OH Noes! Internet LOLsuit Threatened

This blog has featured lots of posts that have been controversial. I’ve received letters from lawyers in the past. But this one is by far the stupidest one yet. This picture below shows two women drinking beer. The photo was taken by someone as they were in public at Oktoberfest. The woman on the right is Daniela Jennifer Korhammer, and this blonde is really dumb because she hired a lawyer to send me a nastygram. I hope the lawyer charges twice as much now that she has stupidly identified herself.

Her lawyer, Dr. Hans-Peter Philipp Anlauf, an unscrupulous man who went into the profession because he wanted to be paid for taking advantage of stupid women and pimping was just too hard, sent me the following:

Violation of personal rights
Dear Pat,
Ms Daniela Jennifer Korhammer, Bahnhofstr 30, 86150 Augsburg mandated me in the matter mentioned above. Please find my power of attorney in the annex.

Please let me explain the background facts of that matter: On the website http://www.belch.com a picture was posted with the title “Oktoberfest!”

The picture shows two ladies in traditional Bavarian dresses drinking beer. The lady on the right is my client Ms Daniela Korharnmer. As a matter of fact this picture was taken without the consent of my client during Oktoberfest.

The photographer who took the picture of the two ladies has already admitted to having taken the incriminated picture without the consent of the two ladies. Therefore, the photographer offended against paragraph 22 KUG which says that pictures of persons can only be taken or published with the consent of the person who is shown on the said picture. Because of that offence the photographer has therefore already signed a declaration of submission to immediate execution in case the photographer should re-use the picture again. The newspapers that used the incriminated picture on their websites meanwhile did the same.

The picture was posted on your website also without the consent of my client. I assume that the picture has been taken illegally from another newspaper website – offending against copyrights, by the way – while the picture was still in use before the declarations of submission were signed. That still is a clear violation of the personal rights of my client.

Against the background of the facts mentioned above my client asks you
1) to remove the incriminated picture from your website/s without de lay at least until Mondays 24/1/2011 and
2) keep It off your websites In the future Otherwise I will advise my client of taking immediate legal action in the USA against you – although I guess that this will not be necessary as the legal facts in this case are clear.

Legal action in the USA would mean possible compensatory damages and costs only for you.

His phone number is +49/(0)176/62088193 according to the letterhead, and he sent this to me via email on a Sunday using a generic cloud-based email account.

I don’t take to threats very kindly, especially when they blatantly accuse me of international crime. Using a small photograph of someone taken in public to illustrate a non commercial post online is not a copyright infringement. And Dr. Anlauf knows this and is just taking money from a stupid girl.

And if you google “oktoberfest” this is the first photo that appears, albeit on someone else’s website. You can’t scrub the entire internet of a photo, and you shouldn’t hire dumb lawyers who manage to tie your name and address to the photograph.