On September 18, 2006, Lou Carbon posted an article criticizing Crook on the 10ZenMonkeys website run by Jeff Diehl. The article included a screen cap of Crook's face taken from his appearance on the Hannity and Colmes show. Crook responded by filing a DMCA notice with 10ZenMonkeys' ISP demanding that the screen capture be removed from the article. Now, mind you, Michael Crook never owned a copyright interest in the picture--that was held by Fox News. And even if he had owned it, posting the picture would have fallen within Fair Use. But Jeff Diehl was still told by his ISP that he either had to remove the picture or his account would be closed. Fortunately, Diehl was friends with Scott Beale, the owner of the Laughing Squid webhosting site, so he moved his account there. Beale got a DMCA notice from Crook demanding that Diehl remove the picture from his site within 24 hours after Diehl transferred his account. Diehl removed the picture and replaced it with a link to another site that was using the picture of Crook. But even that didn't appease Crook who sent Beale another DMCA notice. Beale didn't knuckle under the threat and he allowed Diehl to keep his 10Zenmonkeys site with the link. Diehl got in touch with the Electronic Frontier Foundation at Beale's suggestion and they then sued Crook for abuse of the DMCA.
By now, Crook and his exploits were widely known and despised throughout the internet, At least several sites that either hosted his picture or included links to other sites that hosted his picture were sent bogus DMCA notices. Some complied and others did not. One of the sites that didn't comply was boingboing.net. Instead of taking the rolling over and playing dead, Xeni Jardin of boingboing contacted Fox news and reported:
I just spoke to a producer on the Fox News program "Hannity and Colmes" -- the image Crook is complaining about is a screengrab from his appearance on that show. I explained Crook's latest bogus DMCA hijinks to the Fox producer, who laughed, asked why Crook was claiming rights to an image that Fox produced, then said Fox had no problem with BoingBoing or anyone else posting the thumbnail image online.
But of course, this made no difference to Crook. He kept pumping out DMCA after DMCA. Scott Beale of Laughingsuid wrote:
Crook just sent us DMCA #4, this time it references the YouTube video from his appearance on “Hannity and Colmes”: Link to video, Link to phony takedown notice (MS Word). YouTube has already removed the video based on the bogus DMCA he sent. No wonder he keeps doing this. (Emphasis added.)
There is one thing you have to admire Crook for--soon after he learned that the EFF was suing him, he realized he was in the wrong and immediately apologized. Nah.... just kidding there. No, instead he put up a new website named "FuckEFF.org", where he wrote that their lawsuit against him was malicious prosecution. According to 10Zenmonkey's Lou Cabron, Crook stated:
“All of this fuss could have been avoided had they simply shut up, asked no questions, adn [sic] complied with the law.”
In the end, filing the false DMCAs didn't work out too well for Crook. He settled out of Court, and the terms of his settlement stipulated that he make the following apology to Jeff Diehl and the internet community.
He also had to agree to take a copyright law course and to refrain from sending any future DMCA notices unless they were in regard to works either he or his wife produced. Finally, he had to include a link to EFF's information about the case in any future DMCA he filed
In addition, he became one of the most hated men on the internet. It had to hurt Crook when he read this stinging deconstruction of his life and learned that he had lost all hope of ever becoming a lawyer. And I'm sure he was none too pleased by this Photoshop contest using his picture to making fun of him. (Theme: Michael Crook as famous criminals in history)
Suggested Reading:
A great summary of events/list of links by Scott Beale, the owner of laughingsquid.com
Deconstruction of Michael Crook by Tucker Max.
The Dreamhost website has a good story about this. They received numerous complaints, including a letter from Crook stating:
While you’re duly noting, please note also that you will get a DMCA notice every day Until you comply.
You are now a party to interference with a business relationship as I have not received Royalties for these photographs, for which I paid a fee.
Also..just out of curiosity….how would your vendors and customers like an “anonymous” Tip that your company was founded and is run by child molestors?
Just wondering is all. . . .
One other thing for your legal beagles to consider:
Those photographs were from a yearbook for which I paid. I am therefore the
copyright holder. You are fraudists, liars, and you probably all molest your children.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.Please attribute excerpts you take from my work to themaskedanalyst and include a link to themaskedanalyst.com.