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Craigslist Griefer Ordered To Pay Up Over Both Copyright And Privacy Violations

from the revenge-on-the-griefer dept

Mon, Apr 20th 2009 3:48am — Mike Masnick

A few years back, there was a lot of attention paid to Jason Fortuny, a "griefer,' who posted a fake ad to Craigslist, and then published all of the responses he got publicly. One of the people who responded sued, and Slashdot alerts us to the news that a court has ordered a default judgment for him to pay $74,000. What's interesting is that the largest part of this, $35,001, is actually for copyright infringement. Since part of the ad Fortuny put up requested photos, the guy is claiming (correctly) that he owns the copyright on the photo he took, and Fortuny violated his copyright in publishing it. Another $5,000 is for privacy violations, and the remaining about is to cover attorney and court fees.

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Filed Under: copyright, griefer, jason fortuny, privacy

25 Comments

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AJ, 20 Apr 2009 @ 4:34am

so...
(and it's not a straight line I'm feeing you...)

What's a 'griefer'?
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slick230, 20 Apr 2009 @ 4:41am

enter the following into your Google search...

define: griefer

That should get you and answer.
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Cro, 20 Apr 2009 @ 5:01am

funny...
That copying an infinite resource is worth $35,001 fine - but infringing a persons individual privacy is only worth $5,000 fine.
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Apr 2009 @ 5:21am

Re: funny...
Hah, hah, hah. It was not an infinite resource until after the griefer illegitimately acquired it, was it? I would say that taking a non-infinite good and turning it illegally into an infinite good was worth the entire amount of the settlement. The violation of individual privacy was just icing on the cake.
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Kamu, 20 Apr 2009 @ 5:23am

What do we learn from this?
Host your blogs in the Netherlands and don't use your real name anywhere. Then you can avoid all this bullshit.
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Jim, 20 Apr 2009 @ 5:58am

Re: so...
Let me google that for you.
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Chronno S. Trigger, 20 Apr 2009 @ 6:18am

Re: Re: funny...
That's the point Cro was trying to make. Copying a picture that was copied from the original that the owner still has (aka: not theft) is worth $35,000 (+$1 for some reason), but a violation of personal privacy is only worth $5,000. It sounds like someone's priorities are off. And from the sounds of your post, so are yours.

Since when did violations of our personal, god given rights amount to 1/6th of a government given copyright? The original owner of the photo probably didn't even register it with the copyright office. Not that I disagree with the punishment, I just think those numbers should be reversed.
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R. Miles, 20 Apr 2009 @ 6:18am

Re: so...
What's a 'griefer'?
Forget the technical definition. These are people who cheat at games because they can't stand to lose, thinking (in their head mostly) they will be world recognized as the greatest player on earth.

If anything, they're the most pathetic of all game players worldwide and fuel the reason for Jack Thompson's campaign about violence and video games.

Because these types of gamers are the ones who get violent when losing, usually throwing controllers or attacking people due to their lack of true gaming skills.
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jjray, 20 Apr 2009 @ 6:31am

default judgment
Interesting case but the fact that this is a default judgment does not tell us much about how the courts shall view these sorts of copyright infringement claims. A "default judgment" is one where the defendant entered no response at all. That means all allegations of the complaint are taken as true and no potential defense (such as fair use) is considered by the court.
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Apr 2009 @ 6:43am

Re: funny...
That's what happens when you allow corporations to create your laws.

Sounds like some hippy conspiracy theory but I'm finding its sadly true. They're the ones with the resources to push what they want and politicians rarely "do the right thing".
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Frosty840, 20 Apr 2009 @ 6:43am

Re: Re: so...
What the *hell* are you talking about?
Griefers are the people who play outside the rules in order to annoy the people inside the rules.
The guy who throws grenades into friendly spawn areas, or who ascts as a part of your team until the final boss, then leaves the game.

I acknowledge that your comment might be some kind of ironic comment-griefing, but like all griefing before and after it, it wasn't funny.
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Apr 2009 @ 6:50am

Re: default judgment
Which also means they probably didn't even show up to court. So if he doesn't even care to do that, what makes them think he cares enough to pay. Or even has the ability to pay.
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Apr 2009 @ 6:58am

where does the grift come into play, what was the scam and what was the pay-out?
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demonsun, 20 Apr 2009 @ 7:01am

Re: default judgment
He did respond, in a letter to the court which was treated as a response, and a motion to dismiss. However he failed to appear or even make a defense, hence the default judgment.

The reason for the copyright charge is simple, he did not have the right to republish the photo. at least according to the judge, who by the way still has to justify his decisions in his written or oral decision.

One other thing, the probable reason for the disparity between the amounts awarded, was that the judge was using the amounts that followed the various statutes regarding the amount of claims, and such.
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demonsun, 20 Apr 2009 @ 7:03am

Re: Re: default judgment
Your forgetting something, it doesn't matter if he doesn't want to pay, the courts have many tools for getting the money. Heres a few of them, Seizure of real estate, garnishing of wages, seizing of bank accounts, and oh yeah throwing him in jail for contempt of court.
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Apr 2009 @ 7:15am

Re: Re: Re: funny...
You do not need to register documents with the copyright office for copyright to be in effect. The griefer acquired the photo under false pretenses. The right to privacy is not god-given, it is a matter of law, just as copyright is. As for the numbers, it is irrelevant since they were assigned to various issues. I suspect that legally (I do not know for a fact) that copyright violations carry a bigger potential fine than violation of privacy.
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Apr 2009 @ 7:16am

Re: default judgment
I can see fair use. After all, the poster lied. So anything resulting from the lie must be fair use. Either that, or the liar realized he got caught with his hand in the cookie jar and regardless of what his logic was he knew he was going to lose.
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Apr 2009 @ 7:36am

Re:
where does the grift come into play, what was the scam and what was the pay-out?

"Griefer", not "grifter".
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momingle, 20 Apr 2009 @ 8:28am

Craigslist need a better way to alert fake ad
Craigslist need a better way to alert fake ad. It should allow users to reply publicly on the ad or to see all the postings by a particular user. That is how MoMingle.com does it. MoMingle also has a better interface which it shows messages/ads on a map so that it can be easily searched by zip code or address.
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d, 20 Apr 2009 @ 9:04am

Re: Craigslist need a better way to alert fake ad
haha, how much are you getting for advertising it and posting links?
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The infamous Joe, 20 Apr 2009 @ 9:27am

Re: Re: Re: Re: funny...
I suspect that legally (I do not know for a fact) that copyright violations carry a bigger potential fine than violation of privacy.

..and that doesn't scare the shit out of you?
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Apr 2009 @ 10:19am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: funny...
lol...Since this was a civil suit, not really. Civil courts have different standards from criminal courts in rules of evidence, the standard to convict, etc. As we have seen from an array of civil trials, they have very little comparison to reality. Where do you think the ridiculous payments for "malpractice" and "defective" products comes from? If you are only frightened just now, you are a little late to the party.
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Norm, 20 Apr 2009 @ 12:30pm

Re: default judgment
Also, default judgements tend to result in default (read: max) fines. So these numbers would probably by reduced had the trial actually taken place.
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RD, 20 Apr 2009 @ 5:13pm

Please note the IMPORTANT point here
Please note the IMPORTANT (and unspoken) point about this: IT WAS NOT CRAIGSLIST WHO WAS RESPONSIBLE. The USER was sued, not the service.
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Randall Flagg, 21 May 2009 @ 4:00am

Jason Fortuny Is Doomed
That sad little brat is going to come to a bad end, which will be noted with all of the respect it deserves at dailyrotten.com. Really, he's the part his mother should have swallowed.
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