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Freedom Anarchist Newspaper

David Hoffman should be made persona non grata at any marches, demonstrations or other left wing events due to his role in all this

This supposed anti-fascist, who made a career off the back of photographing anti-fascists 'at work' and receiving protection from same that allowed him to do so, has prioritised his own greed and self interest above any political principles whatsoever. He has also allowed himself to be used as the useful idiot of those with a more sinister & political agenda

He also relished with glee the prospect of several long term militant anti-fascists from AFA being named in court, with the potential of exposing and linking them to activities described in the book, all of which he saw as a by-product/collateral damage of him pursuing a claim for copyright of photos which had been legitimately given to AFA over twenty years ago and had been used in numerous publications in the past without any complaint from him.

He also attempted to force journalists who had interviewed the authors to reveal their sources (through threats of legal action) despite this being in clear contradiction of NUJ rules, of which he is a member

He also refused to accept an early settlement made on good faith and boasted about his desire to put Freedom Press out of business

Earlier this year he sued a drugs charity for using photographs in good faith that they believed they had the right to use, this ultimately ended up closing down the charity and he successfully established the precedent that 'innocence is no defence'

The guy is a fucking parasite and should be treated as such by anyone involved in progressive politics
 
cesare said:
Button was telling me about this last night. I know the photographer has to earn a living, but it's so surprising and disappointing that he chose to pursue it :(
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Yes. I mean it's not like a major newspaper printed his photo, rather crappy that he couldn't cut Freedom some slack.

I used to subscribe to it when I lived in the UK (despite the dreadful cartoons) but let my subscription drop when I moved abroad. Hope that those involved find some way to keep it going.
 
love detective said:
Earlier this year he sued a drugs charity for using photographs in good faith that they believed they had the right to use, this ultimately ended up closing down the charity and he successfully established the precedent that 'innocence is no defence'
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Fucking hell! What an absolute scumbag, hopefully he'll trip up in front of a bus.
 
what a shitbag. he has contravened union protocol, has shown himself up to be a grasping bastard and a shit-heel and should have simply taken a token payment. his name and photo need to be circulated to prevent him getting any other info so other antifascists at EDL stuff etc can identify and avoid him. or jolly well give him a piece of their mind!
 
from the above link. The wanker was offered £50,000 by DoHealth but still went after the charity- and expected 8% interest. Un fucking believable.

    1. Mr Hoffman claims the revenue he has lost which he estimates at £250 per photograph per year (i.e. £250 x 19 photographs x 4 years = £19,000) and then a further 50% uplift on top for the use of the photographs as thumbnails coming to a total of £28,500. He puts his case as either what he calls a sum for usage or damages. Given that there was no agreement for the use of the images, the right approach is to assess the sum as damages.

    1. The defendant's position is that the value Mr Hoffman has placed on the photographs is well beyond their intrinsic value either to the defendant or any other charity. It points out that the Dept of Health offered £50,000 to settle all the cases but Mr Hoffman did not accept it. The defendant also submits that if it had been advised the photographs were not covered by Crown copyright, they would not have been used. I do not doubt that latter submission but it does not help me to assess the correct level of damages in this case.

    1. While I do not doubt that the £50,000 offer from the Dept of Health was in good faith, it is impossible to use it as any sort of scale against which to measure Mr Hoffman's claim without knowing at least how many charities the Dept of Health was negotiating for. Of course Mr Hoffmann does not accept it anyway.

    1. Mr Hoffman states that the fees he seeks have been calculated using NUJ minimum rates but he does not elaborate. My understand of such rates is that they depend on various factors such as the sizes of the images, the period of proposed use, the nature of the proposed use and the nature of the proposed user.

    1. It seems to me that it would be disproportionate to seek further submissions from the parties. They have put to me the material they wish to and it falls to me to do my best with the information available.

    1. The right sum by way of damages is the sum which a willing photographer in Mr Hoffman's position and a willing user in the defendant's position would have agreed upon as a charge for using the photographs on the websites.

    1. Taking Mr Hoffman's claim it divides into a number of elements, there is a basic fee (£250), it is charged per photograph, he then seeks to charge it annually (hence x 4) and then seeks a further 50% for thumbnails.

    1. I have no doubt a willing user and willing photographer would have agreed a basic fee per photograph. However I would expect that if 19 photographs were being employed, there would have been a substantial discount.

    1. I reject the idea that the fee would have been a simple annual fee. The parties would have agreed a single fee to use an image, having regard to the period of use. I do not doubt that the fee would have been larger for a longer period of use but it would not scale linearly with the number of years.

    1. It seems to me unlikely that a further extra fee would be agreed for thumbnails of the very same image. I believe the usage fee would have permitted use of the images both as full size pictures and thumbnails.

    1. The period of the infringement is about four years although not all 19 of the photographs appear to have been displayed for the whole period since Mr Hoffman has pointed out that after he contacted the defendant in 2007, 16 images were still in use in January 2008. Mr Hoffmann has also pointed out that the photographs were still present on the servers in 2011 albeit as I understand it they were not linked to by links on the public web pages but he has not suggested that the sum by of damages should be increased as a result.

    1. Mr Hoffman contends his basic fee would have been an annual fee per photograph of £250 (albeit he contends thumbnails would be extra). That comes to £19,000. In my judgment that is too high a sum for the use of the 19 photographs in this case for a period of four years.

    1. The photographs are pictures of drugs and it seems to me that the likely market for such photographs would be customers in the public and charitable sectors. The right sum is a sum acceptable to a willing photographer aiming at that market and a willing charity or public sector organisation. In my judgment a willing photographer operating in that market would not realistically expect to be able to charge a fee of that magnitude.

    1. On the other hand while I do not doubt the sincerity of Mr Goad's submission that the value of the photographs was minimal or of zero value, photographs only exist because a photographer like Mr Hoffman is prepared to use his skills to produce them. He is entitled to realistic remuneration for the use of his works.

    1. Doing the best I can, in my judgment the right sum for damages in this case is £10,000.

Interest
    1. Mr Hoffman seeks interest at 8% per annum. He submits that it should run from 1st July 2006, being the midway point in the date range of the infringements. I agree that the date of 1st July 2006 is an appropriate date from which to derive interest but 8% is too high.

    1. The Bank of England base rate in the period from 2006 to today has varied from 5.75% in July 2007 to 0.5% today. I take 3% as a fair single rate to reflect the changes over the period. I will award 1% on top of that, making a single interest rate of 4% for the period. I will apply a daily rate of £2.19.

    1. The interest due up to the date of this judgment (19th January 2012) will be £2,444.57 (= (184 x £2.19 in 2006) + 5 years x 4% of £10,000 + 19 x £2.19 in 2012)

Costs
  1. I will make an order for costs in Mr Hoffman's favour. I will direct that a summary assessment of those costs will be conducted in writing. Mr Hoffman should make any submissions on that within 21 days of the date of this judgment.
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He also demanded, and got, £400 from a young journalist who had simply posted the picture from the book's cover on their blog

(the snake offered to waive the fee and threat of legal action if said journalist revealed his sources and handed over names and addresses of several senior members of AFA which he would then use as part of his overall legal action against the publisher and authors)
 
phildwyer said:
Hang on a second, what are you on about? DARE are not "closed down."
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Read the judgement you fat prick

4. On the 2nd November 2011 Neil Gibson of CB Associates Ltd, insolvency practitioners, wrote stating that he had been appointed joint liquidator of the defendant on 26th October and provided a copy of his report. He indicated that it is unlikely there will be a dividend to any class of creditor and confirmed that the company was unable to be represented due to the cost, that he had no objection to the court dealing with the claim on paper and that the defendant would be filing no further evidence in the matter.
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I know you take exception to any organisation that tries to warn off the dangers of Class A drugs to kids, so yes they were clearly a reactionary organisation that needed to be shut down so that these barriers to kids's access to class a drugs can be smashed - but anyway, this is your last post on this thread, it's not the place for this here, so off you fuck fatso
 
love detective said:
Read the judgement you fat prick
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You'd be better off informing yourself before shooting your mouth off, fool. You're seriously misleading people here.

You call DARE a "drugs charity" do you? Then I call you a wanker. This is what DARE are about:



"Children are asked to submit to D.A.R.E. police officers sensitive written questionnaires that can easily refer to the kids' homes" and that "a D.A.R.E. lesson called 'The Three R's: Recognize, Resist, Report' … encourages children to tell friends, teachers or police if they find drugs at home."[43]
In addition, "D.A.R.E. officers are encouraged to put a 'D.A.R.E. Box' in every classroom, into which students may drop 'drug information' or questions under the pretense of anonymity. Officers are instructed that if a student 'makes a disclosure related to drug use,' the officer should report the information to further authorities, both school and police. This apparently applies whether the 'drug use' was legal or illegal, harmless or harmful. In a number of communities around the country, students have been enlisted by the D.A.R.E. officer as informants against their parents."[44]
"In the official D.A.R.E. Implementation Guide, police officers are advised to be alert for signs of children who have relatives who use drugs. D.A.R.E. officers are first and foremost police officers and thus are duty-bound to follow up leads that might come to their attention through inadvertent or indiscreet comments by young children."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_Abuse_Resistance_Education
 
again read the first line of the judgement you fat bald prick

1.The defendant is a charity that has operated since 1993 in schools to help young people understand the dangers of substance abuse and to provide them with life skills to tackle peer pressure in this regard
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love detective said:
again read the first line of the judgement you fat bald prick
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Hee. There's really no need to get angry. If you're happy to endorse DARE then fair enough, your choice. I can't say I'm surprised to be honest--birds of a feather and all that.

Here's the start of the Wiki article about your "drugs charity:"

"Drug Abuse Resistance Education, better known as DARE, is an international education program founded by Daryl F. Gates that seeks to prevent use of controlled drugs, membership in gangs, and violent behavior. D.A.R.E., which has expanded globally since its founding in 1983, is a demand-side drug control strategy of the U.S. War on Drugs."
 
love detective said:
and can you stop following me around like a lost puppy - i've told you before, i'm not interested in you, you're not my type
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Look, I understand that you're angry, but you've posted some very misleading information here.

You said that DARE are "closed down." They're not.

You seek to portray them as a "drugs charity." Hahahahaha.

You quote with approval a description of DARE that calls them: "a charity that has operated since 1993 in schools to help young people understand the dangers of substance abuse and to provide them with life skills to tackle peer pressure in this regard."

Sorry, but that's seriously misleading. Why didn't you tell people the real story? Here's more from Wiki:

"The instructors of the D.A.R.E. curriculum are local police officers who must undergo 80 hours of special training in areas such as child development, classroom management, teaching techniques, and communication skills. For high school instructors, 40 hours of additional training are prescribed.[3][4] Police officers are invited by the local school districts to speak and work with students. Police officers are permitted to work in the classroom by the school district and do not need to be licensed teachers. There are programs for different age levels. Working with the classroom teachers, the officers lead students over a number of sessions on workbooks and interactive discussions.
The D.A.R.E. program enables students to interact with police officers or sheriffs in a controlled, safe, classroom environment. This helps students and officers meet and understand each other in a friendly manner, instead of having to meet when a student commits a crime, or when officers must intervene in domestic disputes and severe family problems.[5] The Surgeon General reports that positive effects have been demonstrated regarding attitudes towards the police."
 
To drag ourselves back to the OP. He was offered £50,000 for the photos but still pursued them through the courts. And then was happy to fuck over freedom of all groups.
 
love detective said:
I know you take exception to any organisation that tries to warn off the dangers of Class A drugs to kids, so yes they were clearly a reactionary organisation that needed to be shut down so that these barriers to kids's access to class a drugs can be smashed - but anyway, this is your last post on this thread, it's not the place for this here, so off you fuck fatso
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Wow. You've really lost it haven't you?

Let's not mince words here: DARE are basically a front for the police. Your furious reaction to having that fact exposed is understandable. But you shouldn't have tried to mislead us about them in the first place should you?

Why did you do that anyway?
 
Drug Abuse Resistance Education (UK) were a UK registered charity which closed down after going into liquidation on 26th October 2011

Not interested in your ankle bitting today Professor
 
love detective said:
Drug Abuse Resistance Education (UK) were a UK registered charity which closed down after going into liquidation on 26th October 2011
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These guys you mean?

"D.A.R.E. (UK)[19] is a national charity that operates across the UK. The program was originally delivered by Police Officers from the Ministry of Defence Police (MDP) to children who attended schools on Garrison estates or located near Garrison areas."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_Abuse_Resistance_Education

Let's be quite clear now. This is the organization to which you refer, yes?
 
love detective said:
again read the first line of the judgement you fat bald prick
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this shouldn't be allowed to derail the thread but you are off mark here LD - DARE are a bunch of fundy loons and coppers with strong links to Straight Inc/Drug Free America Foundation - an anti-drugs charity funded by the Bush's who have paid out millions in compensation to kids who were physically and sexually abused as part of their 'treatment'

having said that hoffman's a cunt, his blog here if anyone wants to leave him a message: http://hoffmanphotos.blogspot.co.uk/
 
phildwyer said:
These guys you mean?

"D.A.R.E. (UK)[19] is a national charity that operates across the UK. The program was originally delivered by Police Officers from the Ministry of Defence Police(MDP) to children who attended schools on Garrison estates or located near Garrison areas."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_Abuse_Resistance_Education

Let's be quite clear now. This is the organization to which you refer, yes?
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Yes the charity which closed down which you claim was:-

a) not a charity (despite your link referring to it as a charity), and

b) not closed down (despite the website linked to in note 19 of your link returning a closed down website)

If you're going to try and argue something, make sure that the opposite of what you're arguing for is not contained in the evidence you present for your own case - not only fat, bald and old - but inordinately stupid as well
 
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