I did not speak with Getty as I also do not answer from unknown numbers. They did leave a voice message and folllowed with my second letter. This is good information - thank you all for sharing. I have still not contacted an attorney and will see how this plays out.
I just got a letter from this Getty
I’m incorporated which helps. I contracted out my website to a professional web company. They have bought the rights to the pictures which are in question. They have never bought from Getty. They bought from another source.which they have proof of. But they are coming after me. Which I told them fine because I can third party this and The company that I hired can third party from that company from which they bought it from. They Getty told me That I can’t do that. They said They will go 7 times higher then what they want from me now.
I guess I will be living on the streets soon
or in the mountains
This is total BS just reply to them telling them you have a great attorney and you will call him up if need-be, then give them the middle finger. thats basically what i did, havent heard fromt he sense.
I have all ready got a Lawyer as soon as I got this letter. They advised me what to do. I called them and told them I can third party this. They went nuts over the phone And said they are going after me. I said good luck.
Will be living on the streets
or in the mountains.
No you won’t. If you really want to make them squeal, give them your attorney’s name, office number and business address and tell them that from now on all communications between Getty Images and you must be handled through your attorney. Then tell them that if they ever attempt to contact you directly ever again that you will consult with your legal counsel for suit.
This is the next logical step IMO - if they have the right to eat up someone’s bandwidth with their crawler than we certainly have the right to deny them at the door for whatever reason we see fit. It is not like they are being transparent - lol.
I did some searching for the name of this troublesome robot but haven’t found much yet - I invite everyone to look (and look through their logs - early in the month is good) to try to indentify it. From the info on their site it sounds like they are geographically dispersed which certainly won’t make this any easier.
And so begins this game of cat and mouse.
This is my favorite part of this fiasco - PicScout’s tagline:
PicScout: Manage Your Rights…
while not recognizing those of others - nice - real nice. Whatever a company (or organization - “to protect and serve”? How bout “to harrass and inconvenience” - that would be more honest) says they do they in their tagline or mission statement - in reality they do close to the opposite (something I need to remind myself of sometimes). I find this a good yardstick for people to do business with. If their tagline is like, “we suck” the firm usually rocks. Just a tad ironic, dontcha think?!
An open letter to PicScout/Getty:
From PicScout’s site:
Compliance Services
Each match should be cross-referenced with your sales records to determine if the match is an authorized or an unauthorized use of your image.
So it is totally to clear to you - PICSCOUT - you/Getty are not meeting this obligation - all of the people here are not liars. You have not met the most base expectation of due diligence in investigating the lawful purchase(s) of the image(s) in question before pursuing collections.
PicScout, you are no doubt aware that images in Getty’s collection can be lawfully purchased elsewhere - and yet (again - without due diligence) you as a company have no problem endorsing collections and adversly affecting the lives of hobbyists.
Make no mistake about it those are the people that are so upset. Those that have used high resolution images, without permission as major components of their site and are unwilling to take them down deserve to be pursued - not mom and pop.
I should not have to tell you all of this - grow up and play nice - or does your business model’s success depend on outright harrassment?
In reply to the post by bizwiseit
Thanks for all the info you’ve put on here, but I have issues with a couple of points:
Therefore Getty are only entitled to the cost of the image, not damages. i.e. what they are currently selling the image for.
IF Getty want to take it all the way to court, and I really doubt that, already because of Section 97, they are down to only being able to collect the current cost of the image as per their website.
If they do prove that they had the image registered etc, I can show, as per Section 97 etc that I was unaware of this as I got the image from another source (as I have more picture content) and so they would only be able to sue for the current cost of the image, no damages etc as I am within Section 97 etc. I am guess the same applies to most of us here.
In the UK, as far as I know; and I’ve been to court on a couple of occasions to sort out business disputes: In this instance damages are all Getty could hope to get from a court, current cost of an image doesn’t really figure into it, unless a judge decides to use that as a guide for damages.
If Getty offer an image at a price, and if you were to accept that price and therefore enter into a contract with Getty then that price would mean anything, otherwise it’s just numbers on a page.
Section 97 protects most of us (In the UK) against Getty recovering damages and seeing as we never entered into a contract with Getty the usual image price doesn’t figure.
Except, unless we went to court and lost, it would be likely that the judge would use the current image price as a guide for awarding damages.
However I agree with, just about, everyone in that Getty are trying it on.
Getty aren’t entitled to the current image price if they can’t get damages; in this case they are one and the same, so no damages, Getty gets nothing.
I felt it important to point out my thoughts above.
If someone can point me to information on the web that disagrees with what I’ve said above (UK legal) then fine; but my experience in legal circumstnaces leads me to beleive what I posted above.
Hi ionisedlight
Thanks for your input.
I stand to be correct, as I said that was my take, (on interpreting Section 97 etc) plus information I received from friends/solicitors on Section 97 etc and is not legal advice.
If it is correct what you say, then IF Getty go to court it would be for damages (i.e. their demand figure). But Section 97 etc negates their claim.
So here in the UK, either we are all reading Section 97 wrong and Getty know something we don’t, so think they will win in court, or it is a big try on.
They may well sell/send the debt to a collection agency, (the details I posted should help you prepare for challenging that) but I am still to yet hear of a case going to court in the UK. I hope it stays that way.
If you did not know, and had no reason to believe, that Getty had the copyright to the images then Section 97 protects us in the UK, yes.
If it did go to court though, the judge would decide whether to believe you or not and also they would take into account how you used the images.
If it looks like you made money out of the images I reckon a UK judge would award damages.
Although I reckon that would only happen if you were selling the images on - as T-shirts, posters whatever; or if your business sales were via an image, such as an amazing advert that got peoples attention.
If you didn’t really make much of a profit and/or the images weren’t fundamental to you making a profit and you weren’t badly representing the images (associating them with something bad) then I can’t see any argument as long as you satisfy a judge that you did not know.
However that’s probably by-the-by as it’s unlikely that Getty will take you to court; they most likely won’t win and they make plenty of money out of the people these letters are scaring into paying.
Hi again ionisedlight
Ta for the post/information. That backs up my thoughts as well.
One does for sorry for people that are not so business/law aware and are paying as they have not investigated it on the net and found these forums etc.
Cheers
No one has really described how they used these photos. Are people getting nailed for wallpapers? Is it just banners and editorial type photos? What would be the best way to protect yourself against users who upload wallpapers to a community section? Can you invoke the “YouTube” defense?
I got a letter for an image I bought from ebay,Dont pay them, tell them you took the image down & to leave you alone.
I haven’t received any letters yet, but I am doing my best to limit my exposure. Right now, I am only concerned about forum and wallpaper images. I think I’ll be ok with forum images, since I won’t allow guests to view any images. That should keep their bot from sniffing around.
I think I may have to move the wallpaper section over to my forum in order to provide the same protection.
I had a small image, (not that the size is relevant) low res image on my index page as purely art work/decorative. Sort of border like picture, 200 pixels in size etc. So I was not making any money from it, selling it or using it any posters etc or in anyway to push my website forward. It came from a free template site over 3 years ago. Never even heard of Getty untill now, let alone stolen it from them or anybody/anywhere else.
I have received a huge invoice from Getty Images for unauthorsed use of some of their photo’s. I do not agree with image theft and copyright should be protected. However, like many people, we were given these images by a third party web designer and were inadvertantly using them. We were not aware they were copyrighted and if we were, we would not have used them. We also, would not have paid the huge price being claimed by Getty as they are many times the market value. I understand if we do not pay, they will send debt collectors. This is not an acceptable business practice and I will not be using Getty Images for as long as I work in a creative field. Neither will anyone else I have spoken to about this. Meanwhile, I am led to understand that if you did not know the images were copyrighted (which most of us did not), then they can’t sue for damages. And if we have not entered into a contract then they cannot bill us. Their invioices also are in breach of DTI and customs regulations. I would like to set up a defence group with similar individuals. If we all contribute say £50, we could get a barrister to act on our behalf as a group and prevent Getty from picking us off one by one. There is safety in numbers, is anyone interested?
Just so you know, your thread will probably be merged with this one.
I was as stressed as you sound last week but after reading this forum I have learnt that getty dont have a leg to stand on,they are hoping that if they sent out 100 letters a week and 1 site owner pays,they get £1000-£5000 a week for doing a mail merge !!!,
Just chill out & read the forums
Unfortunately, the DMCA “safe harbor” provisions (the take-down notice) may not apply in this case because those provisions are specifically for ISPs, not individual websites, and the ISP also has to meet the requirements of the legislation (i.e., having a designated agent to receive take-down notices). There’s apparently a legal suit against YouTube, with the plaintiff arguing that YouTube does not fall under the DMCA safe harbor provision because it’s not an “online service provider.”
In any case, even if DMCA doesn’t apply, Getty Images is doing a lot of things that are potentially illegal … I’ve seen one letter which is basically an extortion demand – “if you don’t pay up now, we’ll use archive.org to see how long you actually had the image on your website and then make you pay more.”
I know that the Electronic Frontier Foundation (eff.org) is aware of Getty’s actions and is looking into it … whether there’s anything the EFF can do legally is another question.
Here is an overview of the royalty free photo movement. My only comment is that as professional designers, we collectively boycott Getty without further discussion.
Cheers.
http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB112897424251164666-0mFu92_5xrCHDRrqLE9YeCOfOnI_20061015.html