Photographer Who Sued Imgur Now Has a Pirate Bay Problem

[Ernesto]

When it comes to online piracy most attention usually goes out to music, TV-shows and movies. However, photos are arguably the most-infringed works online.

Virtually every person on the Internet has shared a photo without obtaining permission from its maker, whether through social networks, blogs or other services.

While most photographers spend little time on combating piracy, Seattle-based artist Christopher Boffoli has taken some of the largest web services to court for aiding these infringements

Boffoli has filed lawsuits against Twitter, Google and others, which were settled out for court under undisclosed terms. Last month he started a new case against popular image sharing site Imgur after it allegedly ignored his takedown requests.

The photographer asked the court to order an injunction preventing Imgur from making 73 of his photos available online. In addition, he requested millions of dollars in statutory damages for willful copyright infringement.

Imgur has yet to file an official reply to the complaint. In the meantime, however, Boffoli’s actions appear to have triggered another less welcome response.

A few days ago a user of The Pirate Bay decided to upload a rather large archive of the photographer’s work to the site. The archive in question is said to hold 20,754 images, including the most famous “Big Appetites” series.

A torrent with 20,754 images

The image archive, which is more than eight gigabytes in size, had to be partly wrapped in an .iso file because otherwise the .torrent file itself would have been too large.

The description of the archive mentions Boffoli’s recent actions against Imgur, which could have triggered the upload. One of the commenters points out that the Imgur lawsuit may have done more harm than good, and a new Internet meme was born.

“Sued for 73 images, got 20,754 uploaded to TPB, LOL. About the Big Appetites series, if I ever get my hands on a copy, I’ll scan it at 600 dpi and upload it here, have fun trying to censor the internet, Boffoli,” the commenter notes.

TorrentFreak asked Boffoli for a comment on the leak and whether he will take steps to prevent the distribution, but we have yet to hear back.

While not everyone may agree with the lawsuit against Imgur piracy can impact photographers quite a bit. It’s usually not the average Pirate Bay user that’s causing the damage though, but rather companies that use professional photos commercially without a license.

Originally Published: Wed, 22 Oct 2014 21:34:24 +0000
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[kjf]

TPB link: https://thepiratebay.se/torrent/11243816...754_images

[ddoking007]

rofl
uploader:
what's that you want to censor the net... hmm
*a few days later*
got all the images I could find
fuck you censorer now just need to get this to upload and I can troll this guy even worse than everyone on 4chan.


I have a feeling that was the thought process... I don't blame him nor do I think what he did is wrong. someone liked his stuff and he didn't like the way it went and is now trying to get money... sounds like he doing what the movie and animation industry is doing right now...

[Ernesto]

When it comes to online piracy most attention usually goes out to music, TV-shows and movies. However, photos are arguably the most-infringed works online.

While most photographers spend little time battling piracy, Seattle-based artist Christopher Boffoli has taken some of the largest web services to court for aiding infringement.

Boffoli has filed lawsuits against Twitter, Google and others, which were settled out of court under undisclosed terms. Last week the photographer filed a new lawsuit, this time targeting the popular image collection platform Pinterest.

According to the complaint Pinterest is hosting 56 photos from Boffoli’s well-known “Big Appetites” series. These photos are hosted without permission and Pinterest allegedly failed to take them down when the photographer sent a takedown notice.

Boffoli’s photos on Pinterest

“Upon discovering the Infringing Content, on August 19, 2014 Boffoli sent Pinterest’s designated agent an email notifying Pinterest of the Infringing Content,” the complaint (pdf) reads, adding that the notices complied with all DMCA requirements.

Despite being alerted to the infringing material, Pinterest took no action. The only reply Boffoli received was an automated message asking him rate Pinterest’s customer support.

“To date, Pinterest has not removed or disabled access to the Infringing Content. In other words, the Infringing Content is still accessible to the public on Pinterest’s server,” Boffoli’s lawyers write.

The photographer is asking the court to order an injunction preventing Pinterest from making his work available. In addition, the complaint asks for actual and statutory damages for willful copyright infringement.

With at least 56 photos in the lawsuit, Pinterest theoretically faces more than $8 million in damages. Thus far the company hasn’t responded to the complaint but at the time of writing the URLs are no longer linking to infringing content.

Two months ago Boffoli launched a similar case against popular image sharing site Imgur. This case was dismissed on Monday, meaning that the image hosting site is off the hook.

It’s unclear whether a deal was made behind closed doors, but considering previous court actions this doesn’t seem unlikely.

The Imgur case resulted in some negative backlash for the photographer as 20,754 of his photos were uploaded to The Pirate Bay in response. Given the history of the deviant torrent site, these copies won’t be removed anytime soon.

Originally Published: Wed, 03 Dec 2014 20:55:42 +0000
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[Devin]

Hmm. What a shame.