I came across this discussion, don’t know if anyone posted it or not. It looks like it might be helpful.
http://www.startups.co.uk/Forums/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=135369
There are tons of free photo sites and $1 photo sites. So no need to rip anybody off… get it free the right way.
if webfinity had taken time to read all of the posts, webfinity would realize this is not an issue of ripping anybody off, but rather using sources containing ‘royalty free’ images which in reality are not, because they were not protected with watermarks by image bank (getty)…and they found their way onto other 3rd party sites “$1 sites”, which were then downloaded by the unsuspecting user. Most here would attest to the fact they have done nothing wrong.
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Did you read all the posts before you decided to put your oar in? Your reply does not relate to the thread at all…
http://www.designerstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=13853
Another forum about Getty going after somebody…
Just out of curiosity, is there any legal way that a web site owner can prevent a bot from crawling its site, consuming its bandwidth, etc.?
That bot Getty has hired to crawl sites is probably costing webmasters money for the bandwidth that they don’t consent to the Getty-hired bot using.
Bill Getty for the bandwidth.
I, too, use images stolen from the web. Well, bits and piece of them. Backgrounds removed, highly modified, etc. I’m not afraid of the Gettybot! 
Sometimes this copyright crap goes way overboard. If you photographers don’t like people using your images as long as they aren’t selling them, then keep your photos to yourself!
Music publishing companies have started going after guitar tab websites. There’s a court battle brewing.
You should see some of the patents and trademarks issued for the most obvious things. Donald Trump trademarked “you’re fired”…as if he was the first person ever to utter the phrase. I’m gonna get suuuuuuued!
DMCA is going to protect Americans from the Getty tactics. So any of you Americans should just take down the offending images and ignore Getty.
By the way, if you found a stray image on the web, how would you know if it is copyrighted and by whom? Is there any centralized digital image copyright registry? I don’t think so…
Picscout contractually gets 50% of whatever amount of money the copyright holder can extort out of you.
Bill Picscout for the bandwidth.
I will have to investigate my template design! If I find any copyrighted images (there is only one ^#$! image anyway) I’ll get rid of it.
Should Getty and company decide to come after me, I’ll join all of you in a legal action against them with the focus of making sure that it is impossible for any company named Getty Images to ever harass another person.
http://www.jenkins-ip.com/patlaw/cdpa1.htm
I am not a lawyer… found this…
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 
97.-(1) Where in an action for infringement of copyright it is shown that at the time of the infringement the defendant did not know, and had no reason to believe, that copyright subsisted in the work to which the action relates, the plaintiff is not entitled to damages against him, but without prejudice to any other remedy.
(2) The court may in an action for infringement of copyright having regard to all the circumstances, and in particular to-
(a) the flagrancy of the infringement, and
(b) any benefit accruing to the defendant by reason of the infringement, award such additional damages as the justice of the case may require.
Aye, but it’s a British law. Won’t be of any (or much) use to anyone ouside of Britian.
After having read this whole thread through I decided to go look at this site where Getty has it’s images. I think what you all need to do is draft a letter stating you are one of the actors in the photos they’re displaying and then bill them $50,000.00 for their use of your photo and not having had permission using it in the first place and since they’re making money off your photo you’re entitled to royalties off that image. Then go through and draft a similar letter for all the other actors in the photos they’ve got on display. I can guarantee you they don’t have authorization from the actors to use those photos. Give them a taste of their own medicine. Serve them right for being such a$$es.
If you do that, have fun defending yourself when they charge you with fraud.
Two wrongs don’t make a right now do they? An eye for eye leaves a man blind.
Getty is going about this wrong, but they are not idiots. For all we know, the discussions that are being posted on the internet because of what they are doing will be helpful in the long run for the industry (maybe not for Getty, I don’t know). It’s making more people aware and careful about the images they use on their websites.
I, along with a few other people that I’ve seen posting, have decided to not use any images that are not my own. I can’t take the risk. Fortunately my website does not really need other photos.
The best I can see us doing, is keep the discussions going so as to inform others. Whether or not a person wants to pay the invoice and avoid a rise in blood pressure, is up to each person. But getting ridiculous won’t help.
Well said.
Great resource it proves you wrong on the ability to publish pirated photographs though. You are only protected if one of your hosted clients post material on your server. If you steal copyrighted material you still are subject to the law.
Let me quote from your wikipedia page
Section 230’s coverage is not complete: it excepts federal criminal liability and intellectual property law. 47 U.S.C. §§ 230(e)(1) (criminal) and (e)(2) (intellectual property); see also Gucci America, Inc. v. Hall & Associates, 135 F. Supp. 2d 409 (S.D.N.Y. 2001) (no immunity for contributory liability for trademark infringement); Perfect 10, Inc. v CCBill LLC (No. CV 02-7624 LGB) (C.D. Cal. June 22, 2004) (state right of publicity claim is not covered by Section 230); cf. Carfano, 339 F.3d 1119 (dismissing, inter alia, right of publicity claim under Section 230 without discussion).
What is more Getty is letty abusers off of the hook by assessing an extremely minimal fine. They can go to court and take you for up to $150,000. 
Read about it at Comstock.com, one of Getty’s competitors.
For those of you who think that these photos are simply ‘looked’ at by caffine driven interns who never see the light of day, you may have never downloaded an image wtihout an appropriate plugin. Here is the theory. These images are nothing more than binary code that when parsed by an appropriate application render as an image for humans to see. What you are forgetting is that these images contain information that you do not see. The most obvious is header information. Well stock photo houses also embed information in their images. Like liscencing. If your image use doesn’t meet the licencing agreement embeded in the image, you are in violation and infringing on copyright. So when a bot comes rolling thru looking at images it’s looking at the code, it doesn’t care what the image looks like.
If you purchased an image from another stock site and Getty is trying to fine you, you may have purchased a stolen image. This sucks, but it does not neccessarily free you from obligation to conform to the law. If I see someone driveing my stolen car, I don’t care who they bought it from, I want my car back.
It comes down to this. Spend your $1500 on a prosumer digital camera and a photography book and class. You will make more money selling your own original work than you will offering the same tired look as everyone else.
By the way, I studied media law as part of my BS. and was considering it as a carreer. I’m not just pulling this out of my ‘ahem’.
There is a can of worms you don’t want to open. Getty has all of the photo/model releases in place. In fact they are going after you because they have to pay royalties on your piracy. What is more they are in a position where they have to seek leagal damages because you are stealing both an image and causing them financial liablility for a model image being used and potetialy being used against models consent.
Getty is an industry standard. They get their material from professioanl stock houses and photgraphers. They do not accept material that is not explicitly liscensed and released.
you are seriously saying we should sue microsoft cause this pirated copy of xp blue-screened and dumped my web project. I know we live in an anti-hero society, but this does not make photo piracy right.
It would be difficult to prove me wrong on something I never said.
No, they cannot. Stop posting such lunacy.
A site with a [i]vested interest[/i] in scaring off copyright infringers is NOT a reasonable source to cite. Have you read the law they base their ridiculous comment upon? Here it is:
[http://www.bitlaw.com/source/17usc/504.html](http://www.bitlaw.com/source/17usc/504.html)
Guess what? $150,000 is cited as the [i]maximum[/i] possible, in the worst case penalty -- of which NONE of the good people here qualify. In addition, the [i]only[/i] way to qualify for such penalties is if "the copyright owner sustains the burden of proving, and the court finds, that infringement was committed willfully." Good luck proving willful infringement. The only way to prove someone's will is to get them to confess, or find the equivalent of a written confession. You can't exactly dip into their brains and see what they were really thinking -- but they can certainly provide sworn testimony that they didn't mean to do any infringement! And when they do that, look what the law says:
In a case where the infringer sustains the burden of proving, and the court finds, that such infringer was not aware and had no reason to believe that his or her acts constituted an infringement of copyright, the court in its discretion may reduce the award of statutory damages to a sum of not less than $200.
Holy cow!!! Looks like IF Getty were to try to sue any of the people here that truly didn’t know they were infringing, the court would reduce the damages down to a level that wouldn’t even cover their lawyer fees! How do you like that?
I believe that Getty's tactics are the equivalent of a schoolyard bully giving kids the shakedown for lunch money.
-Tony
If somebody stole your car and sold it to another person should the innocent person who bought the car have to pay you for it?
If you read these threads and the ones about Getty on the other forums you will see many people got their images from a free site. Others bought templates or had their website made for them including the stolen Getty image. Your post suggests everyone is stealing Getty images and should therefore pay up.
The topic of image copyright and the Getty practices have caused me some concern.
Since I just recently started a dating site where members can upload thier own images, I am a bit concerned about my owm possible liability should any of my “members” upload a copyrighted image for their own profile!
Currently, I make it a practice of looking over each new profile. Not hard to do with only about 300 members. But, when my user base grows much larger, I will have to find a better method! I don’t want Getty and friends coming after me even if they do use bad tactics.