because that's, that's confidential, right? So when you settle one of these, you'd want it to be confidential, but they don't have to sue you. They can still get money out of you. And taking it down obviously gets you around willfulness because now you're not willful. So that's good.

Eric Bjorgum:

But they still have the right under the copyright law because you displayed it in the last three years to potentially sue you. So when you say they sent you a big package, what was in that package?

Andy Splichal:

Oh, I mean, it's psyched. Right here. It's, it's a letter just explaining the, what the other letter said. And it, it shows, you know, it, it shows a picture of the image on my site and, and there.

Eric Bjorgum:

But it's not like a, it's not like a draft. It's not like a draft complaint, right, or lawsuit.

Andy Splichal:

No, it's just. Yeah, a letter. They, they have a nice form here to make it easy for me to.

Eric Bjorgum:

Right, right.

Andy Splichal:

So that kind of thing.

Daniel Kimbell :

Do they include a copy of the copyright registration?

Andy Splichal:

You know, I don't see a copy of. I have the image, but I don't see the copyright infringing file location infringe. But yeah, I. Exhibit A.

Eric Bjorgum:

Does it list the registration number?

Andy Splichal:

I do not see it. I'll have to look through it again.

Eric Bjorgum:

So in that instance, they can't sue you then if there's no registration. So that's something to know.

Andy Splichal:

Okay, that is good.

Eric Bjorgum:

There's no federal jurisdiction without a registration.

Andy Splichal:

Okay, so I'll look through it for a registration number.

Daniel Kimbell :

Maybe a good thing to do would just to ask them for a copy of the registration.

Eric Bjorgum:

Right.

Daniel Kimbell :

And then if they can't produce it, they really cannot take it further.

Andy Splichal:

So you would suggest, you would suggest calling them then, not just ignoring it.

Daniel Kimbell :

Andy, there's another thing. In the copyright law, you can only sue for damages. Well, I'm not sure how it works with statutory damages. But for. If there's actual damages, you can only go back three months before when they obtained the registration. So they couldn't sue for actual damages. I don't know what, what is the rule, Eric, if they don't have a registration?

Eric Bjorgum:

Well, they, well, no, they have to, they have to file for the registration within 3 months of publication. Right. So that, that's probably the issue if they didn't do that.

Andy Splichal:

So somebody would want to know what the publication date and the registration.

Eric Bjorgum:

Yeah, yeah. The first publication of the, of the work. Right. They want you to file. I mean, I have to double check that some of these things change, but this world that you're in is fraught with changes. So Quickly.

Andy Splichal:

Well, you know, it's interesting. So when I read online on this, this company apparently has an AI bot that is spam, you know, because you had mentioned using AI images now. Well, they're using AI to find people who maybe have images that they purchased.

Daniel Kimbell :

They probably use some kind of software to generate the letters. They're having people, you know, draft time, writing these letters, this volume. Business, Andy. Yeah, no, for business.

Andy Splichal:

Yeah. And that's what they said, that they, this company and this legal firm have kind of made a partnership. And so they said they'll never stop because they're just cranking out the letters right now. Whether they'll. They'll ever sue, I guess, is. Is a different. A different thing, I guess. What.

Andy Splichal:

What do you think? And I know this is hypothetical and you can't give legal advice, but what would be the worst case scenario if I just ignore it? I mean, are they just going to send me letters forever? Or will they actually think, could they take me to court and I'd own $50,000?

Eric Bjorgum:

No, no, they'll. They'll. They have to eventually sue some people. And I've seen. This is Higbee, I think. Right. I think I've seen them filing some cases here and there. I could look online.

Eric Bjorgum:

You can look up the law firms and see if they filed cases, and they're going to have to file some cases. Otherwise, it's just an extortion racket. Right. And the courts don't really like that. But what would it cost? It would cost. I mean, if I had to file. If I had to file. Yeah, yeah.

Eric Bjorgum:

If I had to file a case, I'm going to want a couple grand. Right. Write the complaint. The filing fee is $400, and you're going to get your attorney's fees. But the briefing on that's going to cost money. So, you know, the more you resist, the more the judge is going to give them attorney's fees. Like, I'm trying to think of an example. Like, I've gotten statutory damages and fees on a default judgment where a big company just didn't respond.

Eric Bjorgum:

It was a company that made wall hangings and used my clients art. I think we got 25,000. Right. Wow.

Andy Splichal:

Okay.

Eric Bjorgum:

But we would have had to go to Chicago to enforce that. Right. We would have had to hire. Hire a debt collector, pay him a bunch of money. He'd have to take a debtor's exam, get the judgment domesticated there. Right. And so I can't remember what. You end up taking some fraction of that Right.

Eric Bjorgum:

And the courts kind of know that, like, they know if they award these statutory damages that you're not really going to collect, that it's just a negotiation. So, you know, it's possible. And that's the other thing you should think about when you think about this is I don't know where that law firm is located. Right. But they're generally going to have to sue you in your venue. So if they're in LA and you're in L. A, you're kind of host. Right? If you're.

Andy Splichal:

Yeah, I think, I think they're in Orange county and I'm in la, so.

Eric Bjorgum:

Yeah. So if they're, if you're in Maine, Right. I mean, they can still sue you there, but. Or they can see you here and just hope to get a default that they can make stick somehow, but might not. But if you're in a far flung place, that's another thing to consider. If you're in Guam, right. To consider negotiating them down. But they do have to file a case eventually.

Eric Bjorgum:

I mean, I used to work a long, long time ago, like way long ago, when the software industry first started enforcing for really expensive programs. And we had, they had a program, we had a program where it was like, first letter was cease and desist. Second letter was like a strong cease and desist. You know, third letter was like, we're really going to sue you. Fourth letter was, here's the draft complaint. You know, we haven't filed it yet. You know what I mean? And then they very rarely would file. Right.

Eric Bjorgum:

Eventually they have to file because it looks like extortion and. But they don't want to do it because if they lose, it's, it's very negative press. Right. Because lawsuits are public knowledge, settlements are confidential. So if they lose, you know, you always got to be careful. Now people know that you lost. So let me ask. Yeah, go ahead.

Eric Bjorgum:

I, I just can't. I mean, the questions you're asking me is like, what's the bottom line stuff. And I hate to say it, but everything in the law is just bouncing, right? It's just bouncing the bottom line and trying to.

Andy Splichal:

So let me ask you one more. So what's the bottom line here? If somebody is, gets this letter and when should they, when should they think about hiring their own legal counsel like you guys? Yeah, when should they make the call to them to negotiate? I guess when, you know, when do they need more help or when do they just ignore it?

Eric Bjorgum:

Well, what I would do, I wouldn't just ignore it, but I would take a look at the first few things we talked about, which is, does it look like, what are they alleging about how they own it? Are they a licensee, you know, or something? Or do they actually own it and then do they have a registration? Right. And does it look like there could be some problems in the title? Right. Like kind of arm yourself with those facts then.

Andy Splichal:

And if you told them, they're going to give you that information.

Eric Bjorgum:

I would specifically wait after that, like the next letter. Right. That's just me talking now. Would you.

Andy Splichal:

Would you recommend sending a letter back to them?

Eric Bjorgum:

I would just wait and see what happens. They're going to write to you again for sure, right? Yeah. And then when they write to you again, then you start asking questions, see what they say. I don't know how their statistics will work. Probably your statistics.

Daniel Kimbell :

Eric, I want to ask you about these very common, like these mass copyright omnibus registrations that have like, you know, 3,000 images and it's one registration. How does that work in terms of negotiating or how liable somebody might be for a copyright violation?

Eric Bjorgum:

No, it doesn't. I don't. That doesn't matter. That's just a matter of convenience for filing them. It just gives you another avenue of attack because sometimes those aren't legitimate. If they weren't published in the same year or they're unpublished like it. The rules on that, that always changed too. But it's still a registration.

Eric Bjorgum:

But yeah, those. I mean, you just have to make sure that the ownership's correct. Right. I mean, yeah, if someone peeled off one. One registration from that, what. What was the effect of it? But to get back to the practical thing, I would wait till the second letter at least and probably contact them and make it look like you're an intelligent consumer. Right. And don't let them bully you.

Eric Bjorgum:

Right. Because once you, once they. They're going to say, oh, you're totally hosed. Right. You're going to be paying statutory damages, you're going to be paying fees. And, you know, don't yell at them and say, okay, you know, what's the basis for that? What's the. Do you have a registration? You know, I live in Maine. You know, like things that are going to make them put you in the trouble list, not the immediately compliant list.

Eric Bjorgum:

Right.

Andy Splichal:

Yeah. And so does it make sense to get a legal represent yourself or is that going to cost you more than what you probably could settle for?

Eric Bjorgum:

Yeah, I mean, if it keeps going, you think you're going to have to. But I can't in good conscience say, oh, yeah, you should give me a thousand dollars to talk to you. Right. For two hours. That's cutting my own throat, I guess. But this is all a game of numbers. So you want to keep the numbers on your side. So I think once it gets beyond that, or if you have any special circumstances, like you made a lot of money on that ad.

Eric Bjorgum:

Right.

Andy Splichal:

Or.

Eric Bjorgum:

And they can trace that through Google and, you know, all these, all these analytics and stuff, if they're going to know you're bullshitting them, right. Oh, I didn't make anything on it. Oh, really? Well, we see you have this many hits, you know.

Andy Splichal:

Yeah.

Eric Bjorgum:

Then. Then you're going to be getting into trouble. And be careful what you put in writing. If you put something in writing, that's an admission under evidence. So you start putting things in writing, they better be true because if they're not true, they'll. They'll be, you know, the speak. You know, what is it? The Miranda warnings. Anything you say, Ken, will be used against you.

Eric Bjorgum:

Applies in civil as well. Right. Everything you say is an admission. That's the easiest evidence in the world to get in. So you got to be very careful of what you put in writing.

Andy Splichal:

Well, this has been really. I mean, it's been great as far as helpfulness, but so it's. A listener out there, you know, has some legal questions they do need to ask you guys. I'd like to ask you guys, I mean, you've been super forthcoming and super helpful, but what would be the best way to contact you all?

Eric Bjorgum:

Just through our website. I mean, Dan, I believe our web. Our emails are on there, right, Dan?

Daniel Kimbell :

Yeah. Our website is kb-ip.com and you can find Eric there as well as me. But Eric's more of the copyright guru at our firm, so he'd be the right person to contact.

Eric Bjorgum:

But Dan's the trademark guru and sometimes these are trademark issues too. So those are a lot more complicated, but.

Daniel Kimbell :

Oh, I beg to differ. Copyright law looks very simple, but it's. So I don't really practice that much. It's a very complicated, very complicated law.

Eric Bjorgum:

But the. Yeah, but the people I know of, and I won't name names who do these mass lawsuits like this on copyright. They try and get into trademark and they, they lose their ass because of the legal. The fuzziness of the law. Right.

Daniel Kimbell :

It's a totally different area of law than. They get confused. Copyright law and trademark law is totally different. They're both IP law, but completely different.

Eric Bjorgum:

Right. Yeah, so. So, yeah, that's how you would contact us. And the phone number's on there. I. I think when we first started the firm, we didn't have the emails because we were worried about spam, but I think we have them now, but we certainly have the phone number, so.

Andy Splichal:

Well, this has been, you know, immensely useful and I'm sure listeners.

Eric Bjorgum:

I hope so.

Andy Splichal:

I don't know, could be going through the same thing. Yeah, you know, you can use it or use it as well, I guess. Is there anything else you'd like to add before we wrap it up today?

Daniel Kimbell :

Yeah, I just, you know, I could tell you, in my experience, most of the time I am polite and I drag it out and we end up not paying anything. That's been kind of my experience. They have acquired attorneys fees, but they haven't had to pay. And some of these were like, you violate our software and they were asking for a lot of money and we kept asking for information and dragged it on and on and they just kind of, we just, they just disappeared after a while. It's happened in several cases, but, you know, that's not a guarantee would happen in any particular situation. But sometimes being polite but dragging it out is a good way to handle them.

Eric Bjorgum:

Yeah. I hope that we've armed you with at least the right questions to ask, you know.

Andy Splichal:

I think so. I think so.

Eric Bjorgum:

So, yeah, and be careful up front. You know, just get licensed images and then go back to the best.

Andy Splichal:

Yeah, for sure.

Eric Bjorgum:

Go back to the license or and say, hey, I got contacted. It's your problem now, you know. Yeah.

Andy Splichal:

Cool. Well, thank you guys for joining us today.

Daniel Kimbell :

Thanks again. Soon, Andy for listeners.

Andy Splichal:

Remember, if you like this episode, please go to Apple Podcasts and leave us a honest review. And if you're looking for more information regarding connecting with our guest today, you'll find the links in the show notes below. In addition, if you're looking for more information on growing your business, check out our Podcast Resource center available at podcast.make each click count.com we then compile all of our different past guests by show topic in case you would like more information on any of the subjects in previous episodes. Well, that's it for today. Remember to stay safe, keep healthy and happy marketing. Talk to you in the next episode.