It's my heartfelt intention that people hit with these letters will not suffer too much, not let the negative energy from such an ordeal get the best of them. We can rise above these types of conditioned responses and trust in our innate power to see us through!!! It will all work out. Thx to this website, I’ve learned a lot and it confirmed my position to not pay the demands of Getty Images. It also validated that I won’t let my feelings of fear, guilt, anger, etc. control me. If I do, that’s my choice, my responsibility, and I can’t blame GI for that.
I know how it feels when you read the GI letter and your heart sinks. WTF?!?! If you’re like me, you know that you did, in fact, use a photo from the internet that you innocently and naively thought was OK to use (it didn’t have any copyright symbol on it). You feel stupid that you did it and you admit your guilt. I’ve been intrigued with various photos that flash on my screen daily via John’s Background Switcher and have saved many pix just for my pleasure to refer to. I simply right-clicked “save as” into my library of photos. Then, one day, decided to use one for my website not even occurring to me that I was doing anything “wrong.” I thought if these are all out there, they can be used. I know, I was naïve and I now see that this was a false assumption.
I do respect, now that I know, that someone owns these photos and I shouldn’t have used one without permission. But I also believe photographers, GI, etc. shouldn’t allow these to be out there free, for the taking, and so easy to “save” into our libraries if it’s illegal to do so. There was never anything associated with the photos to warn me that this was copyrighted and that I’d be stealing it if I used it. This is one of the dangers of the internet that is not regulated. Glad to see a petition has been started to address this and hope it actually goes somewhere.
But back to my point of this article. There are forces hitting us every day that want to bring us down, make us feel guilty, that there’s something wrong with us, etc. Notice, do these thoughts go through your mind in various circumstances? And these often come through fear-based tactics – like what Getty is applying.
It’s interesting to me that this arose on my “movie screen” of experience at a time when I’ve been consciously taking a stand for my power and reversing a pattern in my life where I’ve given my power over to authority figures, such as forces that are related to me earning income or that require me to pay expenses. I’ve felt powerless in the face of these false “powers” sometimes and it has even led me to feel depressed on occasion where it just seems like too much. So, I’m welcoming this opportunity and am refusing to give in to Getty’s demands as a part of my practice to reclaim my power.
I know how it feels when you read the GI letter and your heart sinks. WTF?!?! If you’re like me, you know that you did, in fact, use a photo from the internet that you innocently and naively thought was OK to use (it didn’t have any copyright symbol on it). You feel stupid that you did it and you admit your guilt. I’ve been intrigued with various photos that flash on my screen daily via John’s Background Switcher and have saved many pix just for my pleasure to refer to. I simply right-clicked “save as” into my library of photos. Then, one day, decided to use one for my website not even occurring to me that I was doing anything “wrong.” I thought if these are all out there, they can be used. I know, I was naïve and I now see that this was a false assumption.
I do respect, now that I know, that someone owns these photos and I shouldn’t have used one without permission. But I also believe photographers, GI, etc. shouldn’t allow these to be out there free, for the taking, and so easy to “save” into our libraries if it’s illegal to do so. There was never anything associated with the photos to warn me that this was copyrighted and that I’d be stealing it if I used it. This is one of the dangers of the internet that is not regulated. Glad to see a petition has been started to address this and hope it actually goes somewhere.
But back to my point of this article. There are forces hitting us every day that want to bring us down, make us feel guilty, that there’s something wrong with us, etc. Notice, do these thoughts go through your mind in various circumstances? And these often come through fear-based tactics – like what Getty is applying.
It’s interesting to me that this arose on my “movie screen” of experience at a time when I’ve been consciously taking a stand for my power and reversing a pattern in my life where I’ve given my power over to authority figures, such as forces that are related to me earning income or that require me to pay expenses. I’ve felt powerless in the face of these false “powers” sometimes and it has even led me to feel depressed on occasion where it just seems like too much. So, I’m welcoming this opportunity and am refusing to give in to Getty’s demands as a part of my practice to reclaim my power.