It’s well known in copyright troll circle that the Seattle law firm of McCormack Intellectual Law ( mccormacklegal.com) has been Getty Images outside counsel for some time, it’s also always been considered that McCormack Law was basically acting as a paper pushing collection firm, now it appears this relationship “may” be in question.
As seen in the below snippet from the homepage McCormack Intellectual Law, you will notice no mention of Getty Images, however the firm’s blog still references the Getty Images Demand letter.
Source: https://mccormacklegal.com/our-team.php
Mr. McCormack’s practice covers a wide variety of intellectual property issues, including copyrights, trademarks, trade secrets, patents, unfair competition, licensing, litigation and related business concerns, such as: business formation, employer/employee issues, contracts and corporate governance. Accomplishments include:
- Lead counsel supervising six attorneys in a complex software litigation case involving the challenged use of proprietary/patented software algorithms in a commercial software product. Represented the inventor of the original patented software as the defendant in the case. The two-plus year litigation settled on favorable terms.
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Counsel for Lopez USA, retained to assist in product development. Work included procuring copyrights and trademarks for martial arts and fitness DVD’s featuring Olympic gold medalist Steven Lopez and development of talent contracts and model releases. Later represented Lopez USA in a lawsuit involving a non-compete contract.
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Lead counsel for retail import company Mais Oui! Represented client in unfair competition and trade secret and defamation case. Achieved favorable resolution that included published opinion in Washington State appeals court.
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Counsel for local business hired to procure licensing agreements with the National Football League, a Major League Baseball team, and Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. Successful negotiations resulted in licensed product.
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Lead outside counsel overseeing special matter for Microsoft Corporation.
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Filed over seventy-five United States trademark applications and related foreign trademark applications. Specific experience with the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board, representing clients in trademark opposition and cancellation proceedings.
OUTSIDE COUNSEL
Getty Images has long relied on New York-based Weil, Gotshal & Manges for global transactions and corporate and competition matters. For other work, the company turns to Seattle-based law firms. It uses Davis Wright Tremaine for copyright issues and litigation work in the United States.
Getty relies on Perkins Coie to manage its trademark and patent portfolio and handle some intellectual property matters. Garvey Schubert Barer has been responsible for the company’s employment matters for more than a decade.
In the footer of a 2012 blog post/column he wrote explaining how demand letters were “Normally Pretty Reasonable.” McCormack wrote
https://blog.seattlepi.com/
timothymccormack/2012/01/26/copyright-infringement-letter-for-images-on-your-website/
A more recent post
https://blog.seattlepi.com/
timothymccormack/2014/01/16/what-is-parody-part-3-fan-parodies/
So, he says he “represents” them in someway. Based on history, it the “representing” appears to consist of writing demand letters-. As a broad class– including those sent directly by Getty Images– ‘demand’ letters seem to amount to boiler plate collection letters with little information to connect the amounts demanded to the actual use. Often they are just laughable if they weren’t so upsetting to the recipient.
Clearly, he does seem to “represent” them by some definitions of that word. At least some columns at “The Seattle PI” have an aura of PR for Getty Images. This is especially true of those in the category “getty-images-demand-letter/” or tagged “Getty Images Copyright Infringement ” . These do clearly represent Getty Images view. And he does do some work for them. So… I think it’s true he “represents” them in some way.
The question is: does he represent Getty in manner other than sending out letters or writing posts justifying their demand letters or extolling the talent of their legal staff? We’ve noticed Getty hired different attorneys in the suits filed within the last month (Dec 2013-now). One does wonder whether he’s ever ‘represented’ them in the legal sense of “acting as their representative in court”. Maybe he has. Or not. I guess we need to do more digging to learn the answer to that question.
In my opinion I think McCormack IP Law sums it up pretty concisely on their home page.
https://mccormacklegal.com/index.php
If you look at the bottom it says “Knowledge + Imagination to your ideas”
Look at the picture, knowledge is so small you can hardly see it and imagination pretty much fills the screen. Just sayin…..
True karma would involve Timmy making the mistake that brings down Getty.
So far Getty has been smart enough to not let this happen. However, with all the recent self promotion that Timmy has been doing to position himself as an IP law expert, Getty might have to think about cutting him loose, to distance themselves from the legal mistakes that he is certain to make.