What company would pay these bills?
Companies have to have lawyers issue “cease and desist” letters before they can sue. All a company has to do is take down the offending image after they’ve received notice from the pissed-off party.
My experience is limited to the US of A, where: …
Infringed666 why don’t you keep your opinion to yourself? Why offer me advice when clearly you know nothing about UK law?
This thread is not where you should be so why don’t you just go waste your time elsewhere, no one here is listening to your nonsense. You seem to think that we are criminals, which is just stupid and you are in a minority of one.
Why don’t you all just ignore him then? Obviously if he’s trying to start a flame war (not saying he is), it doesn’t help to fan the flames, if you know what I mean.
well said Dan. Infringed’s post as usual has no legal reference to support his/her points. As for a contract with Piscout -lol lol. I really hope they do as Picscout effectively hacks your site. His/her poison is like Getty’s claims - made anonymously and total BS.
I see more free getty images are flooding the net:-) they really have shot themselves and their greedy photographers in the foot with these inflated and spurious claims.
Booler asked ‘I am a bit concerned about continually ignoring them. Would it not be the case that this could work against us if it did go to court?’
It only affects the issue of legal costs and it depends on whether they have sent letters by fax/recorded delivery (i.e. they can prove they wrote to you) or whether you have written to them in response. If they have not already provided proof of WHEN and WHERE the image was shot then i really do not see how they can ask for costs because these two items are crucial to determine whether or not you have a defence. (for all you know the image maker could have been dead for over 60 years or the image could have been published after you had published the image)
Its intresting i still have not received any details from gettyimages as to who (i.e. which company has legal capacity) is actually claiming. To date it has come simply from ‘GettyImages’ who for legal purposes are a non-entity which is annoying to the various teams who are ready and waiting to start multi-million dollar disabilty discrimination claims against Getty and their photograpers. btw anyone noticed how Getty are quickly and desperately changing their site attempting to make it comply with legislation. Getty if you reading this – its too late:-)
Just a thought, those of you in the UK with insurance policies check to see if they provide legal cover, quite a lot do.
Second, get down to your local Citizens Advice immediately after Christmas and ask to see someone regarding this. At least then you’ll have a legal opinion on the whole thing, rather than just speculation, which will allow you to take an informed decision as to what to do next.
My thoughts would be that as long as you have proof of where you got the image, then Getty should be going after the supplier rather than yourself, but I’m not a lawyer. Those without proof, if you think you remember where it came from, try getting in touch with them and see if they can trace it. Otherwise, if you still have the original image stored then put the image name into Google image search and see if you can track it down.
Getty is a major Corp. and has billions to play with, if they’re dead set on making examples the fact that what they recover might be less than the cost to recover it won’t stop them. If I was in your shoes I’d want to know exactly where I stand.
Whatever you do though, try and forget about it for the next few days. I wish you all a Happy Christmas and a Getty/Corbis free New Year.
btw anyone noticed how Getty are quickly and desperately changing their site attempting to make it comply with legislation. Getty if you reading this – its too late:-)
Don’t forget the wayback machine will allow you to check out old versions of the site but it might be advisable to grab some screen shots in case they manage to get it removed from the archives.
‘Getty is a major Corp. and has billions to play with’
so had Enron:-)
Infringed your posts are worthless propaganda intending to lure honest hard-working people to fill your pocket. You are insulting the intelligence of everyone here. Getty and Picscout are sitting ducks and are centred in the scopes of a lot of people:-)
The stock markets work and thrive on rumours:-)
La vengeance est un plat qui se mange froid:-)
Hi all,
I received a nasty-gram from Getty yesterday as well. One image ($1,300 invoice) on a website that was a hobby and a website that I was going to be shutting down. I was waiting until my vacation days next week to do so. Now, there’s timing! It was the last website that I had to shut down and then I was going to close up the company (just a sole proprietorship).
I have had this image so long that I don’t remember where in the world it came from - at least since 2003, although I think it was longer. I don’t steal images so I must have been under the impression that it was given freely. I have other images on the site with a link back to the author as that was their policy. I think I’ll scrap all images I have ever used so that something like this doesn’t have a change of ever coming up again.
A very merry christmas to me, I guess. bah-humbug!
J.
Happy Christmas All (Ignore getty for a day or so)
Honestly, if I ever gotten a letter I would just ignore them. If I responded to every letter I got from some stupid company I would have to hire a full-time lawyer.
No business is going to take you to court for $x,000. The lawyers, time, bad PR, etc are not worth it. Just ignore it and they will go away. Who cares if they send you to collections… It is not like they have your social security number.
Also, a lot of people here are from the US. If I got a letter from some british company for a measley few thousand dollars I would respond with a big LOL.
Hi everyone,
About 2 months ago i received a letter from getty Images demanding £2904 for two images i had completely forgotten were on my site. On (bad) advice i settled to pay getty £2,468 and they confirmed the issue of the two images had been dropped.
About 2 weeks ago i received another letter from getty Images claiming £7,260 for another 5 images which i had removed from my site a long time before i received their letter.
I am not going to pay. I have read through all this forum and i now see that i was stupid to pay them in the first place. Now they are chasing for 5 images which i uploaded to my site 4 years ago and which they claim were still on my site last July. I asked them why they had pursued me originally for only 2 images and they said it was their policy to pursue all image infringements regardless of whether other image claims may have been settled.
In my case i have absolutely no idea were the images came from as i simply cannot remember - it was 4 years ago and i have a site which handles over 3000 images. I may have downloaded them from a disc or a blog but one thing i am sure about i did not download them from getty.
I am not a thief and i never intentionally infringed copyright as i never knew those images were protected as there was no watermark or copyright symbol. I feel i have been robbed of £2,500 by scum who have come back for more. Moreover i cannot set off against my tax or vat the money i originally paid as it was not the proper VAT rate nor was it to a ‘registered company or individual with rocognised legal status.’ (quote from H.M. Customs & Excises)
From my experience it you have had a letter from getty - DO NOT PAY !!! otherwise they will only come back and pursue you for more. I have since learnt there are other vital ingredients missing from their claim to make it stick in court - so once again DO NOT PAY!!!
This is very worrying and it clearly makes the whole process look even more suspicious.
I have since learnt there are other vital ingredients missing from their claim to make it stick in court
Can you share these ingredients with us?
Check this out guys, Corbis mean business:
http://www.lightstalkers.org/corbis_wins__20_million
They just won a big court case. So I imagine Getty will be chasing up payments too. They mean business.
I have a friend who use to work for them and they are ruthless businessmen. They will use the best lawyers to destroy you.
They will think nothing of bankrupting you as legally you have nothing to stand on. You used there images without consent.
The **** is going to hit the fan.
Also I’m sure if you are registered with a debt agency you can’t get credit for loans and mortgages. I use to work in mortgages and it happened all the time. Bad debt means bad credit history. Try getting a loan now.
Hi all,
I’m a photographer and wanted to jump in with some clarification on US copyright law. I am not here to flame and I do believe that Getty is being overbearing, to an extent, on some of the smaller fish that have infringed or received images through a second party as part of a web package.
That being said, some of the comments have been made with little, if any, thought.
What would the position of the forum members here be if someone downloaded a site you had spent hundreds of hours designing, changed the text to personalize it and called it their own? What would be your response if they told you they didn’t know any better or that they had searched (a little) to find out who designed it and when no easy answer was available, used it anyway? You’d look at them like they were stupid.
In the States, the copyright is established at the moment of exposure and can only be given away in writing. Period. Every single photo you find at any place on the web, under US law, is copyrighted. Don’t confuse this with registration. Registration allows heavy penalties to be imposed for infringement and may be filed up to ninety days AFTER publication. Getty and many other agencies don’t watermark because the design and ad agencies don’t want to deal with it in their comps.
As for licensing an image at different pricing for China vs. the US or Europe, that is no more a legitimate argument than the price of a house in New York, London, or Fiji. It’s a different market with different values. As web designers, you should be intimately familiar with licensing images. (Worldwide, country, region, primary use or secondary use, etc.) You owe that to your clients.
No one has ben arrested in connection with the improper use of photographs because under most circumstances, it’s a civil not criminal matter. In truth, nothing has been stolen, the photographer and Getty still have the image, there is simply an infringement here.
A major issue that has not been addressed has to do with image licensing. From the viewpoint of the photographer, when I license something to a client, I have to be able to tell that client how the image has been used previously and assure them that it’s not going to show up in a competitive market. When you design a site that includes photos, what would you tell your client if the business down the street was using the same image. Would you lose that client?
When I do a brochure for a client, I require the client to to take responsibility, by contract, for any photographs they may provide me.
For those who say the value placed on photography is too high, feel free to invest $100,000 of your cash (and twenty years of experience) to create your own photos. After all, it’s easy, you say. If you don’t like the price, use your creative skills to find a solution rather than complain when you’re found out.
Just let me end this by saying, most of you would not consider scanning an image out of a magazine to use in a web site (quality aside). Why would some of you consider seeing something on the web and deciding to use it without permission? I know some of you are in a bind because of other peoples actions, but it’s clear by some posts that there are individuals here that think the rules don’t apply to them.
Jim
MrBankrupt
As previously cited on this forum that case involved re-selling thousands of images – it was flagrant and half the defendants never turned up or were subsequently found.
‘What would the position of the forum members here be if someone downloaded a site you had spent hundreds of hours designing, changed the text to personalize it and called it their own?’
If it was not flagrant i.e. they could prove they acted in good faith then all I would ask is for them to take it down. I may just be a mother selling baby clothes however before motherhood I trained in programming and I know that years of research and development goes into any project. The difference in this case is, as (advertised on Picscouts own site) Getty have embarked on an income generating exercise by making extortionate demands on those who acted in good faith.
‘Consider seeing something on the web and deciding to use it without permission?’
Thats the whole point – the majority of us here never saw it on the web and in my case spent a considerable amount of time and effort checking to see if it was.
As for the analogy to houses that simply cannot apply to the web as the web has a global reach and is not confined to a particular street or location. People in Alaska can see the same image just as easily as those in Australia - so that analogy just does not work as people in Australia cannot physically walk through the door of a house in New York but they can view the New York based image.
The fact of the matter is Getty are ripping people (and its own photographers) off – the wrong people! Trust me, GettyImages are finished. Period.
Also I’m sure if you are registered with a debt agency you can’t get credit for loans and mortgages. I use to work in mortgages and it happened all the time. Bad debt means bad credit history. Try getting a loan now.
That only applies if they get Judgement/court order. Anything unproven they have to remove.
Last week a shoplifter who stole a DVD was fine £40 last week in court. It was his 3rd offence. So why should i pay thousands in fines for something i never stole or had reason to believe was stolen!
If it was theft we would have all been prosecuted by now. If it was a legal or legitimate claim then one of us would have been taken to Court by now.
Its all about inflating their accounts to stop their shares sliding even further - well it won’t work as there a lot of people out there making sure it won’t:-)
It has happened to me, this is what I do… I email them - in a non-patronising and informal way - to point out they are using copyrighted material on their website and ask them to remove it. If there is no response then I would send a letter. If no response then I would email their hosting company, then network provider and so on. Basically there’s always a way to take something offline without harming the other party… this has always worked for me and rarely goes beyond the email point.
You see, you are dealing with an unknown entity - especially if it’s related to the internet. That entity may not be able to comprehend consequences due to age or mental ability, that entity may not have been fully educated to understand the full ramifications of copyright law due to their upbringing, that entity may not know who you are and has innocently sourced the material from a trusted (to them) third party and the list can go on…
By approaching this unknown entity in such a blunt fashion you effectively create an enemy - rather than educating the entity so that he/she becomes a customer or friend. Using the blunt method means you must hope that entity doesn’t decide to carry out a publicity campaign to attempt to destroy your public image or worst still, that entity could turn out to be something nasty like a criminal or a hacker.
Basically what I am saying is, you should treat others the way you expect to be treated yourself. If you think you would be happy living with the threat of a random company sending you a large invoice without warning, then I guess you will agree with what these image rights management companies are doing. But realise that not everyone is a typical client of Getty or Corbis such as a newspaper, and as such does not expect such invoices and doesn’t have the reserves ready to pay these demands.
Sally wrote “That only applies if they get Judgement/court order. Anything unproven they have to remove”
I think you will find this is wrong. What you are referring to is CCJ’s and I can promise you if you go and get a credit report you will sadly find you are listed as having bad credit. I had people crying to me all the time when there mortage was denied because of some bad credit history.
Finally it is very risky taking Getty on you don’t know what they will do. It is a little like playing with fire.
But good luck to you. Don’t pay and hope it just goes away. Guess what happens when you fail to pay parking tickets. Your car gets towed away. hehe!
I think you will see Templatemonster going out of business very soon. Just watch.
I have no problem with that :). It’ll definately help to clean up the Web-scape.
Sally,
This is not in your favor:
“Thats the whole point – the majority of us here never saw it on the web and in my case spent a considerable amount of time and effort checking to see if it was.”
Don’t use this as an argument. It implies you suspected there might be problems with using the pictures. Certainly, you were aware that you didn’t own the copyright. You hesitated and did research for a reason.
“As for the analogy to houses that simply cannot apply to the web as the web has a global reach and is not confined to a particular street or location. People in Alaska can see the same image just as easily as those in Australia - so that analogy just does not work as people in Australia cannot physically walk through the door of a house in New York but they can view the New York based image.”
On the contrary, it has been said on this forum that stock agencies have no right to offer an image for use at different prices at different locations. If you have a company that sells a widget, you might ask more for it in France than you would in Somalia, and no one can tell you to do otherwise. It is not some fair trade problem.
Licensing has nothing to do with who can see the image. It has to do with the audience that it is directed toward. If you are marketing your product to North America then I will license to you for that use. If you are a global marketer, I would bill for worldwide usage.
I see you ignored the most important part of my post, that as a business owner, I must have knowledge of the use of my images so that I can tell a client in confidence that they are the sole users of an image.
How would you feel if business started going well, so you invested in a media buy of $25,000 (images, design, printing, distribution, etc.) only to find out after printing that someone else was using the exact same thing? Would you say, “Well, I’m sure they were acting in good faith?” In the real world, I don’t think I would expect anything less than to have to refund all money to the client and pray to avoid being sued.
“Trust me, GettyImages are finished. Period.”
This tells me you have no idea what’s really going on. I assure you, Getty knows exactly what they are doing. They may well do nothing more than send a lot of threatening letters to the small folks, but I’ll bet they have caught some big companies in this search that will get more than a few letters.
Jim