Hello everyone,
I was given a letter about 11 months ago like many others on this (great!) forum. My circumstances were this: I previously had a Tumblr blog hosted on my own domain name—in hindsight, it was a dumb move to expose my contact info, but still. I "reblogged" a post containing the offending image, meaning that a copy of an existing blog post and its contents were pasted onto my personal blog.
By 'pasting' to you mean the material was hyperlinked? or you copied stuff to the server that hosts your blog? If it's hyperlinked this is very easy: no copying (as defined by our copyright statutes) was done. So no copyright violation. Period. If the later, things can become more complicated. Any comments below are for the 'more complicated' issue.
The Tumblr Terms of Service at http://www.tumblr.com/policy/en/terms-of-service under §6 says that this action of reblogging is accepted, and it assumes that the original poster—not me—has the necessary rights to post the image. I'm only operating on the rights that Tumblr has defined. Thus, either the original poster didn't have the original Getty license, or the poster did obtain proper licensing and thus my post should be protected under the Tumblr Terms of Service. (I'm sure there are legal flaws in this logic.)
First: This could be useful if you were sued and had to defend, but it would be more useful from an "innocent infringer" defense (there by minimizing liability.) If Getty is not requesting takedowns form Tumbler, this could also be useful as it would show Getty doesn't try to enforce the license against places that have lots of copying but only little guys. This might both sway the judge to think less kindly of them, but also you might argue their behavior 'amounts to" seeding. (It isn't seeding directly unless they had a hand in getting the stuff up. But really.. they should to after Tumblr if they go after little guys.)
Second: Unfortunately, Tumblr's TOS cannot protect you as a matter of law itself. Tumblr TOS would be an agreement between the person who uploaded and Tumbler. That cannot deprive a copyright holder of his right through any agreement between Tumblr and someone who is neither the copyright owner nor the owner's representative..
What's weirder and more confusing is that the standard cookie-cutter forms keep referencing me like I'm representing a company. I have emphasized the fact that I'm a college student with no organization, but—you could've guessed!—they don't care.
This is typical. Most typical: All letters will be heavy and intimating. Getty probably will not sue.
I received an email (no, not US mail!) trying to twist my aformentioned company (no, not me personally!) for money after no communication for about eight months. I have not negotiated pricing with them at all and, thanks to relying on the guidance of this forum, have avoided claiming any wrongdoing or any ownership of the image on my webservers.
My long-winded confusion is this: in the dynamic Tumblr blog setting run by a college student who is part of no company whatsoever... does anything change in terms of a rebuttal plan? And is flat-out ignoring the correspondence a reasonable idea?
I"m not entirely clear what happened. Having your own domain name makes things more dicey than running it under a tumblr.com address. The most legally relevant issues are:
1) Did you, through your actions create a copy that is stored on a server that you 'control' in the sense of being able to copy things to that server and delete stuff from that server. (Or, did you only create a hyperlink.)
2) Do you even know if you created a copy vs. a hyperlink. (Some people using Pinterest probably don't know. Intial pinning does make a copy; repinning does not. But I think with Tumblr, often a copy is created by the person using their tool.)
Whether you own the server is probably not so relevant.
The difference these questions make is basically: Are you more like someone who hotlinked? Or are you more like someone who actually copied. 'Tumblr' TOS and other things don't matter so much-- what matters is whether you copied. If you hotlinked: Getty would lose any suit they might file, and they have good enough sense to not file it (especially if they know you know they would lose.)
That said: even in the event you copied, it is unlikely Getty will actually come after you for one image on an obscure blog run by a college student. They generally don't.
Thanks for your input!
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P.S.: Like I mentioned, I'm extremely glad to have found this forum. Nothing like a degrading, demoralizing process to help make an individual feel very low about himself... so my sincere thanks 
Topic: A college student, a Tumblr blog, and a Getty letter (Read 4625 times)