One of usual ways of ridiculing Team Kimberlin was to unwind the false narratives they tried to spin. Eight years ago today the false tale du jour was In Re a Copyright.
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The Cabin Boy™ has posted the following tweet concerning me:I have made no such claim.
I advised Amazon that Chapter Thirteen of My Slow, Journalistic Death appears to infringe my copyright on a blog post. It is my understanding that Amazon has taken the position that the apparent infringement violates their Terms of Service and that the ebook is being removed from the Kindle Store.
Bill Schmalfeldt’s empty threats on the direst of dire direness have been a staple of Team Kimberlin’s failed lawfare. This Legal LULZ Du Jour was published just after midnight six years ago today.
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28 U.S.C. § 1400(a) states:
Civil actions, suits, or proceedings arising under any Act of Congress relating to copyrights or exclusive rights in mask works or designs may be instituted in the district in which the defendant or his agent resides or may be found.
IIRC, Sarah Palmer lives in the Middle District of North Carolina. I’m reasonably sure she can’t be found in Milwaukee. The Cabin Boy™ will have to file in Greensboro to sue her.
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It didn’t take long for the Cabin Boy™ to start backpedaling. Before a quarter past ten that morning, I was reporting that Another One Bites the Dust.
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So with a likely total recovery of no more than $0.15 instead of $150,000 times dozens of images and the necessity of filing his next LOLsuit in North Carolina, the Cabin Boy™ has done the math and determined that a $400 filing fee and several possible trips to Greensboro make his threatened copyright LOLsuit an economic loser.I wonder what his next form of self-inflicted damage will be?
Meanwhile, the Gentle Reader can stock up on popcorn from Amazon by clicking on the image on the left.
Copyright law has not been kind to Team Kimberlin, especially Bill Schmalfeldt. The TKPOTD for four years ago today dealt with one of the many times his lack of understanding hurt him.
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Gentle Reader, that reminds me of this post On Copyrights from 24 November, 2015—
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I was rereading Confessions of an Undercover Internet Troll, and noticed something interesting about how the blog described in the book got started. The character known as Hoggy hired the author to write the blog, offering to pay him with a cut of money raised via Hoggy’s tip jar. If that’s true, then all of the TMZ blog posts contained in the book should be work-for-hire and, therefore, should belong to Hoggy.
Hmmmmm.
UPDATE—After my conversation with CreateSpace this morning, this is what searching for the Cabin Boy’s™ book turned up on Amazon at 12:15 ET this afternoon.
Hmmmmm.
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A man’s got to know his limitations.
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Self-awareness isn’t one of their strong points, is it?
In the autumn of 2015, Bill Schmalfeldt published a book titled Confessions of an Internet Troll. It was a Frankenstein creation stitched together with material stolen mostly from the anonymous blogger Paul Krindler. One of the characters in the book was Bill Parvocampus. Six years ago today, I published a post In Re Bill Parvocampus.
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There’s a rumor afoot on the Interwebz that I created or have some other connection to a character called “Bill Parvocampus.” I have no recollection of that character prior to its appearance in the past few days, but, just in case I’m mistaken, I hereby place any rights I may have to that character or stories, articles, or posts containing that character into the Public Domain. Who knows? Someone might actually do something creative with the character.
Note that this does not apply to the Willy Parvocampus character who has appeared in Blogsmoke; Blognet; or Yours Truly, Johnny Atsign episodes.
UPDATE—This release of rights include the trademark and/or service mark rights to the character name.
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The book was clearly an attempt to provoke Paul Krendler into a copyright action which would require him to reveal his identity in order to enforce. It was also a marvelous example of Team Kimberlin’s inattention to detail.
You see, Schmalfeldt also ripped off some material from this blog.
Gentle Reader, I’ll bet you can guess which blogger filed the copyright complaints which doomed Schmalfeldt’s plan.
Copyright trolling and bogus DMCA claims were two of the means that Team Kimberlin used to try to harass people. Their efforts invariably backfired. The TKPOTD for eight years ago today dealt with one of their early failures.
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Some of the best comments that I’ve had about Sore Loserman Bill Schmalfeldt’s recent fascination with DMCA takedown notices have come via email from lawyers. Alas, they’re off the record, so I can’t share them, but they’ve given me some interesting ideas.
Let’s review the story thus far.
The photographer who took the headshot photo that I use on the Internet retained the copyright on the image. I use it under license. When he discovered that it was being used as the basis of a pornographic image on one of Schmalfeldt’s websites, he sent a DMCA takedown notice. Schmalfeldt responded by replacing that picture with another pornographic image with my face photoshopped into it. He also posted nine copies of the DMCAed image on Twitter. In addition to those postings, Schmalfeldt retaliated by sending a bogus DMCA notice about material covered by the Fair Use doctrine to the host for this blog.
The copyright holder of the image of my face in the new pornographic picture asked Schmalfeldt to take that image down and he complied on one of his sites, but not on Twitter or any of the hate sites run by Acme for Team Kimberlin.
When I pointed out the hypocrisy of his position vis-á-vis parody images, the remaining porn came down, including stuff on sites such as Breitbart Unmasked and hogewash dot net. However, the Cabin Boy issued a threat of a second DMCA takedown notice to Hogewash! concerning a parody image created by one of my readers.
When I refused to be bullied over a Fair Use parody, Schmalfeldt issued the second takedown notice. And he posted another image of me that he describes as “obscene.” He’s right about that.
Schmalfeldt makes all sorts of claims about copyright law. I don’t think I’ve seen one that’s correct.
He claims that Fair Use audio clips are limited to 30 second. Of course, there’s no such limit in the Copyright Act, and the case law specifically allows for a whole work to be reproduced in some instances of Fair Use.
He has his “check list” about what qualifies for Fair Use. It’s different from the one in 17 USC §107, the one Congress enacted into law and that the courts really use.
He thinks he can drag people into court in Maryland. That’ll work for me. But Lee Stranahan, for example, lives in Texas, and DMCA cases are tried in the federal court district where the defendant resides. 28 USC §1338 gives U. S. District Courts jurisdiction on copyright matters. 17 USC §512(g)(3)(D) specifies that the appropriate District Court is the one with jurisdiction over the alleged infringer’s address in the case of a DMCA dispute. Relying of books about copyright law published before the DMCA took effect may not be a wise strategy.
Getting legal advice from Acme may be even worse.
Meep, meep.
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BTW, a third image of my face that Schmalfeldt photoshopped into a pornographic image was lifted from the Vanderbilt University annual for my sophomore year. It turns out that the headshot he lifted had been taken during the first semester of my freshman year in the fall of 1965. I turned 18 on 31 December, 1965, so I was 17 when the photo was taken. I was underage, and he photoshopped that headshot into a pornographic image.
Bill Schmalfeldt claims he has never produced child pornography.
One of the ways that Team Kimberlin has attempted to harass people who’ve written about them is by filing false copyright complaints; One of these days, I should probably add up all of the ones filed against me—like the one covered in this DMCA Legal LULZ Du Jour from four years ago today.
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I received this email from WordPress yesterday afternoon—
IIRC, all of the images that the Cabin Boy™ bitches about in his DMCA notice were published on Twitter. That gives other Twitter users a royalty-free license to republish them. Now, I don’t know whether all of the commenters involved have Twitter accounts, but even use by someone who isn’t a Twitter user or use of an image not published on Twitter would probably be covered by Fair Use as noted in Twitter’s email.
BTW, it was a righteous DMCA notice concerning an image that the Cabin Boy™ foolishly used that forced Breitbart UnmaskedBunny Billy Boy Unread to flee to an off-shore server.
Failing failures gotta fail.
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Team Kimberlin has never prevailed in any claim against me. I, on the other hand, have won a few, and I’m not done with them yet.
Back in 2013, Bill Schmalfeldt put out a series of threats to engage in harassment of various bloggers families. Because the Cabin Boy™ had already been harassing families with small children, my Son (who was in his 20s at the time) suggested that Schmalfeldt should try to come after him rather than a picking on little kids. That cased one of the all-time record Feltdowns on Twitter to which I responded with post titled Cabin Boy #BillSchmalfeldt Takes the Bait, Again. It ran eight years ago today. Extended pointage, laughery, and mockification ensued.
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I’ve been fortunate that Cabin Boy Bill Schmalfeldt’s attempts at harassing me have been so inept that they actually have been a source of bemused amusement. That hasn’t been the case for other targets such as Stacy McCain or Lee Stranahan. They have been the recipients of massive trolling and harassment directed not only at them but also at their families.
When CBBS has started up on me, I’ve generally let him roll for a while before making some tangentially related comment. He and his buddies and sock puppets will, without fail, jump on that comment. I’ll let them go on for an hour or so and then tweet that they’ve taken the bait. The trolling ends within minutes.
My son read a tweet by CBBS yesterday that implied that he intended to engage in some more cyberbullying of his previous targets. Given that some of those families have young children, my son decided to put himself in between the bully and the little kids.
CBBS took the bait.
He has been going on about being murdered by my son. Of course, Will has never threatened Bill Schmalfeldt. If his guest post had contained any threat, it would never have been on Hogewash!—this blog does not engage in threats, and any threats received are immediately reported to law enforcement.
One rather silly thing that CBBS has done is to put up a poorly altered version of the photo Will posted of himself, replacing Will’s head with Porky Pig’s. (No, I won’t link to it.) Will’s reaction: “What do you expect from a Loonie Toon?”
Hmmmm. Perhaps, CBBS should be more afraid of Judge Doom and The Dip.
For now … That’s all, folks!
UPDATE—Bill Schmalfeldt appears to want to further beclown himself with his unhinged rants about my son and me. That’s fine by us. Neither of us cares what a foolish fellow with diminishingly small credibility has to say about us. More important, every effort he expends spinning his wheels trying to get our attention is energy he doesn’t spend harassing others. That’s a win-win for Will and me.
Have at it with your BS, BS.
FINAL UPDATE—ROFL. Black Betty included a link to this picture in her comment below. I’m posting it here in order to save the Gentle Reader a mouse click. As I type this, CBBS and Breitbart Unmasked are wasting bandwidth with potty-mouthed tweets about Will and me. Good. It keeps them off of someone else’s back.Bill Schmalfeldt has filed a DMCA takedown notice on the original parody image. This will have to do for now:
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That was the first of several false DMCA claims by Schmalfeldt, none of which worked out well for him.
One of the more amusing things about watching Team Kimberlin is the harebrained schemes they come up with. A particular favorite of mine was one of Bill Schmalfeldt’s attempts to get the anonymous blogger “Paul Krendler” to sue him for copyright infringement. It appears that he thought that by plagiarizing some of Krendler’s work and copyrighting it, he would be able to get Krendler to begin legal action which would require Krendler to give his true name and address for service of process. However, Schmalfeldt also included work from the blog in his book, so I was able to go after him, and Paul Krendler was able to sit on the sidelines and laugh.
This post On Copyrights from five years ago today tells a bit of the story that shows that Schmalfeldt’s own tale proved that he wasn’t entitled to a copyright in the first place—or that the whole thing was a lie—or both.
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I was rereading Confessions of an Undercover Internet Troll, and noticed something interesting about how the blog described in the book got started. The character known as Hoggy hired the author to write the blog, offering to pay him with a cut of money raised via Hoggy’s tip jar. If that’s true, then all of the TMZ blog posts contained in the book should be work-for-hire and, therefore, should belong to Hoggy.
Hmmmmm.
UPDATE—After my conversation with CreateSpace this morning, this is what searching for the Cabin Boy’s™ book turned up on Amazon at 12:15 ET this afternoon.
Hmmmmm.
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Nothing proceeded as the Cabin Boy™ had hallucinated.
I’ve mentioned from time to time that the members of Team Kimberlin are liars and not very good ones at that. The TKPOTD from three years ago today dealt with catching Bill Schmalfeldt lying about never stating under oath that he was the author of a book in which he claimed to be the anonymous blogger Paul Krendler.
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Yesterday, I wrote about a legal document in which the Cabin Boy™ swore that he was the author of the “anonymous” book Confessions of an Undercover Internet Troll, a book which makes the claim that it is written by the anonymous blogger Paul Krendler. If the Gentle Reader would care to come to Westminster, he can pick up copies of a couple of documents from the Clerk of the Circuit Court for 50 cents per page.
This is paragraph 75 from the Compliant in the Hoge v. Kimberlin, et al. lawsuit, …… and here is Schmalfeldt’s admission to paragraph 75 from his Answer.
Bill Schmalfeldt lies so much, he can’t keep ’em all straight.
Q. E. D.
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If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.
Sometimes, simple, even primitive, methods are useful when dealing with matters related to Team Kimberlin. Consider the example from this Prevarication Du Jour from five years ago today relating to protecting Paul Krendler’s anonymity.
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Bill Schmalfeldt is an ignorant fool, but his biggest problems come not from what he doesn’t know but the things he knows that aren’t true. Any payments I have made to “Paul Krendler” have used a payment technology other than checks.
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I originally considered titling the post as a Legal LUL Du Jour, but I concluded that Schmalfeldt was probably aware of the existence of cash and its use in paying for things, so I concluded that he was simply lyings.
This episode of Your Truly, Johnny Atsign first ran four years ago today. It was part of a larger group of posts that day. Scroll down.
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ANNOUNCER: From Westminster, it’s time for—
SOUND: Skype phone rings once.
JOHNNY: Johnny Atsign.
RULE 5 GIRL: (Telephone Filter) Good evening, Johnny.
JOHNNY: Hello! What’s up?
RULE 5 GIRL: (Telephone Filter) Have you been following The Grouch’s Twitter feed this weekend?
JOHNNY: No, I’ve took the weekend off again. And didn’t you ask me that question last week?
RULE 5 GIRL: (Telephone Filter) Uh, huh, I did. He’s having another copyright meltdown.
JOHNNY: What now?
RULE 5 GIRL: (Telephone Filter) It’s about the book he wrote that he said he didn’t write.
MUSIC: Theme up and under.
ANNOUNCER: The Lickspittle Broadcasting System presents W. J. J. Hoge in the transcribed adventures of the man with the action-packed Twitter account, America’s fabulous free-lance Internet investigator …
One of the tools that Team Kimberlin has tried to use in their campaigns of lawfare is fraudulent copyright claims. Five years ago today, Hogewash! was the target of such an attack which I reported in a post titled #BillSchmalfeldt Files Fraudulent DMCA Takedown Notice. As the Gentle Reader can see below, the Cabin Boy™ falsely claimed to be either the owner of or authorized agent for works in the public domain. While some of the posts were taken down automatically, it didn’t take WordPress long to correct those errors. The post begins with the email I received from WordPress.
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Hi there,
We’ve received the DMCA notice (http://chillingeffects.org/dmca512/faq.cgi#QID130) below regarding material published on your WordPress.com site, which means the complainant is asserting ownership of this material and claiming that your use of it is not permitted by him/her or the law. As required by the DMCA, we have disabled public access to the material. Please note that republishing the material without permission from the copyright holder will result in the permanent suspension of your WordPress.com site and/or account.
Repeated incidents of copyright infringement will also lead to the permanent suspension of your WordPress.com site. We certainly don’t want that to happen, so please delete any other material you may have uploaded for which you don’t have the necessary rights and and refrain from uploading additional material that you do not have permission to upload. Although we can’t provide legal advice, we’re happy to point you to copyright law resources that might help you make this determination.
Alternatively, if you believe that this notice was received in error, or if you believe your usage of this material falls under the Fair Use provision of US Copyright Law, it’s important that you submit a formal DMCA counter-notice to ensure that your WordPress.com site remains operational. A valid counter-notice will result in the material being returned to your site in 10 business days if the complainant does not reply with legal action.
After the notice, there is a list of the material claimed to be in breach of copyright, with the action that we have taken on this occasion. This is the response that we have sent the complainant.
Thank you.
— BEGIN NOTICE —
Dear Designated Agent:
This will probably be a bit more personal than the usual DMCA Takedown Request you receive. I am in the midst of a Copyright Infringement Suit filed by William John Joseph Hoge III, who operates a WordPress.com blog called “Hogewash.com”.
Before I detail the nature of this takedown, I have a question. Who owns the “copyright” on material published on a WordPress.com blog? Your Terms of Service make it appear that WordPress.com owns the ultimate copyright. Am I correct in that assumption? Or can a user of a WordPress.com blog write up his own Terms of Service that seem to contradict the WordPress.com ToS. As you peruse this Takedown request, I invite you to review Mr. Hoge’s terms at http://hogewash.com/the-fine-print/
My name is William M. Schmalfeldt, [redacted], Elkridge, Maryland, USA, 21075
410-[redacted]
bschmalfeldt@[redacted]
I have a good faith belief that use of the copyrighted materials described above as allegedly infringing is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law.
I swear, under penalty of perjury, that the information in the notification is accurate and that I am the copyright owner or am authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.
I acknowledge that a copy of this infringement notice, including any contact information I provided above (address, telephone number, and email address), will be forwarded to the user who uploaded the content at issue.
In accordance with the requirements set forth by the DMCA, we have disabled access to the material identified as infringing. Please note that we have notified the user who uploaded the material to provide them an opportunity to formally challenge this removal. If the user decides to submit a counter-notice you will be notified immediately.
Of course, the principal response to Team Kimberlin’s various forays into lawfare has been to aggressively defend against their LOLsuits and other bogus legal filings. However, it has also been important to put the members of Team Kimberlin in their places through the use of derision. This Prevarication Du Jour post from four years ago today is an example of such pointage, laughery, and mockification.
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I see that the Cabin Boy™ says that he’s filed another DMCA complaint. This one is against TMZ for posting a link to one of his podcasts.As usual, it’s a false one. If one looks at the html code for the TMZ post, one does not find any of the audio for the podcast. Instead, one finds an embedded link to YouTube.Of course, YouTube’s Terms of Service permit such linking, so by posting his podcast to YouTube the Cabin Boy™ granted blanket permission for TMZ or any other website to link to his podcast.
The Cabin Boy may wish to meditate upon the meaning of these words:
(f) Misrepresentations. – Any person who knowingly materially misrepresents under this section —
(1) that material or activity is infringing, or
(2) that material or activity was removed or disabled by mistake or misidentification,
shall be liable for any damages, including costs and attorneys’ fees, incurred by the alleged infringer, by any copyright owner or copyright owner’s authorized licensee, or by a service provider, who is injured by such misrepresentation, as the result of the service provider relying upon such misrepresentation in removing or disabling access to the material or activity claimed to be infringing, or in replacing the removed material or ceasing to disable access to it.
—17 U.S.C. § 512(f)
UPDATE—Spoliation?
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Indeed, the Cabin Boy’s™ carelessness for copyright resulted on his being on the receiving of a DMCA notice that took down the Breitbart Unmasked Bunny Bill Boy Unread website and forced it on to an off-shore server to avoid giving up the ownership information necessary to file a DMCA counterclaim.
Karma’s a bitch, and she keeps leaving her puppies on the Cabin Boy’s doorstep.
I’ve been following the antics of Team Kimberlin for over six years now, and one of the principal sources of amusement in the process has been watch Bill Schmalfeldt’s various hare-brained schemes fail. Three years ago, he tried to draw the pseudonymous blogger Paul Krendler into a lawsuit by publishing a book, Confessions of an Internet Troll, that infringed on Krendler’s copyrights. Of course, the Cabin Boy™ screwed up. His book also infringed some of my copyrights, so I went after him, and Krendler was able to sit back and watch. The TKPOTD from three years ago today dealt with one of the ways that the secret identity of the anonymous author of the book was found.
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Last week, great fun was had following the publication of Confession of an Undercover Internet Troll. The Vast Hogewash! Research Organization scours the Interwebz for interesting bits of data concerning Team Kimberlin. Recently, a member of the VHRO found this file:
Four years ago, The Dreadful Pro-Schmalfeldt was just getting started with his LOLsuits. This post titled In Re a Copyright deals with some of his shenanigans in the run up to the first case, LOLsuit: The Emotional Picture.
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Bill Schmalfeldt recently published a book called Intentional Infliction. On pages 3 through 12 he published without permission a blog post by the pseudonymous blogger Paul Krendler. Schmalfeldt bragged that he could do so without penalty: “I doubt he will try to sue me for copyright, since he would have to review [sic] his actual name.” Mr. Krendler objected to Schmalfeldt’s misappropriation of his work and sought a way to enforce his copyright.
Mr. Krendler has sold the world book and ebook rights to the web posting in question to me. He has retained all other rights. I now own the rights to publish the material in book or ebook form, and I have taken the initial steps to enforce those rights.
UPDATE—The Cabin Boy™ is acting as if he believes he’s some sort of Grand Inquisitor.It’s none of his business.
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The Cabin Boy’s™ lawfare has not gone well for him. He may file LOLsuit IX. If he does, he will have to give the court in which he files a valid address for service.
One of the routine sources of pointage, laughery, and mockification from Team Kimberlin is the amazingly shoddy lies which the get caught telling. This was the Prevarication Du Jour from a year ago today.
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The Cabin Boy™ sometimes lies by telling part of the truth.It’s true that there is no readily available public document which contains a statement under oath from Bill Schmalfeldt in which he swears he is Paul Krendler. However, if one files a properly targeted Freedom of Information Act request, one can obtain a document in which he swears that he is the author of a book whose writer claims to be Paul Krendler.
I’ll just throw out some breadcrumbs for the astute Gentle Reader to follow.
Back in October, 2015, the Cabin Boy™ used CreateSpace, the print-to-order service run by Amazon, to self-publish a book titled Confessions of an Undercover Internet Troll. It contained some material plagiarized from this blog. I filed an infringement notice with Amazon, and after a bit of a tug-of-war with Schmalfeldt, Amazon and CreateSpace dropped the book.
During the brouhaha, Schmalfeldt put a post up on his now-defunct The Merry Widowerblog called Time for Me to Come Clean on Undercover Troll. He admitted being the book’s “anonymous” author and threatened me with the direst of dire direness if I did not relent in my attempt to have the book pulled. He assured both his readers that the book would be available again within two weeks and that I would be facing a $2,500 fine. He posted a screen shot from his copyright registration transaction for the book to prove his claim. Here’s a portion of the online receipt he posted.Gentle Reader, if you go to the copyright online search page, you will find that no copyright registration has yet been issued for the book. There are three possible explanations. One, the registration could still be in process, but that is unlikely after a year-and-a-half. Two, the Cabin Boy™ might have been smart enough to withdraw the application for registration. Three, the registration was denied. Whichever is correct, there is a case number associated with the application, the possible use for which is left to the astute Gentle Reader to surmise.
UPDATE—Of course, I can’t publish an extract of the Cabin Boy’s™ post that I refer above because of our 2014 Settlement Agreement. However, it appears that the post was archived here.
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I’m not through with him yet.
UPDATE—The Cabin Boy™ has abandoned the domain where he posted the image above, and it appears that the domain is now being used for porn. Please take note of the warning in the comment section below.
Gentle Reader, that reminds me of this post On Copyrights from 24 November, 2015—
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I was rereading Confessions of an Undercover Internet Troll, and noticed something interesting about how the blog described in the book got started. The character known as Hoggy hired the author to write the blog, offering to pay him with a cut of money raised via Hoggy’s tip jar. If that’s true, then all of the TMZ blog posts contained in the book should be work-for-hire and, therefore, should belong to Hoggy.
Hmmmmm.
UPDATE—After my conversation with CreateSpace this morning, this is what searching for the Cabin Boy’s™ book turned up on Amazon at 12:15 ET this afternoon.
Yesterday, I wrote about a legal document in which the Cabin Boy™ swore that he was the author of the “anonymous” book Confessions of an Undercover Internet Troll, a book which makes the claim that it is written by the anonymous blogger Paul Krendler. If the Gentle Reader would care to come to Westminster, he can pick up copies of a couple of documents from the Clerk of the Circuit Court for 50 cents per page.
This is paragraph 75 from the Compliant in the Hoge v. Kimberlin, et al. lawsuit, …… and here is Schmalfeldt’s admission to paragraph 75 from his Answer.
Bill Schmalfeldt lies so much, he can’t keep ’em all straight.
The Cabin Boy™ sometimes lies by telling part of the truth.It’s true that there is no readily available public document which contains a statement under oath from Bill Schmalfeldt in which he swears he is Paul Krendler. However, if one files a properly targeted Freedom of Information Act request, one can obtain a document in which he swears that he is the author of a book whose writer claims to be Paul Krendler.
I’ll just throw out some breadcrumbs for the astute Gentle Reader to follow.
Back in October, 2015, the Cabin Boy™ used CreateSpace, the print-to-order service run by Amazon, to self-publish a book titled Confessions of an Undercover Internet Troll. It contained some material plagiarized from this blog. I filed an infringement notice with Amazon, and after a bit of a tug-of-war with Schmalfeldt, Amazon and CreateSpace dropped the book.
During the brouhaha, Schmalfeldt put a post up on his now-defunct The Merry Widower blog called Time for Me to Come Clean on Undercover Troll. He admitted being the book’s “anonymous” author and threatened me with the direst of dire direness if I did not relent in my attempt to have the book pulled. He assured both his readers that the book would be available again within two weeks and that I would be facing a $2,500 fine. He posted a screen shot from his copyright registration transaction for the book to prove his claim. Here’s a portion of the online receipt he posted.Gentle Reader, if you go to the copyright online search page, you will find that no copyright registration has yet been issued for the book. There are three possible explanations. One, the registration could still be in process, but that is unlikely after a year-and-a-half. Two, the Cabin Boy™ might have been smart enough to withdraw the application for registration. Three, the registration was denied. Whichever is correct, there is a case number associated with the application, the possible use for which is left to the astute Gentle Reader to surmise.
UPDATE—Of course, I can’t publish an extract of the Cabin Boy’s™ post that I refer above because of our 2014 Settlement Agreement. However, it appears that the post was archived here.
The Gentle Reader may wish to note that the Cabin Boy™ has not denied attempting to register the copyright for Confessions of an Undercover Internet Troll.
So with a likely total recovery of no more than $0.15 instead of $150,000 times dozens of images and the necessity of filing his next LOLsuit in North Carolina, the Cabin Boy™ has done the math and determined that a $400 filing fee and several possible trips to Greensboro make his threatened copyright LOLsuit an economic loser.I wonder what his next form of self-inflicted damage will be?
Meanwhile, the Gentle Reader can stock up on popcorn from Amazon by clicking on the image on the left.
Civil actions, suits, or proceedings arising under any Act of Congress relating to copyrights or exclusive rights in mask works or designs may be instituted in the district in which the defendant or his agent resides or may be found.
IIRC, Sarah Palmer lives in the Middle District of North Carolina. I’m reasonably sure she can’t be found in Milwaukee. The Cabin Boy™ will have to file in Greensboro to sue her.
The Cabin Boy™ says he’s been talking to an intellectual property lawyer.I seriously doubt that he spoke with a lawyer, but if he did, that lawyer clearly didn’t do due diligence on the status of the Cabin Boy’s™ alleged copyrights. I won’t go through the questionable nature of his claim to holding any rights to the images he’s threatening to sue over. That’s been covered elsewhere.
Instead, I’ll merely point out that the copyright act only allows for statutory damages of $150,000 in certain circumstances and only in the case of registered copyrights. Here’s a list of every copyright registration issued since 1978 to anyone with the surname Schmalfeldt—
None of the pictures that the Cabin Boy™ is frothing at the mouth about are listed as registered. If he can prove that he does own the rights to the pictures and if he can show that the use is infringing, then he recover his actual damages only. IANAL, but I’m given to understand that means reimbursement for lost sales and the like.
Stupid is as stupid does.
UPDATE—I’ve received a telephone call from a lawyer who is representing Sarah Palmer and Eric Johnson in the LOLsuit VI: The Undiscovered Krendler. He pointed out that the Cabin Boy™ makes reference to a portion of a copyright statute, 17 U.S.C. § 505, in his amended complaint. The lawyer tells me that § 505 provides for the award of attorney’s fees to the prevailing party in a lawsuit. It’s one of the few instances in U. S. law where a losing plaintiff pays.
Of course, 17 U.S.C. § 505 doesn’t actually apply to anything in LOLsuit VI, but it would apply to a copyright suit if the Cabin Boy™ were foolish enough to file one.
It’s not a parody of an old Village People song. It’s the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and section 512 is the bit of law that is used and misused to deal with copyright infringement on the Internet. This blog has been subjected to several false DMCA takedown notices from Bill Schmalfeldt. He is now engaging in similar activity against a blog called BillySez.
The image in question is a picture of the Cabin Boy™ taken while he was recovering from surgery. Because he did not take the picture himself, he did not create the work. It also does not appear that it was a work-for-hire or that he purchased the copyright from the photographer. Thus, there is reason to suspect the basis of his copyright claim. Further, he sued over an alleged infringement of his supposed copyright to the image and dismissed his own suit with prejudice, thereby waiving any claim against the defendant’s rights to the image, and the defendant has placed all of his uses of the image in the public domain.
I have no idea how his current target will react, but I won’t be surprised to see his current shenanigans met with counter notices which will result in the images he has taken down being restored after a few days. The DMCA allows someone who has been subject to a false takedown notice to sue. Considering that the Cabin Boy has already instigated a federal LOLsuit against the target of his current mischief, there’s a real possibility of a counterclaim. It’s almost as if he’s trying to provoke a response.
Here’s a summary of what happened with Team Kimberlin during the past week.
Monday: Bill Schmalfeldt publishes his latest cut-and-paste opus Confessions of an Undercover Internet Troll containing material lifted from this blog and Thinking Man’s Zombie and “protected” by an apparently fraudulent application for copyright registration. Hilarity ensues.
Tuesday: A fairly quiet day.
Wednesday: RICO Retread LOLsuit—The Dread Pro-Se Kimberlin files a reply to the oppositions to his motion for reconsideration and for relief from judgment and attorney fees. Those oppositions had been previously filed by Breitbart Holdings and Glenn Beck and his companies.
RICO 2: Electric Boogaloo LOLsuit—Berio Technologies and Nicholas Hallam file their reply to TDPK’s opposition to motions to dismiss.
Thursday: RICO 2: Electric Boogaloo LOLsuit—The Palantir Technologies defendants file their reply to TDPK’s opposition to motions to dismiss.
RICO 2: Electric Boogaloo LOLsuit—The Palantir Technologies defendants file their opposition TDPK’s motion for premature discovery.
Friday: RICO 2: Electric Boogaloo LOLsuit—The Hunton & Williams defendants file their reply to TDPK’s opposition to motions to dismiss.
RICO 2: Electric Boogaloo LOLsuit—The Hunton & Williams defendants file their opposition TDPK’s motion for premature discovery.
RICO 2: Electric Boogaloo LOLsuit—The U. S. Chamber of Commerce files its reply to TDPK’s opposition to motions to dismiss.
Several motions in various cases will become ripe for rulings over the next few days. On Friday of next week, there will be a hearing in the Walker v. Kimberlin, et al. lawsuit on the motions to dismiss.
I have made no such claim.
UPDATE 2—
No, it isn’t.
Gentle Reader, that reminds me of this post 
BTW, it was a righteous DMCA notice concerning an image that the Cabin Boy™ foolishly used that forced 
… and here is Schmalfeldt’s admission to paragraph 75 from his Answer.
It’s true that there is no readily available public document which contains a statement under oath from Bill Schmalfeldt in which he swears he is Paul Krendler. However, if one files a properly targeted Freedom of Information Act request, one can obtain a document in which he swears that he is the author of a book whose writer claims to be Paul Krendler.
Gentle Reader, if you go to the copyright online search page, you will find that no copyright registration has yet been issued for the book. There are three possible explanations. One, the registration could still be in process, but that is unlikely after a year-and-a-half. Two, the Cabin Boy™ might have been smart enough to withdraw the application for registration. Three, the registration was denied. Whichever is correct, there is a case number associated with the application, the possible use for which is left to the astute Gentle Reader to surmise.
I seriously doubt that he spoke with a lawyer, but if he did, that lawyer clearly didn’t do due diligence on the status of the Cabin Boy’s™ alleged copyrights. I won’t go through the questionable nature of his claim to holding any rights to the images he’s threatening to sue over. That’s been covered 