Mr. Chenn, glad to get a rise out of you - just like the name of your Website I'm sure gets a rise out of companies like Getty Images, I'm glad I got a rise out of you. Everything from your Website name to your apparent defense of thievery is offensive to me, so I don't mind if you found my argument in favor of paying for products instead of stealing them offensive. Our society has become too entitlement-driven, litigous, and lacking in personal accountability for one's actions and if you're defending the average person who has posted on this forum (who readily admit to having stolen an image from Getting images), then I believe you support thievery, which makes little sense to me, being a person that believes thievery to be a bad thing (weird, I know).
Regarding the infamous "extortionist" form letters, I read up on what the general complaint is and I find it funny that folks are so up in arms about a computer application that seems to be pretty smart and has in many cases searched for and located thieves who stole images from a company. Computer apps are only as perfect as we are, their human creators. This app is going out and doing optical character recognition on entire images and if that image is deemed (likely based upon some % threshold matching algorithm) a Getting Images-owned image, then they search the Getty Images licensing database for a corresponding license agreement between the owner and Getty Images. If none exists, the app sends a form letter to the owner of the domain informing them of the copyright infringement. They actually go a step further by showing the image and the the retail price of the image, both of which seem like nice things to display to the potential offender to me.
In most cases, it appears the algorithm used and the verbiage in the form letter is correct. In those cases where the algorithm incorrectly identifies thievery, unless it's a large, gross violation, it sounds like Getty's doing nothing besides letting the app send more form letters, even though they likely could sue for the damages from the person or company that stole their image. In those cases where a human replies back and contests the issue, it sounds like they're dropping the issue. I don't know how many of these auto-letters they're sending or how many responses they get back, but it sounds like there is very little human intervention from Getty's side. They're simply trying to capture revenue lost to thievery, as any reasonable person would expect them to do.
Anyways, you're right, I'm just a schmoe who read a Bloomberg article and found a link to your site and who believes your claim that Getty Images is "extorting" people ludicrous (and effort in creating an entire domain and community to slander them). I'm willing to be proven wrong and I've read cases on these forums where extenuating circumstances caused by a 3rd party not telling a person that the images they said they could use were stolen from Getty Images, or that documentation didn't show the right owner desipite a legal license agrement and therefore set off a trigger for the form letter. For those scenarios, I hope folks are able to come to a reasonable resolution with Getty, which given my past dealings with the company, I have no doubt they will. For those scenarios (which appear to be more often than not) where someone is complaining about the price of a Getty Images image as the justification for why they stole the image, I have no sympathy - they're a thief and deserve the label, regardless of your defense of them or not.
About your personal attacks regarding my login - it wasn't any particular attempt to "hide my identity", but I do appreciate it when I'm able to make folks resort to personal attacks - it usually means your argument is weak, so you have to resort to personal attacks. My name is Matt Gibbs. I'm from Portland Oregon and I work in IT - nice to meet you. Like I said, I interned with Getty 11 years ago as a college project, I have followed the company's progress ever since and kept in touch with my old contacts there (who still work there) and still have favorable views about the company's methods, business dealings and interactions with the public.
A little that I know about Getty Images again, just in case you're wondering why I'd defend them. I know that they employ over 10,000 photographers worldwide. For every 100 images that Getty pays those photographers to take, Getty is able to turn 1 into a stock image which they can sell on their Website. That means, it's very costly to them to obtain the images they sell. Furthermore, I know that Getty Images has some of the most complex data centers and database mirroring in the world (IT geek stuff, you don't have to follow, but know they do it in a very large scale and very well (5 9's up-time for example)), all to handle the largest digital stock photography database in the world. It's not cheap to pay for all of those data centers, hardware, and support staff.
So, I don't hold a grudge against them for their pricing. I've actually had opportunity to advocate purchasing Getty Images with my employer and I readily did it. They're a good company, they have a good product, they conduct themselves in a reasonable manner without exploiting labor or destroying our earth and they deserve to make a reasonable profit. I don't feel stealing from them is okay and I don't believe they're doing anything wrong in utilizing a software application that helps them to locate thieves and attempts to collect from thieves. If that application has incorrectly identified honest individuals, I hope they are able to easily come to a resolution with the company, which I'm sure they will because it's a reasonable company.
Topic: Extortionist (Read 17429 times)