Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1998/04/09
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Yes, the Playboy v. Five Senses Productions suit involved me. I have already responded to this here, but I will recap again. A few years ago when I first got involved in Internet business, I ran a web server and news server from my home computer. My main project was providing news services to filter images from newsgroups. I made ftp available to my subscribers and they began to abuse the system by uploading to my machine all of these illegal Playboy scans. Playboy emailed me about the images and I removed them immediately, simultaneously warning my members that uploading illegal images would not be tolerated. Since I did not exercise any editorial control over the content, they were on the honor system. A few months later, the same images surfaced again. Again Playboy emailed me and I removed the same files, simultaneously giving Playboy access to my entire server so they could tell me if there were any other offending images on my site. They said they would let me know within a week. Three months passed. The next thing I heard about the matter was a knock on the door of my home by US Marshals, with Playboy attorneys in tow. They searched my entire system and confiscated my hard drives in order to count the number of images I had. After almost a year and a half, it finally went to court last month. Of course Playboy, with their multi-million dollar attorneys, destroyed me. I spent over $20,000 paying my attorneys, but by the time court came, my defense fund ran dry, so I defended myself PRO SE in court. My self-defense was insignificant, but I did get the damages cut from $275 million to $3.75 million, for what that was worth. How could they ask for so much money? Easy. They found that my customers had uploaded a total of 7,475 Playboy images to my server over the course of months. The maximum penalty for these images ran from $20,000 to $100,000 PER IMAGE. My defense talked the judge down to the minimum penalty of $500 per image. And that's the story of how I got more than my 15 minutes of fame, and got in the NY Times, InternetWorld Mag, CNet, 5 local newspapers and on 4 local TV stations. I'm glad it's over....... At 03:57 PM 4/9/98 -0400, Leikon35 wrote: > Is this our Francesco ? > If so, has he responded to this? > When? > > MMoss >Return-Path: <owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us> >Received: from relay23.mx.aol.com (relay23.mail.aol.com [172.31.106.69]) by > air10.mail.aol.com (v41.14) with SMTP; Thu, 09 Apr 1998 15:11:40 > -0400 >Received: from mejac.palo-alto.ca.us (mejac.palo-alto.ca.us [192.147.236.1]) > by relay23.mx.aol.com (8.8.5/8.8.5/AOL-4.0.0) > with ESMTP id PAA25486; > Thu, 9 Apr 1998 15:11:24 -0400 (EDT) >Received: from by mejac.palo-alto.ca.us (5.65/KJV) > id AA16208 Thu, 9 Apr 98 12:09:01 -0700 >Received: from mail.knoware.nl by mejac.palo-alto.ca.us (5.65/KJV) > id AA16202 Thu, 9 Apr 98 12:08:57 -0700 >Received: from [193.78.121.151] (dynaisdn-77.knoware.nl [193.78.121.77]) > by mail.knoware.nl (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id VAA12126 > for <leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us>; Thu, 9 Apr 1998 21:08:54 +0200 > (CEST) >X-Sender: imxputs@pop.knoware.nl >Message-Id: <l03130303b152cc939c32@[193.78.121.151]> >In-Reply-To: <Version.32.19980406192457.00dbcde0@mailhost.ponyexpress.net> >References: <l03130302b14e75a416c5@[193.78.121.210]> > <199804060106.DAA10566@go.hannover.sgh-net.de> >Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1998 21:09:56 +0200 >To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us >From: Erwin Puts <imxputs@knoware.nl> >Subject: [Leica] behaviour >Sender: owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us >Precedence: bulk >Reply-To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us >Mime-Version: 1.0 >Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII >Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit > >On the BJP mail edition this message appeared. >"" >Playboy sues > >Playboy Enterprises has won what is believed to be the largest Internet >related damages award to date against a company that has been re-publishing >Playboy's images on the Web. >The award for $3.74m, plus legal fees and court costs was awarded against >San Diego-based Five Senses Productions and its owner Francesco Sanfilippo. >"" > Francesco Sanfilippo, Five Senses Productions webmaster@5senses.com http://www.5senses.com/