Another Unpleasant Surprise For High Times

[H.T.ClassAction]

The original cases of copyright infringement against High Times and their minions is now in process. We've engaged counsel in Manhattan. They plan to commence proceedings before the end of the year.

It won't be a Class Action. Only two photographers are involved.

In the process of preparation, we did an extensive online search of other publications produced by Trans High Corp / High Times in the hope of finding other instances of malfeasance that would demonstrate a pattern of unethical and/or illegal behavior.

As it turned out, we did ... and we hope to stuff this little "issue" right down their throat.

There's a legal concept called "Equitable Tolling". It means that the usual statuate of limitations for a bringing legal action are suspended. The usual time to file in most contract cases is 10 years. Under the "tolling" doctrine, the time to file is exended from the date that the infraction was discovered.

( For instance, a surgery patient might not know for many years that a sponge or other piece of equipment was left inside them. )

In this case we found a book that was produced in 1978 called "The High Time Encyclopedia of Recreational Drugs".

Without our knowledge, one of our 4x5 transparancies of a studio set shot was used in that book, full page. There's no doubt about it. The images are identical.

Every image we submitted to H.T. between '76 and '85 used the same A.S.M.P. ( American Society of Magazine Photographers ) delivery memo / contract. It's a UCC ( Uniform Commercial Code ) document.

Several terms of that contract relating to book use were violated. Even more important, the terms include a 1.5% per month carrying charge on unpaid balances. The bare minimum, under the terms, would be a princely $600. Big deal.

However, through the magic of compound interest, when that $600 is multiplied times 1.5%, and re-multiplied, for 456 months, the total comes to over $700,000.

We intend to collect.

Have a great Christmas / Solstice / New Year!

 

[Genghis Kush]

"I want my 2 dollars!"

 

[Skip]

As I said to you several times b4, you will not prevail in this legal case, and if you do you will only get a few hundred, not enough to pay your lawyer. You're not gonna get compound interest either.

Get a grip and go check what others have gotten for having an image used in a book after a legal challenge. Smoke more weed and dream of millions coming from your one pic. if it makes you feel good.

But from now on, take your vendetta against HT somewhere else as we've already seen that you don't have much of a case, class action or otherwise.

And yes, the statute of limitations applies here.

BTW, I remember someone wanting to claim a copyright against ICMag, because of an image of a growroom taken in Switzerland.
Turns out the pic was taken by none other than Gypsy himself, and I went thru his photo CDs to verify that he did take the pic.
Yup, it was in sequence from his camera with other pics in the same room.
It's likely the person claiming copyright had been in the same growroom that Gypsy had visited and took a pic from the same angle so they looked the same.

I told him he would lose bigtime & have to pay the legal fees.

I've had to deal with copyright law for decades and it's not what most ppl think it is.

The fact that you have a contract does help, but I doubt it would be sufficient after all this time.

You will only ever get what you can PROVE you lost in income, and HT gained from the copyright violation. If you think you can get a penalty above that, good luck!