[celestialcheese]

Really? So in your world, a writer's mistake is abuse, in the same way legal professionals using the copyright system to profit off of a small publishing businesses is?

It's like arguing that punitive fines for minor infractions, like jaywalking or speeding, would be justified because "you broke the law".

The outrageous maximum penalties ($100k/infringement), the nuance of fair use and copyright law, and the resulting cost of defending yourself means that the only solution if you don't have excellent in-house counsel is you have to settle for what they ask. It's legal extortion.

[Cheezemansam]

>A writer's mistake is abuse

I thought we were talking about companies. Why should the owner of the work care about whether your writer was on too tight of a timeline to properly check whether they were allowed to use the photographer's work for free? Yes, a company stealing people's work is abusive, and I am not sure why we should be sympathetic when some small % of them happen to have aggressive representation.

[dawnerd]

Whats abuse is taking advantage of the fact that copyright law is complex and knowing that they don't know they could go after you.

I think we're in agreement that the current copyright system is a joke. It's too complicated and there's too many loopholes that can be exploited.