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| MrSkin.com, S K Intertainment, Jim McBride Mr. Skin, Ancensored.com, mrskin.com, mrskincams.com Mr. Skin, MrSkin.com, COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT, FRAUD, u |
| 14th of Nov, 2011 by User575296 |
| This company owns the porn site mrskin.com and several other sites, This company is not a what it is claiming to be on BBB. This site has committed copyright infringement by using our photos and stills from movies that were all in. mrskin.com is misrepresenting our photos on their porn site. WE ARE NOT A PORN ACTRESS! I have sent many emails asking mrskin.com and their other sites to please remove my photos from their sites, they have said over and over that they will remove my photos but they never do so. This has been going on for a few years. At one time they said that my photos are not on their site only to find out that my photos were on their site and false information about me and many other actress. NOTHING IS BEING DONE BECAUSE IT IS ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE TO CONTACT THEM! We have never signed a release form and the property they are using is copy written. One of the film companies sent a letter from their attorney to remove their movie stills and photos and all of their property and mrskin.com do not have the rights to use their images. THIS WAS THEIR RESPONSE TO US... Our firm represents SK Intertainment, Inc. in matters pertaining to the website mrskin.com. This email is in response to your email dated November 12, 2011. Please note that the Mr. Skin website is a compilation of reviews, references and other critical commentary on actresses and the films and television shows in which they have appeared, just like any televised review program. The website is also a resource for viewers who want to purchase movies in which the more than 18,000 actresses it features have appeared. Accordingly, it falls squarely under fair use provisions of the law and has successfully operated under this premise since its launch in 1999. In order to maintain comprehensive coverage of all media in which actresses willingly appear, it is our client's policy not to honor requests for removal of titles or supporting materials relating thereto from the website. As your letter lacks any substantive claims, we regret to inform you that our client does not plan to remove your titles’ data or supporting materials from the Mr. Skin website. Nothing contained herein or omitted herefrom should be construed as an admission or a waiver of any of our client’s defenses, claims, rights or remedies in this matter. Accordingly, all such defenses, claims, rights and remedies are hereby expressly reserved. Please direct any further correspondence regarding this matter to my attention. _________________________________ Virginie L. Parant ATL Los Angeles | 818.293.1800 | 3500 W. Olive Avenue, Suite 300 | Burbank, CA 91505 ATL San Francisco | 415.735.0037 | 650 Fifth Street, Suite 402 | San Francisco, CA 94107 eFax 818.450.0414 | [email protected] | www.artechlaw.com _________________________________ THIS IS COMPLETELY WRONG NO MATTER WHAT THEIR LAWYER TELL YOU! There have been many ladies that have complained, none can find the contact information to their company because it is not on their site. I had to do research to find the companies name. Their use of my photos in the manor in which they are using the photos have cost me to lose a lot of work that is estimated in thousands of dollars. All I ask is that they remove my photos. I never knew they were there until people who want to hire me tell me what they have found. They are using my images without my knowledge or permission. They are making millions of dollars off of women and not any release forms or contacts signed. HOW CAN THEY CONTINUE TO DO THIS! We want our photos removed. Wewillnot stand for this. ALL LADIES CONTACT US ASAP, ALSO FILE YOUR REPORT AS I DID WITH THE FBI, You can also file online at https://complaint.ic3.gov LADIES IF YOUR PHOTS ARE ON THIS PORN SITE WITHOUT YOUR KNOWLEDGE, CONTACT YOUR FILM COMPANY AND HAVE THEIR ATTORNEYS GET IN CONTACT WITH MRSKIN.COM. None of us ever signed a release form or contract for mrskin.cm to use our images or film stills. They are profiting off of us and using our images. THIS IS NOT LEGAL! What is the point of copyrights and contracts if anyone can do this criminal act! The legal penalties for copyright infringement are: Infringer pays the actual dollar amount of damages and profits. The law provides a range from $200 to $150,000 for each work infringed. Infringer pays for all attorney’s fees and court costs. The Court can issue an injunction to stop the infringing acts. The Court can impound the illegal works. The infringer can go to jail. From a article on the Internet Mr. Skin had revenue of $5.3 million last year, primarily though $29.95-a-month subscriptions. With more than 175,000 revealing pictures and video clips of about 15,000 actresses (yes, only actresses), the site drew 2.9 million unique visitors in June, according to comScore, the Web traffic tracker. "We don't care about cinematography or great acting or anything like that," Jim McBride, who favors the title chief sexecutive officer, said on the phone from his company's Chicago offices. "We're concerned about the nudity - who's naked, and what they show." FROM MR. SKIN Nov 14, 2011 11:14 AM Customer Service Wrote The status of this ticket has been changed to Closed Ticket. We are not able to locate any information at all about you anywhere on our site, which is MrSkin.com. If you are able to locate any information pertaining to you on our site, MrSkin.com, you will need to forward the specific link to us as we are unable to locate it. You may forward the link to [email protected]. Regards, The Skin Team Which photos specifically? Can you please send links? MrSkinCams Support Sep 9, 2010 10:46 PM Customer Service Wrote Thank you for contacting us. We will forward your inquiry to the appropriate department for response. Regards, The Skin Team We are more than happy to remove the copyrighted images. > > Please specify which images you are referring to and attach screen shots > or links to them. > > Thank you, > > MrSkinCams Support Sent: Sunday, November 13, 2011 1:20 AM Subject: [Support #1686255] copyrighted images We only have live models on our site. We have not posted any images or footage from any of your movies. We believe you have contacted our site in error. MrSkinCams Support Host: mrskin.com Host IP: 204.93.155.69 IP country: United States IP Address state: Illinois IP Address city: Chicago IP postcode: 60647 IP latitude: 41.9206 IP longitude: -87.7017 ISP: Server Central Network Organization: SK Intertainment Websites Related To Mrskin.com nitrovideo.com Nitro Video ultimate-celebs.com Ultimate Celebs mrskincash.com Model Celebs celebvideopost.com ::: Celeb Video Post ::: The Best Things In Life Are Free! celebritymoviearchive.com Celebrity Movie Archive REPORT Copyright Infringement http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-infringement.html http://www.copynot.com/ http://asne.org/report_copyright_infringement.aspx http://www.plagiarismtoday.com/stopping-internet-plagiarism/4-contacting-the-host/ http://www.ehealthinsurance.com/ehealthinsurance/COPYRIGHT_INFRINGEMENT.html http://www.occ.gov/topics/consumer-protection/fraud-resources/index-fraud-resources.html |
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Great blogs almost always use photography well. And there is just so much great photography out there on the ‘net! The problem is, much of that great photography is owned by the photographer who owns the copyright for its use (see Who Owns that Photo of your Horse).
There has been a long (and somewhat heated) thread on a horse forum recently about a blog that has used at least one image taken by a professional photographer by “hotlinking” to it on another site (that’s when you plug the URL of the image into your own blog post) without paying for the image, asking for permission or giving attribution.
No big deal, you might think. It’s just an image. Well, maybe not to the photographer. In this case the photographer had licensed (i.e., sold) the right to post the image to a news site. The blog piggybacked on that usage in two ways: first, it used a photograph without paying the photographer and second, by linking to the image rather than uploading it to its own site, it was sucking bandwidth from the originating site.
I wasn’t aware of the problem with hotlinking photos — I’ve certainly done it myself (but no longer). Here’s the problem: if you have a photo hosted on your site, it uses a certain amount of bandwidth. Every time an outside site links to that image and “posts” it on their own site, they are using YOUR bandwidth, not there own. It’s not a huge problem until that escalates. When a photo goes viral, it can be reproduced all over the ‘net.
What about “Fair Use”
A few people on the thread brought up the concept of “fair use” which allows copyrighted materials to be used for specific purposes. Fair Use is, however, does not provide a blanket excuse for using copyrighted work without permission.
Fair Use is covered in Section 107 of the Copyright Act.
The fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include -
(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;
(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
What does that mean? Doesn’t it say materials can be used for news reporting?
Yes and no. The first factor looks the new work, created by using the copyrighted materials, and evaluates it based on whether it is used for non-profit/educational purposes or is commercial in nature (preference is given for non-commercial use); whether it is used for criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship or research (also linked back to the commercial/non profit element) and whether the new work is transformative (giving new meaning to the work) or merely illustrative. For example, if you use a photograph as part of a product review or commentary, you have created something new. In the case of photos used on www.lolcats.com, I suspect that the addition of the captions is considered transformative. However, if you use a photo to support an article, the copy may not have added new expression or meaning to the image.
The second factor looks at whether the materials are worthy of copyright protection. In the case of photography, that actually happens the moment the photographer presses the shutter. Even if a photograph is not marked with a copyright statement it belongs to the photographer until he sells its use.
The third factor looks at how much of the work is used. Ideally you should use as little as possible of the original work — excerpting just enough to make your point. The subfactors include evaluating the quantity, quality and importance of the work used. For example, you can quote from a speech, especially when using the quotes in a new context, but you cannot reproduce an entire book. With a photograph, that concept is trickier.
The fourth factor considers whether the use of the material will harm the commercial value of the original material to the copyright owner. In the example above, the website included a photograph on its site that the photographer was selling to similar sites. This has the potential to harm the copyright owner because other people might not feel the need to buy the image either. Depriving the copyright owner of income is usually an indication that the materials do not fall under the Fair Use doctrine.
If you have any concerns about your own use of copyrighted materials, use one of the Fair Use evaluator tools to help you consider your use against the four factors discussed above.
Best Practices “Fair Use” of Copyrighted Materials
If you think your use of materials is “Fair Use” then there are certain protocols that you should follow. The most obvious first step is to ask permission. Many photographers will let you use an image on your blog, especially if you are a “hobby” blog with no commercial interests. Additionally, as was discussed earlier, don’t hotlink to images on someone else’s site. You should upload the images to your own site and then provide a text link back to the source.
I found these “best practices” recommendations on the blog A Photo Editor.
?Always include the photographer’s name and links to both the image(s) you are writing about and their portfolio in your story or in the caption to the image.
?The destination of the anchor link for the image should be the page where the image was found (most blogging platforms have the anchor link to a larger size image so this has to be changed manually).
?The bare minimum number of images should be used to make your point. You want to pique the readers interest so they visit the photographers site to see a full selection of images.
?Use a screenshot of the image (instead of downloading the file used on their site) and include as much of the surrounding page as possible so it’s obvious that the image came from another website.
?The end result should always be that readers, who find the photograph interesting, click to visit the photographer’s site.
What does it mean for your blog?
If you want to take the legal and moral high ground it means that you need to ask permission to use photography, not grab it off the Internet. Or, you need to take pictures to illustrate your own articles.
For most “hobby blogs” where there is no commercial gain, I think the big stock houses are unlikely to come after you for copyright infringement, but it’s also not a game of chicken that I’d particularly like to play. Individual photographers may ask you to take their pictures down, but they shouldn’t need to ask.
If you are a commercial site and depend on hits and views for your revenues, you have no excuse for posting photographs that don’t belong to you. It’s as bad as shoplifting and it’s illegal.
Your best bet is to develop relationships with some of the photographers in your industry and find ways that you can use their images with their permission — even if it means that sometimes you need to pay for them. Or, depend on the power of words. |
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