Palmlix.com

Palmlix.com’s Thieving Owner also owns A-GC.com

By Mia McPherson, on March 22nd, 2013%

A while back I did a post titled More on Image Thieves: Palmlix.com Wallpaper site because of the difficulties that I was having trying to get the owner; one Muhammad Farhan, to remove images of mine that he had stolen then placed on his w a l l p a p e r site for free download without my permission, consent or authorization.

After that article was written Muhammad Farah used a service to hide his contact information called domainsbyproxy.com, but I contacted them and this email series is the result of that exchange (read from bottom up for chronological order):

Dear Mia McPherson,

As we have not received proof that our customer attempted to contact you, we are disclosing our customer’s non-public contact information for the limited purpose of this complaint. We will not cancel our proxy service unless the registrar advises us that they are in receipt of a pending UDRP dispute or lawsuit.

Registrant Contact Information (identical for both domains):
Paul Davidson
Address removed because Paul Davidson is listing a mailing address that does not belong to him, the owners of the home are distressed that he has not updated his mailing address
PH:+44.07796225022
paul@splodgemarketing.com

Please be advised that this information was provided by the customer. As such, Domains By Proxy cannot guarantee its accuracy. If any of the information proves to be invalid, please let us know and we will take steps to request updated information from our customer.

Please let us know if you have any questions or concerns.

Very truly yours,

L. Villeneuve
Office of the General Manager
Domains By Proxy, LLC

——– Original Message ——–
Subject: Re: PALMLIX.COM::627300
From: Mia <>
Date: Fri, March 01, 2013 5:20 am
To: generalmanager@domainsbyproxy.com

Your client did not contact me within the time period you specified nor did they remove the images from their web site that they have stolen from me. I request that you disclose the registrant’s contact information.

This person is using your services to hide from the people who have complaints about his illegal use of our images and his copyright violations which is in violation of your terms of service.

Mia McPherson

Bird, Nature and Wildlife Photography
OnTheWingPhotography

On 2/21/2013 10:00 AM, generalmanager@domainsbyproxy.com wrote:
>
> Dear Mia McPherson,
>
> Thank you for your message concerning the domain name PALMLIX.COM.
>
> Domains By Proxy (“DBP”) provides a proxy registration service that allows its customers to register domain names without listing their contact information in the public WHOIS database. Since DBP is listed as the registrant of all domain names for which it provides service, it may appear that DBP operates or has an interest in the domain name or website. That is not the case; DBP is neither a domain name registrar, nor a hosting provider.
>
> We have forwarded your complaint via email to our customer. In this email we requested that our customer contact you no later than close of business on February 28, 2013. If our customer fails to respond to our request, we may then disclose the registrant’s contact information.
>
> As Domains By Proxy does not have the ability to remove content from any website for which we provide our proxy service, you will need to contact the hosting provider. Generally the operators of the DNS name servers and the hosting providers are the same. For your convenience, we have listed the hosting provider below. Please note this is the information from the DNS records:
>
> CloudFlare, Inc.
> abuse@cloudflare.com
>
> Please let us know if you have any questions or concerns.
>
> Very truly yours,
>
> Jeffrey Renoir
> Office of the General Manager
> Domains By Proxy, LLC

I have dealt with CloudFlare.com repeatedly about the owner of this site and find it a waste of my time to contact them, I still have never had a reply from the hosting providers that they have given me. I believe a complete whois should always be made available even when people are using a cloud service that lists the hosting provider. It is a misnomer to say a cloud service is a hosting provider when no files are stored on their servers and it is just a pass through service.

Note that the contact information provided to me by domainsbyproxy.com does not match the whois information of the screen shot I created for Palmlix.com prior to Muhammad Farhan using their services:

In case you are wondering why I am writing about Palmlix.com again I came across a referral to my site today from a post titled “Good wallpaper bad wallpaper” on http://eddyandreuben.blogspot.com that mentioned the issues I had been having with the thieving owner of Palmlix.com.

I had not checked the site in some time because I have been extremely busy but after reading the post I went on a search for my stolen images on Palmlix.com and found that all of my images were removed, the pages either go to a generic IE error page or to a “404. Whoppppss NOT FOUND ” page on the site itself.

However; in my search I found another site using some of the same images stolen by Muhammad Farhan, who had changed the files names on my images to names which always included “mia-mcpherson39s”. That site is A-GC.com and when I did a whois to find out who owned the site this is the result I found:

Note that the Administrative contact and Registrant are exactly the same for the whois on Palmlix.com and A-GC.com

Registrant:
arkana
maguwo
bantul, Yogyakarta 55198
ID

Administrative Contact:
dzifa, shofa mbah_sastro07@yahoo.com
arkana
maguwo
bantul, Yogyakarta 55198

This person, whether they are Muhammad Farhan as he claimed in his first email to me or if he is dzifa, shofa, or the name Paul Davidson given to me by domainsbyproxy.com this person knows full well he has stolen my images and used them illegally on Palmlix.com and now he has several of my images on his other scraper site, A-GC.com.

This image is mine, it even shows my name in the file name and it was one that this thief had used before on Palmlix.com and was removed the first time I wrote to Muhammad Farhan due to his infringements.

This is a close up of the “downloadable” version stored on the A-GC.com website ILLEGALLY. It says my name, it lists my web site so the ignorant statement on Palmlix.com of:

All wallpapers and backgrounds found here are believed to be in the “public domain”. All of the images displayed are of unknown origin. We do not intend to infringe any legitimate intellectual right, artistic rights or copyright.

Is quite frankly a load of Horse Manure. My images are not “Public Domain” he knew where he got them and as such purposely infringed on my rights.

And on his other scraper site A-GC.com disclaimer:

Please do not ask for permissions to use these images in your projects, as we do not own the copyrights for them. All images displayed on the site are provided only for personal use as w a l l p a p e r on computers, cell phones and other personal electronic devices. In case of an error where you are the owner of an image and feel it is used unknowingly, please contact us so we can immediately remove it from our website. We do not intend to display any copyright protected images. a-gc.com is an online service provider as defined in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. We provide legal copyright owners with the ability to self-publish on the internet by uploading, storing and displaying various media utilizing our services. We do not monitor, screen or otherwise review the media which is uploaded to our servers by users of the service. We assume copyright violation very seriously and will vigorously protect the rights of legal copyright owners. If you are the copyright owner of content which appears on the a-gc.com website and you did not authorize the use of the content you must notify a-gc.com in writing in order for us to identify the allegedly infringing content and take action. For any problems or questions please email to: mbah_sastro07@yahoo.com

Color emphasis is mine to make points about those statements.

Muhammad Farhan admits that they do not own the copyrights (for these images) – Yet he used MINE again even though this infringement crap has been going on since November of 2012.

feel it is used unknowingly - Muhammad Farhan KNOWS he has used my images KNOWINGLY and he knows he is using the rest of the images knowingly too.

We do not intend to display any copyright protected images. a-gc.com is an online service provider as defined in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. - They do use the images on this site without the authorization of the copyright owner and they do not give a damn about the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

We assume copyright violation very seriously and will vigorously protect the rights of legal copyright owners. – Vigorously?? That is freaking laughable, they are doing quite a lot of vigorous THEFT. Protect?? What a stupid statement when NONE of the images on Palmlix.com or A-GC.com belong to Muhammad Farhan.

All images displayed on the site are provided only for personal use as w a l l p a p e r on computers, cell phones and other personal electronic devices. – Muhammad Farhan does not have my permission or authorization to OFFER any of my images for download for ANY reason or device. It is an infringement of my copyrights, it is THEFT.

And this statement: We provide legal copyright owners with the ability to self-publish on the internet by uploading, storing and displaying various media utilizing our services.

This is patently false. There isn’t a place ON A-GC.com to register to self-publish, upload, store or display images. This is just crap put on the site to mislead people into thinking that the legitimate owners of all the stolen images have uploaded them to this server themselves and it is a damn lie.

This is theft, pure and simple. Below are two more of my stolen images that are being used without my permission on A-GC.com

I have had several people email me asking for this thief’s contact information because he has used their images without permission and that is why I felt it was important to write yet another post about copyright infringement on Palmlix.com and now A-GC.com so that the owners of images used without permission on these two scraper sites will have the information I have about this copyright offender.

Administrative Contact:
dzifa, shofa mbah_sastro07@yahoo.com

When I find out who the original hosting provider is I will post that information too on every post I have mentioned Muhammad Farhan, Palmlix.com and A-GC.com in.

I have added a WordPress plugin called “iQ Block Country” to block Indonesia which is where Yogyakarta is located to prevent this infringer from gaining access to my images, the images he has currently posted on A-GC.com he had downloaded before and must have stored on his computer.

I will pursue every legal step I can to get my images removed from A-GC.com.

In case you hadn’t noticed, scraper sites like these tick me off. Our images are copyrighted the moment we take them and they are not to be used without our permission or authorization. This is theft. This is copyright infringement.

This thief is making money through advertisements on those sites and the ONLY reason people visit them is for the images, that is money that he does not deserve because he does NOT own our images.

And that is disgusting.

Mia

More on Image Thieves: Palmlix.com Wallpaper site

By Mia McPherson, on December 9th, 2012%

Last month I wrote a detailed post on Image Thieves - Copyright Violations and in that post stated:

Sites that really make me angry? Free W a l l p a p e r sites that steal images from all over the internet and offer them for free download and many of those sites are earning income through advertisements on the pages.

At that time I knew that Palmlix.com had downloaded and used at least nine (9) of my images without my authorization, I had sent in a DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) take down notification to the hosting providers and emailed the site owner whose email address I got through a WHOIS on Palmlix.com. At my request the owner did remove all of the images so I didn’t mention Palmlix.com in my previous post on Image Thieves. But I am now because I spotted twelve (12) of my images on Palmlix.com yesterday evening.

Any and all photographers who have images posted on your own web galleries or blogs should do a search on Palmlix.com. Mine were easy to locate because the owner uses “mia-mcpherson39s” for all of my stolen images but a search can be done just using mia-mcpherson as well.

Also since November 17, 2012 the owner of Palmlix.com has added advertisements for which he gets paid on his site and thus is making a financial gain from the use of every “w a l l p a p e r” image on his site which may include your images as well as the ones stolen from me.

Palmlix.com search screen capture

You can see my search results on Palmlix.com for “mia-mcpherson” within the sites search engine.

Did I give the website owner permission or authorization to use and redistribute my images?

I certainly did not.

Is the owner of Palmlix.com violating the DMCA and infringing on my copyright?

He certainly is.

I know that the disclaimer the owner has in place at the bottom of each page is difficult to read because the font is so tiny, I don’t wonder why it is so freaking small, but I want to discuss what the owner says in that disclaimer.

All w a l l p a p e r s and backgrounds found here are believed to be in the “public domain”. All of the images displayed are of unknown origin. We do not intend to infringe any legitimate intellectual right, artistic rights or copyright. If you are the rightful owner of any of the pictures/w a l l p a p e r s posted here, and you do not want it to be displayed or if you require a suitable credit, then please contact us and we will immediately do whatever is needed either for the image to be removed or provide credit where it is due. All the content of this site are free of charge and therefore we do not gain any financial benefit from the display or downloads of any images/w a l l p a p e r.

Let’s discuss these sentences:

All w a l l p a p e r and backgrounds found here are believed to be in the “public domain”. All of the images displayed are of unknown origin.

That is a load of crap. The owner of Palmlix.com DOES know where he got my images, he stole them from my blog. So “unknown origin” is a not factual. Period. Each of my stolen images has my copyright on them so they are certainly not “public” domain. Further more I explained that to Muhammad Farhan in an email conversation concerning the first group of images he used without my authorization:

Farhan,

It doesn’t matter if my images show on Google because they are a search engine, your site is not. All of my images are copyrighted and it is illegal to use, download, store on your site, use and redistribute my images without my permission. It is illegal to do that to any copyrighted image.

hi there.


i’m the owner of website palmlix.com

i’m sorry to not providing the contact link to me in my site. cause of the site is still on development.
regarding that post, containing your copyright photograph, i will immediately remove it to my post.

for your information, i get all that photograph from google images, so once again, i’m sorry for this inconvenient.


regards

farhan

palmlix.com

There is NO excuse for my images to be stolen by the owner of Palmlix.com after that email conversation.

Let’s discuss this statement:

We do not intend to infringe any legitimate intellectual right, artistic rights or copyright. If you are the rightful owner of any of the pictures/w a l l p a p e r s posted here, and you do not want it to be displayed or if you require a suitable credit, then please contact us and we will immediately do whatever is needed either for the image to be removed or provide credit where it is due.

Do not intend to infringe any legitimate intellectual right, artistic rights or copyright? Horse manure, the owner of Palmlix.com DID know he was infringing on my copyright when he stole this current group of my images.

By the way, there is a “Contact” link at the top of Palmlix.com but it DOES not work. This was the owner’s excuse last month when I filed a complaint:

i’m sorry to not providing the contact link to me in my site. cause of the site is still on development.

It is nearly one month later and he still hasn’t had time to add a simple contact email address ? That is unacceptable. Period.

And this really ticks me off:

All the content of this site are free of charge and therefore we do not gain any financial benefit from the display or downloads of any images/w a l l p a p e r.

Free of charge? Do not gain any financial benefit from the display or download of any images/wallpaper?

Well there are advertisements on the website so it IS creating financial benefit for the owner of Palmlix.com and they benefit from the display of each and EVERY image on their free w a l l p a p e r website, mine included.

If there were no images, stolen or otherwise on the site it would be blank except for the advertisements and who would visit such a site? NO one. A free w a l l p a p e r site without images is just an empty page.

This is my Coyote image on Palmlix.com, note my copyright in the upper left hand corner, note the term “mia mcpherson39s”, note the date it was added “2012-12-07″ and also note that this screen capture says it has been viewed by 50 users and downloaded this HD wallpaper.

See the red arrows? They point to advertisements that the owner of Palmlix.com has embedded on his site and he gains “financial benefit” from the display of my image which has been used without my authorization.

Palmlix.com has NO authority to use my images, they have violated copyright laws plus the owner of this site did this after my first complaint about the illegal use of my images on Palmlix.com.

There is NO excuse for this.

Every page on my site has this copyright disclaimer on the bottom:

© 2012 – 2012 Mia McPherson – All Rights Reserved, all images are protected by International Copyright Law, do not use, print, reproduce or download my images without my permission.

That statement is very clear.

Google search for my images on Palmlix.com

Every one of the images with a red check mark on it is my copyrighted image found during a Google web search for “mia-mcpherson39s palmlix”. Some of the images shown are images the owner of Palmlix.com took down on November 17th are still indexed by Google but are no longer displayed on Palmlix.com. The fact remains however that the owner of Palmlix.com, Muhammad Farhan, has some of my images on his site without my authorization and he could have yours too.

He is a repeat offender.

What have I done so far about this image theft?

I have taken the time to get the urls to my stolen images on Palmlix.com and the urls to where those stolen images are located on my site. I have compiled, completed and sent the DMCA Takedown Notification to GoDaddy.com, (domain registrant), hosting providers ip-pool.com and plusserver.de and the pass through site, CloudFlare.com. I have given them documentation that the owner of Palmlix.com is a repeat offender by providing the emails the owner and I exchanged with my previous complaint and the DMCA Takedown Notification that I sent last month to the hosting providers.

I hope that the domain registrant terminates the use of the domain name and I also hope that the hosting providers remove my images and terminate the owner’s account through them.

There are legitimate “w a l l p a p e r” sites that provide their own original content or have authorization from the copyright owner to use images to display on their sites.

Palmlix.com has stolen and used my images without my permission or authorization, have they stolen yours? If so, please use my contact page and let me know, I will help you file a DMCA takedown notification.

It is my opinion that “Free w a l l p a p e r” sites like this one need to be shutdown permanently for copyright violations and we have to file those complaints against the copyright violators to do that..

Feel free to pass this post on to other photographers so they can check Palmlix.com to see if their images have been used without their permission too.

Mia