Ok, I’ve been dealing with this for over a year now. They sent us 2 letters without a sending us a take-down notice sent first for two small images of hands shaking we got from a hosting companies website we were reselling for back in the day. When we received the first letter we removed the two images and contacted them saying the following:
Hi,
I received a letter demanding payment for 2 photos we had on our website which we got off the net. We were not aware they were copyrighted and we made no profit from the use of these 2 images. We are also a small home based business which even if we wanted to pay the amount we could not. We have now removed the images in question, with our apologies. Why was a take-down notice was not issued as per DMCA? I also don’t recognize your invoice as valid or legal. As to this issue we have removed them from our website and will no longer use them. We consider this issue closed.
Please Read:
The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (c. 48)
“97.—(1) Where in an action for infringement of copyright it is shown that at the time of the infringement the defendant did not know, and had no reason to believe, that copyright subsisted in the work to which the action relates, the plaintiff is not entitled to damages against him, but without prejudice to any other remedy.”
The response we got from Getty was this:
Thank you for your attention to this matter, we are in receipt of your letter dated January 08, 2008. Getty Images understands you are a small home based business and may have been unaware of copyright law. We are willing to work with your company in order to come to a fair and amicable resolution.
Unfortunately, that fact that your company made no profit from our images is irrelevant, Getty Images only provides imagery but does not take responsibility for how many hits your website receives or how much profit your company makes. We are in the business of licensing photography and we are looking out for our photographers well being.
A cease and desist notice was included with the settlement demand, because of our contracts with our photographers, we must also come to a settlement agreement as well as have you remove the images in question.
The Patents Act of 1988 I irrelevant as Getty Images is not seeking statutory damages, at this time Getty Images is only seeking to come to an amicable settlement in order to pay back the photographer for his work, and our third party for policing our imagery. We are in no way seeking statutory damages.
Getty Images appreciates the removal of its represented images from your company’s website. However, removal of the images in question solves only part the issue, as Getty Images will continue to require full payment of the invoice to settle the matter and avoid further escalation.
Please be in touch with our department so we may come to a quick and amicable resolution.
After The Response
As a result we were called by a company called NCS Recovery which is a collection agency. When the woman told us of Getty demanding payment for this we told them it is against the law what they are doing and she said how is that possible? When I told her:
The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (c. 48)
“97.—(1) Where in an action for infringement of copyright it is shown that at the time of the infringement the defendant did not know, and had no reason to believe, that copyright subsisted in the work to which the action relates, the plaintiff is not entitled to damages against him, but without prejudice to any other remedy.”
I told her pushing extortion letters getty has been sending us and now for a collections agency calling us and threatening us is illegal with getty bulling.
Her reply was this is not a depth collection that they are calling to just settle this matter with Getty. We told them the matter was settled when we removed the 2 images in question and we are not paying a dime. She replied ok thank you for your time.
My advise to you is read the (C) law, they are required by law to send a removal letter first, by not doing this puts them in violation of the (C) Act.
Topic: My Response From Getty Images (Read 15644 times)