- Report: #970544
Complaint Review: Masterfile Corporation - Toronto Ontario
Reported By:
Becarefulwhoyouscrew -
Compton, California, United States of America
Submitted:
Updated:
-
Author Not Confirmed
Why?
Masterfile Corporation
3 Concord Gate 4th Floor Toronto, M3c 3N& Ontario, Canada
Phone:
8003879010
Web:
www.masterfile.com
Categories:
Business Rating:
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Masterfile Corporation Extortion-Scam-Threat Letter Toronto, Ontario Canada
Masterfile Cooperation Extortion Scam Rip off Unethical Do not Support this company or give in to their threats...
Sent me a letter that in my opinion amounted to a threat and extortion for a tiny image on my non commerce website. The demand a sum of nearly $5000 for a single image that was used that had no copyright information whatsoever in the file or apparent where it was found.
The amount demanded was roughly 250 times the fair market value of an image from any number of their competitors. He we have a case of a single tiny image used and a company who is threatening even though the images were removed immediate upon their request. This action was taken despite the fact we are unable to even prove that the image in question was copy righted by above company.
In short, no cease and desist, no friendly heads up. We have a company who apparently allows images to be distributed among those whom purportedly hold licenses from " clients" who have paid a $1000 licensing fee to be distributed freely without them having any notice of the copyright in the file or on sites whom host the images.
Further research has shown that I am not alone. Apparently this company makes a significant income sending outrageous license fee letters to people and collecting what amounts to extortion money.
This is analogous to taking a walk and happening upon Sherwood Forest. The forest has no trespassing sign and you embark on a seemfully harmless jorney. After about a 30 minute walk you are stopped by a troll whom has appraoched in a threatening manner and advised you of your trespass. After you explain to Shrek that you mean him no harm and will leave his forest immediately he demands a $5000 terriff for the walk you have taken and you may not leave till you pay the toll.....
I am not paying troll, I negotiating with terrorists. This incident is clearly not about licensing and paying "artists" for a picture they have taken otherwise a fair market value which was offered for the unknowing trespass would not be rejected. Masterfile take notice this scam and extortion will be known to the public and the attorney general has received your letter and formal complain from me.
Flicker, Facebook, Myspace, Google, Yahoo, and a host of others post images......if you do not want them re posted you should at least take the due care to inform those who license from you to leave copyright information embedded in the picture file.
Type Masterfile into Goolgle and read about the thousands of $$$$$ this Canadian company is extorting from small American Business and non profits including one a read about to help Autistic Children....See
Sent me a letter that in my opinion amounted to a threat and extortion for a tiny image on my non commerce website. The demand a sum of nearly $5000 for a single image that was used that had no copyright information whatsoever in the file or apparent where it was found.
The amount demanded was roughly 250 times the fair market value of an image from any number of their competitors. He we have a case of a single tiny image used and a company who is threatening even though the images were removed immediate upon their request. This action was taken despite the fact we are unable to even prove that the image in question was copy righted by above company.
In short, no cease and desist, no friendly heads up. We have a company who apparently allows images to be distributed among those whom purportedly hold licenses from " clients" who have paid a $1000 licensing fee to be distributed freely without them having any notice of the copyright in the file or on sites whom host the images.
Further research has shown that I am not alone. Apparently this company makes a significant income sending outrageous license fee letters to people and collecting what amounts to extortion money.
This is analogous to taking a walk and happening upon Sherwood Forest. The forest has no trespassing sign and you embark on a seemfully harmless jorney. After about a 30 minute walk you are stopped by a troll whom has appraoched in a threatening manner and advised you of your trespass. After you explain to Shrek that you mean him no harm and will leave his forest immediately he demands a $5000 terriff for the walk you have taken and you may not leave till you pay the toll.....
I am not paying troll, I negotiating with terrorists. This incident is clearly not about licensing and paying "artists" for a picture they have taken otherwise a fair market value which was offered for the unknowing trespass would not be rejected. Masterfile take notice this scam and extortion will be known to the public and the attorney general has received your letter and formal complain from me.
Flicker, Facebook, Myspace, Google, Yahoo, and a host of others post images......if you do not want them re posted you should at least take the due care to inform those who license from you to leave copyright information embedded in the picture file.
Type Masterfile into Goolgle and read about the thousands of $$$$$ this Canadian company is extorting from small American Business and non profits including one a read about to help Autistic Children....See
1 Updates & Rebuttals
Jeur
Internet,United States of America
Yeah, Masterfile is just a scam artist extortionist
#2Consumer Comment
Sun, November 25, 2012
Masterfile is a joke. They tried suing us and lost in court. They allow their images to be placed all across the internet without making their clients post any copyright information, but expect people to magically know that it's copyrighted. Google "Masterfile corporation" and you'll see 90 percent of the results are people saying how many times masterfile tries to sue small businesses over small images. They even did this to a autistic help website.
They do not giving any warning, they just send you a $10,000 bill and say that's what you owe them. These guys are completely unethical and try their best to abuse copyright laws.
My website had 1 image (2 inches by one inch) that I found on a google search. This image had no copyright information, nothing. This is on a NONCOMMERCIAL website as well. They didn't send a cease and desist letter first, they just sent me a $10,000 invoice and said that's what I owed them...for a 2 inch by 1 inch image that could have easily been any other image on the internet.
