54
submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[-] [email protected] 52 points 2 months ago

In September last year, the court ruled a default judgment in favour of Grumpy Cat Ltd. The company was awarded damages of US$100,000 per defendant.

If the payments were made in full, the company would win more than US$24m.

Curtis earned just over US$1 from the sale. In the six years she had been running her store, she had generated about US$200 in revenue.

This is why copyright laws are a joke to the public. Corporations can infringe with wanton abandon and pay pennies on the dollar as just a cost of doing business. Random nobody makes a simple mistake and gets raked over the coals for ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY THOUSAND times what she actually made.

[-] [email protected] 22 points 2 months ago

By this logic, what does AI owe? Quadrillions? More than every currency that exists combined?

[-] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago

How can you call that logic? Clearly, as she must pay $24m for a copyright claim, then those corporations ought to also pay around $24m for their legal obligations.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

Per artist they violated, which is a lot of different artists that they have stolen from.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Yeah. I’d love to see what the courts have to say about everyone’s personal photos and art or writing being scraped for profit without permission or compensation

Edit: Ps. Meta did not allow Australian users to ‘opt out’. And the companies involved have ~~most likely~~ almost inevitably stolen images of children.

[-] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago

The company was awarded damages of US$100,000 per defendant.

"Damages"

[-] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

"Default judgement", meaning nobody turned up to plead their case in whatever court and jurisdiction this was in.

So this woman sold 1 shirt, someone else sold 275,000, someone else sold 1200 coffee mugs, and so on and so forth until Grumpy Cat Enterprises™ gets the shits and goes to court with a case against multiple plaintiffs. Then in the absence of any defense all the alleged guilty parties get slapped with a default USD100K. The lawyers take 60 percent for fees and GCE gets a potential income of a few million or so.

All of which means very fucking little if the judgement is in East Texas and you're in South East Asia as it's going to be pretty tough to collect, but it might mean something if you live in Australia. Being a civil matter, it's pretty unlikely to go any further than being a note in a file somewhere, I'm not even sure if this could get on to Australian credit reports.

But the single sale of a shirt just before all this happened sounds extremely suspicious, like a fishing expedition to get enough people to make it worthwhile to go to court.

[-] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

alleged guilty parties get slapped with a default USD100K

This is inhumane and should be abolished completely.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

And was originally intended to protect the rando, iirc (and I may not be).

[-] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

You're right. The intent of copyright was ostensibly to protect artists' ability to make a living off their work.

[-] [email protected] 36 points 2 months ago

The problem for Curtis was one item she sold: a T-shirt of a frowning purple and yellow cat. She said the sale had been made just before the US lawsuit was launched against her. The T-shirt had sat unsold for years on her site.

Conspiracy theory: the lawyers purchased that shirt so they could launch a stronger lawsuit against her.

[-] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago

Wouldn't surprise me in the least

[-] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

It's actually common practice. See if someone will do the thing they're offering to do. Offering it is a weak case. Doing it makes the case a slam dunk

[-] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

haha wow, "intellectual property" is a scam

[-] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

Show the fucking shirt.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

Kate Beaton on BlueSky: "These guys took their famous catchphrase from my comic, but okay."

this post was submitted on 26 Apr 2025
54 points (100.0% liked)

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