Hello! I wanted to share my story and how this site helped after receiving the dreaded Getty Demand letter. My wife had an image on a personal blog for a couple of months before we received a letter from Getty siting copyright infringement. It was a bit of a shock reading through the document and the $800 requested amount for this single image. Though the letter looked hastily put together and unprofessional. We took the image down right away and I began researching these letters to see if anyone else had encountered this. Somewhere in the wee hours of the night I found this site and after reading through numerous accounts of this same type of letter, decided that laying low and not responding would be the right choice for us. I felt that the usage of the image in this blog would certainly fall within the "fair use" category though I'm not an expert to say for sure.
The letter had the typical verbiage; you have 30 days to send the money or we will sue. But we still opted to wait it out. Another letter was received about a month or two later again saying the same thing. But we still waited.
The 3 years have come and gone since that first letter. I continued to read about others on this site but decided to not speak up until we got past the 3 year mark. But I felt the community here helped us navigate these waters and vowed to contribute when that happened. I'm not saying this is the right route for everyone and it certainly came with its share of stress, but it worked for us!
Thanks ELI! I hope the best for anyone else in this situation!
Topic: Getty Demand Letter - Waited it out (Read 3443 times)