Scam Warning for Authors seeking Copyright

James Cerini · July 9, 2019 at 2:36 pm

I’ve started getting threatening emails from these people, but they have slipped up. They are addressing their letter’s to a person that doesn’t exist. Somehow their server has got my name wrong and under these circumstances, any legal action they wish to launch would simply fall over on the first day. On top of that, when companies refuse to send letters of demand via regular post, they lose their ability to pursue anyone through the courts. For example banks, these days commonly use e-statement’s or electronic bank statements, but they will also write proper letters that arrive in the mail if there are any real problems. The banks know that if they don’t send a hard copy letter, that they simply don’t have a legal case.

Jane Carter · July 10, 2019 at 8:14 pm

Hi,

We are the “company” you described like a scam one but it’s not the true.

Copyright-Autralia.com is owned by an European Company based in France and we never hided this fact, our address in Australia allow us to get some physical letter and have
a local communication with our customers.

Our company provide digital timestamping for creation by sending all creation submitted to a ministerial officer in realtime public notary or bailiff located in France, the officer making certain date on the deposit of any customer and conserve a copy of the content for 30 years at his office.

This certified date emitted by a public officer of a country member of the Bern Convention give to the creator and if the creation is original : “A proof of anteriority on the creation” it’s a “copyright on the creation”,

To be more clear, any member (country) that signed the Bern Convention have legitimity to give this kind of document, and the proof emitted and certified by official minister (public notary bailiff) is valid in all these countries.( List of countries here : http://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ShowResults.jsp?treaty_id=15).

The Berne Convention formally mandated several aspects of modern copyright law; it introduced the concept that a copyright exists the moment a work is “fixed”, rather than requiring registration. It also enforces a requirement that countries recognize copyrights held by the citizens of all other signatory countries.

The Berne Convention deals with the protection of works and the rights of their authors. It is based on three basic principles and contains a series of provisions determining the minimum protection to be granted, as well as special provisions available to developing countries that want to make use of them.

The Appendix to the Paris Act of the Convention also permits developing countries to implement non-voluntary licenses for translation and reproduction of works in certain cases, in connection with educational activities. In these cases, the described use is allowed without the authorization of the right holder, subject to the payment of remuneration to be fixed by the law.

The Convention relies on the concept of “country of origin”. Often determining the country of origin is straightforward: when a work is published in a signatory country and nowhere else, this is the country of origin.

However, under Article 5(4), when a work is published simultaneously in several signatory countries (under Article 3(4), “simultaneously” is defined as “within 30 days” , the country with the shortest term of protection is defined as the country of origin.

Although the Berne Convention states that the copyright law of the country where copyright is claimed shall be applied, Article 7(8) states that “unless the legislation of that country otherwise provides, the term shall not exceed the term fixed in the country of origin of the work.

The Berne Convention authorizes countries to allow “fair” uses of copyrighted works in other publications or broadcasts.[8][9] Implementations of this part of the treaty fall into the broad categories of fair use and fair dealing.

Autralia and France have signed this convention so a public notary based in France can act a legal timestamping that is recognized in Australia too.

The email that not many customers receive are email of collection because they did not pay the renewal of the service. Our service is based on annual contract that can be cancelled

Kath M · December 17, 2020 at 6:49 pm

I fell victim to this scam last month, believing the fee was to register international protection for a logo, lifelong. Apparently its only a timestamped paper, which expects renewal annually! The terms and conditions document, when I stumbled accross it later, were incredibly illegal and not according to Australia’s Consumer Laws. According to WIPO no international registration exists, and copyright is free and automatic in Australia and the Berne convention countries. Upon reciept of the document we immediately saw it was a scam as there were typos, Bern nor Berne for one thing, and furthermore they wrote my husbands name as the owner but Istanbul as the address. A copyright document is to prove ownership, the wrong country is a massive error. We contacted paypal immediately and after being told to supply evidence and police statements they finally closed the case in my favour and refunded the money today. I wanted to thank the author of the article for being very helpful as evidence of the company being a scam, we found the website straight after realizing our error and were horrified to see how many other innocent people had been deceived by this and stressed with ongoing harrasment. I wanted to post this to say at least one story has a good ending, so anyone else who falls victim and finds this page, as soon as you can, dispute the charge, I won and you should too, it is a scam and the banks and paypal have to honour that and refund you. There may be a timelimit but certainly try! I expect the alleged ‘contract’ is broken, by paypal refunding me, I expect I had better not recieve any threats at the one year mark, if Jane Carter is reading. Companies here MUST honour Australia Consumer Law. Know your rights and be refunded! If you need to convince the bank, we emailed the Australian Copyright Council who confirmed it was a scam, and printed this whole webpage, article, comments and all, and took it in with us. If we won you can too!

Peter Noel Stroud · April 20, 2024 at 3:03 pm

Pete N April 20 2024
I also have been caught up in this so called scam, since 2020 A steady stream of inconsistent emails from this Jane Carter also using the name of Juana Carter, the inconsistent expiry dates and changes in the amount claimed ,first made me suspect something was not right [ I have saved every email and then started my own investigations, also discovering this online investigations that has been so helpful in exposing this copyright company
I also discovered after a trip into the city that the address and phone number don’t exist, all the things that others have also discovered if it is any help to the other victims , I have the bank statement to where the money I sent to an account in Paris France

My last email from Jane Carter was April 19 2024 offering me the opportunity to cancel contract if I paid the outstanding amount. It still worries me that I get these continuous threats Peter N