David Deal Jason Langley Copyright Scam

We've been down this road before we license some minor work from one of the major stock photo agencies. Then photographer in this case Jason Langley / Reciprocity Images pulls his work from Big Stock where image in question was licensed. We receive a threatening demand letter for $7,500 from Copyright Attorney David Deal saying that we've infringed upon their client Jason Langley Photographers work.

These tactics give us photographers that go after legitimate copyright demands a bad name. No wonder there are names like copyright trolls and scams associated with demands for copyright infringements.

In there demand they make no mention of a person possibly licensing the work nor the fact their client Jason Langley formerly submitting his work to Stock Photo Agencies. They rest on the expectation that many cannot provide evidence of a license. And the expectation that you must do the work to provide such license.

I've attached the legal demand of their copyright compliant for anyone whos wishes to read it. Until then be on the lookout for Jason Langley, Reciprocity Images and David Deal.

We will be posting more about this as the copyright issue continues.

 

Interesting my Image editor forwarded this email to me. It appears Jason Langley of Reciprocity Images tried this extortion back in 2018 as well using ImageRights.

From 2018:


From: noreply@salesforce.com <noreply@salesforce.com> On Behalf Of Compliance
Sent: Thursday, April 12, 2018 5:09 PM:
Subject: RE: Legal Dept



Thank you for your email. I am writing from the Compliance Department at Bigstock regarding the complaint you received regarding your use of Bigstock ID 7103308.

Please notify ImageRights that you possess a valid license from Bigstock, and that they can contact Bigstock's Compliance department if they require more information. Your history of downloads should appear in your Bigstock account; Bigstock does not maintain a list separate from this one.

Regards,

Sage
Bigstock Compliance


--------------- Original Message ---------------
From: compliance@bigstockphoto.com [compliance@bigstockphoto.com]
Sent: 4/6/2018 5:52 AM
Subject: RE: Legal Dept


Thank you for contacting Shutterstock Contributor Care.

We are forwarding your inquiry to the appropriate department. Our colleagues will be in touch with you soon.

Thanks,
Sukhleen
Shutterstock Contributor Care Team

 

Looks like David Deal attorney is rethinking this case after Shutterstock provided proof that his client formally was licensing his work

" 9 September 2020
To Whom it May Concern,
This letter is to provide documentation that Destination 360 has licensed image 7103308 by
contributor RIRF Stock/Jason Langley from BigStock on 14 September 2011."

So basically Jason Langley and/or David Deal lied saying that he never licensed his work to a stock photo agency. Destination360 is all for photographers protecting copyright. We've settled many cases of companies infringing Destination360's copyright. But when companies like this pull these shady tricks it gives everyone a bad name.