Just wanted to post this as a heads up, if anyone else has had experiences with this company.
A couple of years ago, Destination360 took down the dedicated server for Hawaii Reporter due to an image they claimed was theirs. This story goes into the details http://www.bosshi.com/website-not-safe-on-godaddy/
As you can see it turns out the image was in iStock image, not even theirs and it took us several days to deal with GoDaddy on the issue. iStock did help us, they said it wasn't the first time this had happened. We had tried to reach out to D360 at that time for help and no one every responded. They did respond to iStock claiming that it was a mistake, they did them in bulk and they were correcting the issue.
Since I wrote that post, I was contacted by several others sharing their similar stories which is also found online now.
Fast forward to recently, a new client of mine calls me in a panic to remove some images because they got a letter from Destination360, (it seems now they are going to the getty image letter model, making threats then asking for settlement fees.) Of course I looked and both images were iStock images.
So I tweeted about it. I get an email from someone there asking me what my issue was. He then goes to say "if you are just doing this to get traffic to your site, I understand" and he lists 5 urls where I wrote scam alert posts.
Anyway we go back and forth where he argues with me, tells me that yes they are now asking for settlement fees but are 100% sure they D360 images. He makes some more passive aggressive comments as if I didn't really have clients who received letters, he still felt I had some agenda I am not sure what. Since my client didn't give me permission to share the issue with them, I didn't want to forward the letters so I just gave him the images. He is looking into it now.
On their website they have a page up where they talk about how you can license their images and how they are now asking for settlement fees on infringers. Notice the image on the page? It is a shutterstock image. http://www.destination360.com/stock-image-licensing
While they have their own images (they say they get them directly from photographers) and in some cases use stock images, it seems to me that most of their images are stock and they don't seem to know the difference or have a reliable system. At first they gained nothing by taking down people's sites but now that they have started charging for licenses or settlement fees, they do benefit. I am still not sure if this is just poor management or they are up to something. I suppose we will know based on how they handle it.
I am surprised iStock hasn't cracked down on them for hassling their customers. I wish they would so these guys would stop this. When they took down Hawaii Reporter, it cost them significantly.
A couple of years ago, Destination360 took down the dedicated server for Hawaii Reporter due to an image they claimed was theirs. This story goes into the details http://www.bosshi.com/website-not-safe-on-godaddy/
As you can see it turns out the image was in iStock image, not even theirs and it took us several days to deal with GoDaddy on the issue. iStock did help us, they said it wasn't the first time this had happened. We had tried to reach out to D360 at that time for help and no one every responded. They did respond to iStock claiming that it was a mistake, they did them in bulk and they were correcting the issue.
Since I wrote that post, I was contacted by several others sharing their similar stories which is also found online now.
Fast forward to recently, a new client of mine calls me in a panic to remove some images because they got a letter from Destination360, (it seems now they are going to the getty image letter model, making threats then asking for settlement fees.) Of course I looked and both images were iStock images.
So I tweeted about it. I get an email from someone there asking me what my issue was. He then goes to say "if you are just doing this to get traffic to your site, I understand" and he lists 5 urls where I wrote scam alert posts.
Anyway we go back and forth where he argues with me, tells me that yes they are now asking for settlement fees but are 100% sure they D360 images. He makes some more passive aggressive comments as if I didn't really have clients who received letters, he still felt I had some agenda I am not sure what. Since my client didn't give me permission to share the issue with them, I didn't want to forward the letters so I just gave him the images. He is looking into it now.
On their website they have a page up where they talk about how you can license their images and how they are now asking for settlement fees on infringers. Notice the image on the page? It is a shutterstock image. http://www.destination360.com/stock-image-licensing
While they have their own images (they say they get them directly from photographers) and in some cases use stock images, it seems to me that most of their images are stock and they don't seem to know the difference or have a reliable system. At first they gained nothing by taking down people's sites but now that they have started charging for licenses or settlement fees, they do benefit. I am still not sure if this is just poor management or they are up to something. I suppose we will know based on how they handle it.
I am surprised iStock hasn't cracked down on them for hassling their customers. I wish they would so these guys would stop this. When they took down Hawaii Reporter, it cost them significantly.