Yesterday, we had a very important court victory against the āGetty Images Master Delegateā here in Israel. A court in Tel Aviv wrote a very long, detailed and totally damning verdict against Marot Images.
This was the first time that any case involving Marot Images as the sole plaintiff went the full distance, and Marot Images suffered an extremely damaging verdict, and hopefully killer blow to their ability to continue with their ābusiness modelā.
Here are the basic details. A woman called Gili Mazor received the standard ā pay up or we will sue youā letter. She signed a compromise agreement, and agreed to pay around $1000 to Marot Image ( Getty Images representative here in Israel ).
She then found me online, and I explained to Gili why Marot could not possibly own the exclusive license needed here in Israel for Marot to have a legal right to sue her. Her case was even more clear cut because according to the website of Dorling Kindersley books (part of Penguin books, owned by Pearson Education), that also sold the same image, they (DK) owned the copyright! In other words, even Getty did not own the exclusive license, so how could Marot have received any such license from them? The photographer in this case no longer owned the copyright. I also wrote to DK books, and they informed me that they had not given an exclusive license to any other body, including Getty (that only had a non-exclusive license to sell the image). In this case, neither Marot nor Getty had a legal right to sue.
Gili then hired a lawyer (the same lawyer as in the class action suit ā Shahar Zamler), and informed Marot that she was canceling the agreement as it was signed under false pretenses and as a result of deception (Marot did not own the right to sue her as they had claimed).
Marot sued Gili for $1000 for violating the compromise agreement. At the first court hearing, the judge warned Marot not to continue with their case, but they insisted. Four months later, they produced (out of the blue) a letter from the photographer in which he wrote that he āgave Marot Image an exclusive licenseā, but the license itself was not attached! The letter was not dated, nor did it state precisely when any such license had been granted to Marot. No agreement between the photographer and Getty was produced (despite Marotās claim that they had such an agreement in their possession).
Marot believed firmly that they would win this case, because they felt that the judge would view the fact that Gili violated the agreement as the main issue. However, the judge wrote a 17-page verdict that totally tore their case to pieces. He threw out the letter, explained why Marot did not own an exclusive license, and accepted Giliās claim that Marot had deceived her into signing the agreement in the first place.
Here is a link to a legal site that wrote a short summary of the case today. Itās a Google translation from Hebrew to English, but itās the best I can do! Actually, itās pretty clear!
http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=iw&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.psakdin.co.il%2Fnews%2Farticle.asp%3FPDUID%3Dnws_nlrx
Hereās the verdict itself, which none of you will be able to read!
http://www.psakdin.co.il/kAnnex/nws_nlrx_1.pdf
You can look for the words GETTY in the verdict if you like ā ××××
The verdict is the first ever that involves Marot Image as the single plaintiff (they had sued together with Getty prior to 2007), and the main conclusion of the verdict is that Getty cannot transfer an exclusive license or right to sue to Marot Image ( under Israeli law ). This was a very important verdict that hopefully will strengthen the class action suit.
I still canāt believe that Marot was so eager to go all the way. They stood to lose so much more than they stood to gain!
Ian Cohen
This was the first time that any case involving Marot Images as the sole plaintiff went the full distance, and Marot Images suffered an extremely damaging verdict, and hopefully killer blow to their ability to continue with their ābusiness modelā.
Here are the basic details. A woman called Gili Mazor received the standard ā pay up or we will sue youā letter. She signed a compromise agreement, and agreed to pay around $1000 to Marot Image ( Getty Images representative here in Israel ).
She then found me online, and I explained to Gili why Marot could not possibly own the exclusive license needed here in Israel for Marot to have a legal right to sue her. Her case was even more clear cut because according to the website of Dorling Kindersley books (part of Penguin books, owned by Pearson Education), that also sold the same image, they (DK) owned the copyright! In other words, even Getty did not own the exclusive license, so how could Marot have received any such license from them? The photographer in this case no longer owned the copyright. I also wrote to DK books, and they informed me that they had not given an exclusive license to any other body, including Getty (that only had a non-exclusive license to sell the image). In this case, neither Marot nor Getty had a legal right to sue.
Gili then hired a lawyer (the same lawyer as in the class action suit ā Shahar Zamler), and informed Marot that she was canceling the agreement as it was signed under false pretenses and as a result of deception (Marot did not own the right to sue her as they had claimed).
Marot sued Gili for $1000 for violating the compromise agreement. At the first court hearing, the judge warned Marot not to continue with their case, but they insisted. Four months later, they produced (out of the blue) a letter from the photographer in which he wrote that he āgave Marot Image an exclusive licenseā, but the license itself was not attached! The letter was not dated, nor did it state precisely when any such license had been granted to Marot. No agreement between the photographer and Getty was produced (despite Marotās claim that they had such an agreement in their possession).
Marot believed firmly that they would win this case, because they felt that the judge would view the fact that Gili violated the agreement as the main issue. However, the judge wrote a 17-page verdict that totally tore their case to pieces. He threw out the letter, explained why Marot did not own an exclusive license, and accepted Giliās claim that Marot had deceived her into signing the agreement in the first place.
Here is a link to a legal site that wrote a short summary of the case today. Itās a Google translation from Hebrew to English, but itās the best I can do! Actually, itās pretty clear!
http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=iw&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.psakdin.co.il%2Fnews%2Farticle.asp%3FPDUID%3Dnws_nlrx
Hereās the verdict itself, which none of you will be able to read!
http://www.psakdin.co.il/kAnnex/nws_nlrx_1.pdf
You can look for the words GETTY in the verdict if you like ā ××××
The verdict is the first ever that involves Marot Image as the single plaintiff (they had sued together with Getty prior to 2007), and the main conclusion of the verdict is that Getty cannot transfer an exclusive license or right to sue to Marot Image ( under Israeli law ). This was a very important verdict that hopefully will strengthen the class action suit.
I still canāt believe that Marot was so eager to go all the way. They stood to lose so much more than they stood to gain!
Ian Cohen