On my machine, the first link in the search results is to the ir.netflix.com pages (ir stands for Investor Relations) which has the list of directors and managers. That is a Netflix owned page. And if you click the 'annual reports' link it shows the corporate headquarters address at the top. So you are correct, it is two clicks to get both the name and address of the general counsel from Netflix.
And while I don't necessarily expect anyone to know off the top of their head that the top legal contact for a company will be called their 'general counsel', there are many many many stories on the web about people who have had their photos misappropriated and used (from travel brochures to bus stop ads) and doing any research at all would give you a clear sense of what the right course of action would be to do here. Further I would expect anyone with a PhD to be familiar with how to research a new topic of interest, to evaluate sources, and to derive the key principles underlying the system if they were widely understood and published (like image copyright is).
I don't know why I would contact the general counsel of a company if they stole my work. I'm not an artist, but I have made some art, and if someone stole that art I would call the company itself.
Additionally, I've tried calling the corporate number for a number of companies in the past, and oftentimes they are just a message that says I should email them if I need to contact corporate. SF companies are particularly bad with this, I guess paying people to answer the phone is a waste of money.
If your customer service can't figure out how to escalate legal issues, that sounds like the fault of the company, not the fault of the person who is trying to bring legal issues to their attention.
“General counsel” is the title given to a company’s chief in-house legal officer, so it would indeed be contacting the company itself (and the person at the company most likely to be able to properly handle the situation, at that).
That said, finding somebody a little farther down the chain in the legal department might yield a faster initial result at most big companies; this type of infringement is comparatively small potatoes for the GC.
I've never worked at a company large enough to have in-house counsel, so I figured that it was a title given to the entire legal department.
I work in marketing, and it drives me nuts when people say "well we didn't know about this because people didn't contact us in the correct manner." If there is a way to contact you, assume that someone will use it to contact you about literally anything.
People assume the structure of their organization is obvious because they are familiar with it. Someone trying to contact the organization should not have to divine the nature of the beast like a bunch of blind men trying to determine the nature of an elephant.
In the US, you want to send mail to the registered agent.
That's the person on file with wherever they incorporated who accepts legal paperwork during business hours -- and thus can always easily be reached by mail. Companies are required to have one of these, and they'll deal with routing legal complaints internally. Just send your angry letter with tracking to the registered agent, so you get a signature when they drop it off.
For Netflix, it seems like:
> The address of the registered office of this corporation in the State of Delaware is Corporation Trust Center, 1209 Orange Street, City of Wilmington, County of New Castle, Delaware 19081. The name of its registered agent at such address is The Corporation Trust Company.
So if you send your angry mail there, Netflix legal will almost certainly read it.
> if someone stole that art I would call the company itself.
"The company itself" is a finite set of humans with jobs. Dave Hyman's job is to handle legal issues involving Netflix. You're saying that the best course of action to resolve this legal issue involving Netflix is to call the company's tech support?
> that sounds like the fault of the company
OP is already dealing with a fault of the company. Declaring that the company has a second fault isn't helping.
I've called customer service because I've been burned by malfunctioning products before. I received a replacement product in addition to some financial compensation.
I'm sure that's the sort of thing legal handles, and therefore customer service must have a way of contacting legal.
I think it's beyond reasonable to expect contacting the customer-facing representatives of a company should be sufficient for almost all matters.
Yesterday I was going to reply to your other message in this thread, but I decided to let it go. However, your "it's beyond reasonable to expect" phrasing has piqued the issue once again.
You work in marketing. I do not, but I assume that marketing folks view communication as a good thing. After all, your job is to present your company's message and get responses from potential customers. Communication equals success. Thus, it makes complete sense to you that that customer service would be a catch-all for any incoming communication.
Consider instead someone who works in legal. For them, in almost all cases like this one, avoiding communication is a victory. Status quo is preserved if people go away, and ignoring people often makes them go away. That department absolutely does not want to ensure that customer service faithfully passes on all relevant communication. The more CS is a black hole, the better.
You need to distinguish between these two types of inbound communication. You repeatedly make statements like "it's beyond reasonable to expect," "If your customer service can't figure out how to escalate legal issues, that sounds like the fault of the company," and "Someone trying to contact the organization should not have to divine the nature of the beast." These statements might make sense in the context of a potential customer communication where both sides want to make a deal. But they sound clueless, entitled, and whiny in the context of an inbound communication from a non-customer and potential litigant like OP. Do you think Netflix cares that they didn't make it beautiful and seamless for randos to obtain compensation for copyright infringement? And do you think they care that you're so very disappointed in them?
It's odd to be frustrated at a company for avoiding or delaying the rents and friction of running a company. That's what they're supposed to do. In fact, a shareholder would be frustrated at a company that didn't do this. I doubt you're interested in taking advice from me, but since this frustration is a running theme in your posts, and because most people want less frustration in their lives, you might consider a more nuanced expectation about how companies should behave -- especially when your current expectation leads you to make irrational and self-defeating choices like contacting customer support instead of legal for a legal matter.
And while I don't necessarily expect anyone to know off the top of their head that the top legal contact for a company will be called their 'general counsel', there are many many many stories on the web about people who have had their photos misappropriated and used (from travel brochures to bus stop ads) and doing any research at all would give you a clear sense of what the right course of action would be to do here. Further I would expect anyone with a PhD to be familiar with how to research a new topic of interest, to evaluate sources, and to derive the key principles underlying the system if they were widely understood and published (like image copyright is).