Somehow, I missed this comment but thanks for sharing this story. It is quite interesting and for the rest of us to keep in mind. We will continue to report on new information as it is submitted to us.

Check back with the ELI website and ELI Forums periodically.

There is no question that the letter I wrote in 2008 had a lot of rough spots in it. In fact, if I were to do it again, I would have written a different letter. But it was what I knew at the time and I muddled my way through. Nevertheless, that is what I wrote with all its ugliness and imperfections. Even when my Special Report comes out, my ugly, imperfect letters will still be available for all to read. They can copy or emulate it (or from your comment) they should use it as an example of what NOT to write and what NOT to do.

When I write, I aim to be effective and get my objective accomplished. I am not trying to win literary awards or impress English majors. Either someone gets my intentions and what I am about or they don’t. Either it gets the desired result or it doesn’t. As you have alluded to, my letters don’t necessarily paint me in a positive light and they don’t make for elegant reading. But when I am in fighting mode, I am not trying to look good or impress people, I am looking to win the fight and get what I want at nearly all costs. I can be nasty, get personal, and vindictive and I want my opponents to know that.

Regarding lawyers, I value their knowledge and advice but I also don’t blindly follow their advice. I have learned from experience that just become someone is a lawyer doesn’t mean they have wisdom or can get the job done. I also happen to know that many lawyers come from a very narrow perspective and don’t always see the big picture.

There is no end of people who come through the ELI website and ELI Forums trying to find this magical pill or learn how to write a dazzling, legalistic letter to stun Getty Images (or other stock photo company) into submission. That almost never happens. For nearly 4 years now, I have tried to tell them there was no such animal. There are many other factors and forces at play. I have written and provided free posts, articles, and videos over the years to mostly a grateful audience. However, for some, that has not been enough. People continue to email and call me even when I have intentionally left out my personal email address and phone number.

You notice I have left your negative comment up. I do so because I stand by what I say and do. I don’t claim to be perfect but I know what I know and I experienced what I experienced. I have no special claim to be smarter or more qualified than anyone else on the subject except that I have lived this subject for nearly 4 years with literally over 100+ people who have communicated with me through the forum posts, emails, phone calls, and submissions. Further, I work with a team of ELI volunteers that have supported the ELI cause with their insights, research, and commentary. For better or for worse, I have gathered all this commentary, research, and information from the myriad of sources and incorporated them into the Special Report.

Let me go on record and say that 75%-80% of the information is freely available on the ELI Website and ELI Forums. However, that information is scattered across thousands of posts and many hours of videos. This Special Report is “essential information presented on a silver platter” plus extra goodies and the glue to connect it all together. Further, the Special Report is a way to encourage our readership to financially support the ELI cause. Make no mistake, my time and resources are valuable. If there were zero dollars that came in month after month, ELI would have to come to a stop. There would be no new articles, new website updates, and no ongoing forum. I would freeze and lock the whole thing down because I already donated hundreds of hours during many late nights since this thing began.

I never planned nor wanted to get into phone consultations or publish this Special Report. But the need appears to be there. It is for those who are interested in what I have to say, not for people like you who are not. I don’t ever do a hard sell, only soft sells. I make a resource available and let people decide for themselves. I am even telling people that the majority of what I write is already freely available IF you want to take the time to sort and find the information. I am charitable but there is a limit to how far I will go. If people want free, they need to go dig out the information themselves and NOT consult me. However, for those who want to save a ton of time and do want to hear what I have to say, that resource is there also.

Regarding you specifically, my information says your IP address is from the U.K. specifically London. This report is for primarily U.S. letter recipients, not anyone else outside the U.S. although I feel that some of my insights and my approach will be applicable to many outside the U.S. The reason I can say this is that I don’t fight exclusively on the legal front. Most people think this is entirely a legal fight when it is not.

And while I appreciate your comment and contribution to the discussion, you will have to forgive me if I don’t take your negative advice. As an independent publisher & blogger, I write and publish what I want. I decide what I will make available for free and what I won’t. I decide what business I will get into and what business I won’t. I decide which people I want to help and acknowledge and those I don’t. You or anyone else don’t get to tell me what I should or should not do. I get to decide for myself. The ELI readers and community members get to decide for themselves. I stand by my reputation, credibility, experiences, and accomplishments. Anyone who isn’t interested in contributing to the ELI cause or otherwise see no value in this Special Report are welcome to ignore it and move along. I am not twisting anyone’s arm to buy it or contribute to it.

My responses and rebuttals to Getty Images was not my first or last rodeo. I have been in business for 20+ years (both in corporate America and as a self-sustaining entrepreneur). I have dealt with all kinds of issues and scenarios both legal and not legal. I have successfully represented myself “pro se” on many occasions mostly as a plaintiff but also as a defendant. I have written several hundreds of letters, memos, and other written communications in that time to persuade or influence people, so I know something about how to get favorable results.

Bottom line, your opinion is your opinion. I allow others to form their own. And if they don’t like what I offer, I say go offer something better.

Based on how poorly you have handled your own case, you really shouldn’t be offering advice to anyone else and certainly shouldn’t be looking to charge for such a ‘service’.

We received a demand from Vincent Tylor and his attorney for using this image called Lanikai Girl that was found on a website offering free images for download. 3 weeks later I met 2 other people at a business meeting who were sitting at our table who ALSO received the same demand for money for the SAME image. And 1 person who received and paid a lot of money to the same lawyer but for a different photographer named Tomas Del Amo. We all sat shared our stories and here is what we discovered.

One of the people there had found info onlne about people out there providing their photos to these wallpaper sites on purpose so they can sue people for using them. One of the woman called the lawyer and photographer to get more info and asked them why they weren’t going after the websites distributing the photos but going after the little guys. The lawyer (JS Street) said they have tried to remove these images but have not been successful yet and the sites were out of country and that it was too late because they were already shared all over the web. He also said the sites were peer to peer therefore they couldn’t control it anyway. It sounded reasonable.

So I looked to see where this image was, and contacted all 5 of the websites with this image. Only one was foreign. And none of them were peer to peer, they were all sites where you submit your imagery in big files suitable for wallpaper. All the rest of the sites were in the US where they are bound my copyright laws that were clearly marked on their website, and told us they would have to remove the image immediately if they received a DMCA takedown or their host would shut their website down.

One of the websites in Georgia, only accepts images with proof of ownership. The others have a confirmation process so you confirm who you are. One site owner pointed out that only the owners have file sizes large enough to submit (unless they offer stock imagery) so to check if they offer these file sizes for sale and if not, then he must be the one sharing.

Another very interesting thing we learned is that Google will help out in these cases, even for foreign sites. This image that Vincent is suing for shows up high in google searches in a very large size. A copyright attorney told us that all they would have had to do is file a report with google and google will remove it from the searches immediately and will take the distributing sites off google searches too. People holding valid copyrights have a lot of power.

The same woman who contacted them before, asked the photographer directly how the sites could have gotten his image in such a big file and we all saw the email where he admitted to providing it to a wallpaper website. She then asked him why he would go after people then, if he clearly knew he lost control of his image and that people were downloading from sites in good faith. He replied that it is still stealing, that just because you leave your keys in the car does not mean people can take the car and that people should know better. (Good point but to make this more of an accurate comparison, someone would have to promote publicly FREE CARS, tell them where they can go get it, then leave the keys in the car for them to take it, and then sue them for taking it. That is more like what happened here and that my friends is a good example of entrapment.)

Lastly, the lawyer pointed out that the photographers website does not have adequate protection, no copyright notices on each page, no disabled right click, watermarks, etc. All the things that most photographers do to protect their images.

SO in other words, lots of red flags here. This shows that they guy provided his image to wallpaper sites, has not taken the normal steps to remove the image from the source, has not protected his own sources and whose lawyer is generating letters very much like the GETTY letters you discuss here where they assume you are guilty, make it sound like you can get sued for $100,000 and are asking for the same high amount regardless of how the image was used or if the infringement was intentional or innocent.

We all feel strongly that this situation is a little too shady and we are prepared to go to court and let a judge decide. I don’t condone copyright infringement but this seems like a set up and we feel we have adequate enough proof to defend that statement.

Just check out Picscout claims that it trawled the ‘net in 2005 (I think) and found loads of what it decided was infringements and took screen shots. If it claims screenshots are not infringements then we all know what to do don’t we?

So up until Getty bought Picscout in April 2011 then surely copyright was flagrantly broken by both parties, as they absolutely know the law (or so they say) on copyright. And they do it thousands of times every day/hour/second. Two wrongs do not make a right and just because you infringed their rights does not give them the right to infringe yours.

In the UK there is no defence to copyright infringement (as Getty will all too happily tell you) so they are as guilty as anyone else with no defence.

If you check Getty’s T&Cs etc they say things like:

Their procedures are designed to get people to change from infringers to customers (tosh, it makes people non-customers for life!)

If you think they have broken your copyright they say please let them know, not please send us an obnoxious demand with an invoice to make us pay up.

It is also against their T&Cs to ‘data-mine’ their site, which is exactly what they do to the rest of the web on the off-chance.

If you run a site it might be an idea to update your T&Cs to make it a breach for others to datamine your site.

And there are ways to ‘trap’ bots that ignore robots.txt instructions (which Picscout does I’m led to believe).

I’m against copyright infringement, but that means by everybody, including Picscout and those that use and pay for it. Copyright law is not there to be ignored by some just because they think they are ‘right’. The law is quite clear there as far as this layman is concerned.

Unless someone else knows differently.