Seattle photographer Christopher Boffoli has sued the popular image-sharing site for failing to remove his images after he sent the site proper DMCA notice.
Earlier this year fine art photographer Boffoli discovered that dozens of photos from his well-known “
miniatures of food” series were being shared on
Imgur. The photos were uploaded by kdcoco, a user who published them without permission.
In a complaint (
pdf) filed at a federal court in Seattle, Boffoli explains that he sent Imgur a DMCA takedown request on February 21, 2014. Imgur quickly responded, “The images have been marked for removal and will be deleted from all of our servers within 24 hours.”
However, Imgur didn’t take them down. Nothing happened. According to the complaint “As late as September 2014 — more than 200 days after receiving Boffoli’s notice — Imgur had not removed or disabled access to the Infringing Content.”
Boffoli is asking the court to order an injunction preventing Imgur from making his work available. In addition, the complaint asks for actual and statutory damages for willful copyright infringement of at least 73 photos.
Theoretically Imgur faces more than $10 million in damages. Thus far the company hasn’t responded to the complaint, but the photos have finally been removed. This is not a first for Boffoli. Previously he filed against Twitter, Google and others. These cases were settled out for court under undisclosed terms.