Being Stupid And Litigious Is No Way To Go Through Life

In the past we’ve posted communications whenever someone has threatened to sue us. I think it’s entertaining, and it hopefully makes people think twice before firing up the legal machine with ridiculous claims. So when YouTube sent us a cease and desist letter, I posted it. And when that asshole Shannon Terry threatened to sue us out of existence, I posted that too.

Now the most ridiculous claim yet. Richard Figueroa, who claims to have the rights to this image of Ashton Kutcher, is demanding that we pay him $150,000 immediately or else he’ll sue us for $1.5 million.

Hi Michael, My name is Richard Figueroa and I am contacting you on behalf of the image you are using of Ashton Kutcher that Beth Boldt had taken. Beth is upset that your company has been using his image to generate traffic and revenue to your company without her permission.We are asking that you pay Beth $150,000,00 for the image that you have been using to generate business. If you choose not to settle this bill now we will ask for $1,500,000 in damages in loss of income form the image you have been borrowing for creating traffic to your website with here picture.if you google Beth Boldt you will get an idea of who she is in the modeling and entertainment industry.We would like to settle this quietly without the media getting involved however if you choose not to agree on these terms we will file a lawsuit against your company for copyright violation and we all know how that’s going to turn out since she’s the photographer of the image you are using.
So here is her invoice: Please make check out to Beth Boldt in the amount of ($150,000,00) send it to
[deleted contact information]
And after payment is made you may not use the image of Ashton anymore unless you want to negotiate a contract.

Thank you
Richard Figueroa
BethBoldt

Here’s the problem: we never used that image of Ashton Kutcher on any of our websites. The one image we did use (in this post) was supplied by Ooma (Kutcher is the creative director for Ooma), and Ooma says they own that image.

The problem turns out to be that if you do a search on Google (or “the Google” as Figueroa calls it), the image in question appears at the top of the results and is linked to TechCrunch. Why? Well we did some digging and it turns out that someone linked to the image in a comment to one of our posts.

I explained all of this to Figueroa on the phone but he insisted that Google bought us and that we need to remove the image from Google immediately. Sadly, Google has not acquired us, and I have no easy method for removing images from Google’s servers.

Normally I’d just let something like this drop since this guy doesn’t understand anything about copyright law or the Internet, but he has also been calling and emailing our advertisers and threatening to sue them, too (listen to the voicemail below). They are understandably concerned, and Heather and I now have to spend time today calming everyone down.

Don’t be this guy.

The voicemail below is to one of our advertisers. Listen to a second one, sent to Ooma, here.

Update: Starting at comment #79 below it looks like Richard weighs in with a number of comments. In comment no. 113 he tried to post my phone number and get people to call me and complain but I just deleted it.

Update 2: Richard has been calling me this evening saying people are crank calling him and that he will take “legal activation” against everyone who calls him. I’ve removed the phone number above. Please stop calling him because he just calls me afterwards.

Update 3: So the link to TechCrunch on Google’s search results is gone and the picture now links to Yahoo Answers. Richard still isn’t happy and is demanding I link that search result to him. I’m just speechless.

Snocap Drops 60% Of Staff And On The Market: Looking Good For The Deadpool

B2B digital music distributor company Snocap, the spawn of Napster founder Shawn Fanning, looks like its warming up for a Deadpool entry with confirmation by CNet that the company has let go of 60% of its staff and is on the market.

Snocap has apparently “received interest from several companies” as is pursing these for an asset sale.

Snocap was founded in 2002 and has amongst its investors Ron Conway, Morgenthaler Ventures and WaldenVC. The company allows rights owners to place music onto p2p networks and retail sites with DRM, aiming to leverage P2P networks for distribution whilst still charging for music.

Snocap’s last big deal was to provide music sales for MySpace in September 2006 and we wrote about Shawn Fanning’s plans in December 2006 to start a World of Warcraft focused social network called Rapture. According to Snocap’s website the MySpace deal is still in place, which presuming it is transferable to a new owner would provide some value in the Snocap fire sale.

Snocap is now on TechCrunch Deadpool watch.

Supply Side Economics Fail Music Industry Again

The latest brainwave from the besieged music industry is the proposal to offer free music to end users via the Total Music brand. Spawned by Universal Music, Total Music looks likely to sign the big four record labels and a range of smaller firms as well, with Sony BMG on board and Warner Music looking as it will be as well.

Free is the ultimate selling point in market side economics, because ultimately you can’t beat the opportunity cost of zero. But here’s the catch: Total Music may market itself as offering free unlimited music, but it’s not really free, the cost is just hidden. That cost: $90 per device for access to Total Music, based on $5 per month over 18 months (the figures Universal are using). In our above example Microsoft has decided not to absorb the $90 Total Music charge but has instead added it to the price on the 4gb Zune, taking the total price to $239. Which would you buy?

In the Zune example Microsoft may embrace the Total Music model and subsidize the subscription costs. Say that Microsoft split the difference and the Zune went from $149 to only $194, it’s a better figure but it’s still $45 more that the iPod. Could Microsoft absorb the whole price? Unlikely; after all why would it willfully hand over $90 of a $149 product, which we presume would certainly destroy Microsoft’s product margin on the Zune, and could even make each sale a loss.

I’ve used Microsoft as an example but it could be any company with a music player that isn’t Apple. Universal is looking at targeting anything that plays music, so aside from MP3 players you could be seeing this hidden cost built into mobile phones, media streaming devices and perhaps even computers.

I should note that some people like their music legal and will pay a premium, but given a $90 price difference this is unlikely to be a majority of buyers, particularly when the iPod offers legal options as well, options that are a choice and not an imposed upfront cost to the buyer.

The music industry may talk about free music, but all it is doing with Total Music is shifting the point in which the consumer pays to one that isn’t nearly as transparent as iTunes.

Exclusive: Arrington Goes Nuts in “Unnecesary Force”

This just went live from JibJab. There are now two new movies in their Starring You line of animations where you can upload your head to star in the movie. Here’s one with Arrington and me called Unnecessary Force, which jibjab kindly made for us. I tried to stop him folks.

Also check out Math Camp Massacres. (For more on Starring You, check out this video).

China Blocking RSS Feeds

The Chinese Government has added a blanket ban on all RSS feeds, according to a report at Ars Technica.

There has been reports previously that Feedburner feeds have been blocked, but to-date information delivered by RSS feeds has generally gone uncensored, providing Chinese viewers information that would otherwise be blocked if attempting to visit a regular webpage or blog.

A quick test of WebSitePulse’s Great Firewall testing tool indicates that no one in China will be reading this post via feed, although whether the main page of TechCrunch is blocked in open to question, WebSitePulse suggests that it’s ok, however the Great Firewall of China site says that it’s blocked.

The number of broadband internet users in China will surpass the United States within the next 12-18 months; China is fast becoming one of the most important online marketplaces in the world. Whilst some could well argue about the rights of a sovereign nation to censor content within its own borders, the more pressing issue from a Web 2.0 development and industry perspective is the use of the Firewall by the Chinese Government to unfairly block foreign competition, particularly at a time where the Chinese Government is trying to start, or is already in Free Trade Agreement negotiations with a number of countries, including Australia.

There is also some suggestion that China will enter an APEC FTA in the future: would it then be fair that online industries are either excluded from the FTA or that access rights are ignored by China under those agreements? Western Governments are still generally not focused enough on the benefits of online business in a broader economic sense, so unless there is some serious lobbying, or more understanding leadership, our industry will likely be forgotten in the clamor for mineral, industrial and agricultural trade.