Page 137 of The Last Man on Earth
“What the fuck happened?” Vincent demands. “You didn’t make an offer?”
“I did. They’d already sold by then.”
“Fuck!”
I look over at JR, but he doesn’t seem like he heard. He’s too in his own world.
I envy his childish innocence right now.
“Get over here,” Vincent says. “Now. I’ll call Tiana.”
“Who’s Tiana?” I ask as he hangs up.
“My lawyer.”
The phone rings, then a woman’s voice greets us. “Tiana Jackson.”
“Yeah, it’s Villain. I got a situation.”
He walks out of the room to get away from JR’s yelling, I guess. I call him over to me, smiling so he’s knows everything is okay.
“Hey. Can you grab me some tissue out of the bathroom?”
He nods.
Ten seconds later, he runs back in with a square of toilet paper, which happens to still be connected to the roll. I stare at the long white trail of tissue and burst out laughing. It’s much needed at this point.
Vincent walks back in, surveys the scene, and shakes his head.
“You see what I gotta deal with? Now we ‘bout to have two of ‘em.”
“It’s fine,” I say with a sniffle, snatching a few squares. “It was funny.”
Three hours later, Tiana and Bob are sitting at the kitchen table while Vincent paces across the tile floor.
“The good news, as I see it, is that I’ve filed immediate DMCA takedown requests with every major platform hosting the photos,” Tiana explains. “I’ve also served cease and desist letters to the major online tabloids and blogs, as well as two private photo brokers. They’re legally obligated to remove the images or risk litigation.”
“What’s the bad news?” Vincent asks.
“Well, once the content goes viral, there’s no putting the genie back into the bottle,” she says. “We can suppress it, scrub it, bury it, but we can’t erase it. The files are already saved to hard drives and private servers. Anybody who downloaded before removal is beyond our reach.”
I’m struggling to breathe. “So they’re just…out there? Forever?”
Tiana’s expression softens. “Essentially, yes. But just to be clear, this isn’t y’all’s fault. The liability lies solely with whoever from the search and rescue team sold those images. They violated several laws. We will be pursuing both civil and criminal complaints.”
Vincent nods.
“You have very strong grounds,” she finishes. “Trust me when I say that company won’t even exist by the time I’m done.”
The little smile on her face when she says that chills me. That woman isn’t playing with them folks.
I like that.
Vincent comes to a stop next to me, putting a protective arm around me. “How long before they take ‘em down?”
“Within forty-eight hours, they’ll be offline or unsearchable.”
“Two days?” he says. “That’s a long time, T.”
