Documented facts concerning the copyright infringement lawsuit between Adrian Feliciano and Spirit Tribe, Inc.:
- On 25 July 2018, Spirit Tribe, Inc., a NYC and PA based psychedelic music event and festival crew, re-published a watermarked photograph I took of DJ Miah Love in multiple places on Facebook. The watermark was obscured by a profile graphic created to promote Native Noise Festival.
- On 26 July 2018, I reached out to Spirit Tribe, requesting the image be removed from online or that Spirit Tribe purchase a commercial-use license. Later that day, Eric Fatovic contacted Miah in order to see if they could continue using the image in question. Eric did not respond to me.
- While I waited for a response, Eric continued to promote for Native Noise Festival. On 30 July 2018, I went public with a detailed blog post outlining, among other things, Spirit Tribe’s copyright infringement.
- The images were taken down from the original links that I found, later the same day. Within the blog post was a requirement that public apologies be made by Spirit Tribe to the relevant parties. No apologies were made.
- On 09 August 2018, Eric contacted me in private to state “we accidentally used your photo that has now been taken down and was taken down the moment we could. The moment we took the photo down this entire issue should have been over […] You should of (sic) did the right thing the moment we did the right thing by taking your photo down.”
- In October 2018, I discovered four more instances of the same altered image posted online, also dated as of the 25th of July 2018, under different accounts on Facebook. They were recorded by me and forwarded to my attorney for review and documentation.
- On 05 August 2019, a copyright infringement lawsuit was filed against Spirit Tribe, Inc., in Federal Court.
- A settlement offer was made by Spirit Tribe in December, 2019.
- In early January of this year, after review and consultation with my attorney, I signed the agreement, forwarded the documents back to my attorney, and took down the original blog post as a gesture of good faith.*
- As of today, 28 February 2020, no signed agreement has been forwarded to my attorney, nor has any settlement payment been made, although the additional infringing images of DJ Miah Love have been deleted by Spirit Tribe — and again without apology.
*I am not obligated to any terms contained within the settlement offer until a formal contract is actually agreed to, signed by both sides, and payment made to bind the agreement. My removal of the original blog post was merely voluntary.