ExtortionLetterInfo Forums
ELI Forums => Getty Images Letter Forum => Topic started by: gridd on February 04, 2011, 05:35:38 PM
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I am an HOA Boardmember at a condo complex out in Los Angeles. Our story is as such - several years ago, one of our homeowners piped up that he’d create our website in exchange for an extra parking space (we normally charge $25/month rent for these spaces.) He created a poorly designed site that sat there, ignored, for several years. He tried to revamp it a couple of months ago, but it was still in awful shape. We have no plans to continue using it so as of October 2010, the site has been down completely.
Then last week, we received Getty’s notorious threat package. When we spoke to our “webmaster” (let's call him Henry), he immediately threw blame around – he falsely accused the Board of ignoring a cease & desist letter (which we never received), said he’s not responsible because he created the site for “free”, etc. When he finally DID look at the package, he realized that the images were from the old version of our site. He then claimed that the person he contracted out to years ago had gotten these images from Stock.xchng.com. Point is – he refuses to take responsibility for his actions or those of the people he contracts out to. Thus, we as the Board as forced to deal with this on our own.
We never gave Henry any permission for copyrighted images to be used, which we realize doesn’t matter to Getty. However, another issue we have is that Henry is the one who purchased the domain for us, so we don’t even have access to the domain to change anything. We have no password, etc. Henry purchased this domain in the name of OUR association, but the email address he listed for the admin goes to him. I’ve been on the phone with Network Solutions as to how to get the access changed, but I don’t want to make any moves until we’ve cleared up this issue with Getty.
Since then, Henry wrote an email to Getty requesting help (and admitting his subcontracted designer is responsible for this mess.) They agreed to lower our claim to $2040, which is still far more than we can pay. I called them myself this morning and apologetically explained the entire issue to them. Nonetheless, she was steadfast. I was unable to negotiate anything lower than $2040, although she did extend their deadline to 2/25/11.
Matt and Oscar - what should we do??
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Do not settle for this outrageously high amount. Email me at xxx or call my office at 516 741 3222 and get us to send a letter response to them on your condo's behalf.