ExtortionLetterInfo Forums
ELI Forums => Getty Images Letter Forum => Topic started by: gotletter on August 12, 2013, 08:13:25 PM
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As some of you know, there was a 100' wide sinkhole that happened Florida EARLY this morning (8-12-2013) near Clermont. I've seen several articles online that are showing photos of it; most of them show: Photo: photographer's name, Getty Images .
Recently there was a new planet discovered that was pink(ish) in color (GJ 504b for those interested). The image in question if of.. well.. a pink planet on the left against a star background with a sun on the upper right. It was released by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, the artist is S. Wiessinger. USA Today has a cropped version of this image on their website, credit is being given to AFP/Getty Images. Neither the artist nor his pink planet can be found on Getty, however.
There is another image I've run across of The Helix Nebula that IS on Getty's site and THEY give credit to another stock image website called StockTrek Images.. However, Getty is more than happy to charge for use of said image (and yes, you can also pay for use of said image over on StockTrek's site as well - yet on ST's website they give credit to a Robert Gendler!!!).
I wonder if this is an instance of getty taking an image and trying to "claim" they are the ones who "represent" the photographer. The more I look into and investigate Getty the more I see how "in the dark" they operate.
I'm tempted to break out my camera and start taking a bunch of new photos just to see if Getty tries to take em...
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Are these images in their Rights Managed collections or Royalty Free Image collection?
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I found the same image (helix nebula) on GI a few times.
the one with StockTrek's info on it is RF.
there is one with Robert's info, it is RM (exact same image is also on ST's site which on theirs it's marked as RF).
The one(s) of the sinkhole are RM.
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One would think that rights managed images would only be available via one source...I smell a rat...or maybe it's just all of those assholes at Getty Images, and McCormack Intellectual Property Law I smell.
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Interesting stuff, I wonder if Getty is getting so large they are losing track of the RM images
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I don't put much stock in Getty's accounting of their tens of millions of images. The image they wanted money from me for was supposedly a RM image and yet with just a little searching I found the same image on both a free image site as well as a stock photo site not owned by Getty, where the same image was labeled as that company's RM image.
I didn't point this out to Getty's "compliance team" goof or to their main copyright troll and collection agent Timothy B. McCormack because I don't reveal my cards before discovery, but I certainly have those facts in my two-inch thick evidence folder if I ever need them.
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are the images altered? I suppose someone could claim that they started with a public domain photo and altered it into a derivative work that they own. Not sure how the legalities of something like that would work out.
But what's to keep whoever from putting whatever up for sale on the GI website? Is there any control? What if someone created tens or hundreds of accounts with batches of stolen images and public domain images for sale on each account? Would GI ever catch that? or would the "machine" keep grinding out letters based on picscout hits?