File a Lawsuit, Break the Law in the Process

So… The Office of Hawaiian Affairs filed a lawsuit against the University of Hawaii challenging the lease for the summit of Mauna Kea. This is news across the state, press conferences were held, a big media deal.

OHA Infringement
Screenshot of the OHA website with a stolen image from Darker View
In the process OHA stole two images of mine for their website to illustrate their press releases. Yes, OHA, a state agency, is currently in violation of federal copyright law.

You can see the images here. There are two shots, one of a wrecked Toyota from earlier this year, one of an ancient Hawaiian ahu or shrine high on the mauna.

As one Facebook friend already noted “At least they credited you!” That does not make the infringement go away, it is still infringement. They even left my watermarks and copyright symbol on the image, there is simply no excuse.

Interestingly it appears that OHA, a state agency, does not host their website on a state server. Rather they use Google Cloud Services to host the website. Thus it makes filing a DMCA take-down notice much easier.

I have done just that.

This is not my first DMCA takedown action, or even my third, done this a few times, it works fairly well. The notice goes to the hosting service, if they do not take action, they become legally liable. As a result service providers take DMCA notices fairly seriously.

A legal notice has been served and should be addressed in the next few days. We shall see what the OHA webmasters do with that. Either they remove the material, or the entire website goes poof.