 .This page should give hope to anyone who has been intimidated by the seemingly overwhelming process of getting restitution to having their images stolen. There seems to be little you can do above the normal warnings (usually ignored) sent to the perpetrators. It's like they know the time and cost of taking legal action against them often outweighs the importance of the theft committed. As mentioned on my 'Handling Chicken Thieves' page, images are often stolen without my permission. Usually I just ignore it, but I did recently have to look into a theft that was of a little more serious nature. One of my images was taken without my permission and put on the cover of a book, as well as used on the author's website, despite my copyright warnings. Even with the evidence of obvious copyright infringement, the author denied it. I then found myself going up against the world's largest publisher. I was ordered by their legal council to desist from contacting the author, and to provide proof of my claim. I did exactly as they instructed, only to be completely ignored for the next 8 months. I refused to drop the matter. Pressing forward, I was lucky to come across the best legal defense in the way of J. Curtis Edmondson, who specializes in the area of Copyright Infringement (Intellectual Property Law). He didn't bat an eye, taking the case immediately. I was very impressed with the way it was handled. I was kept abreast of all aspects of the case. After over a year in litigation, I finally accepted what I considered to be a reasonable offer, settling the case. I highly recommend the Law Offices of J. Curtis Edmondson to anyone having similar problems with stolen material on the Internet. Please pass this link along to anyone you think who might benefit from it. Law Offices of J. Curtis Edmondson JP |