I've never seen this picture before??

[tlc.reprofessional]

I am a Realtor, which means that I am "self-employed" and maintain every aspect of my business myself. I recently started receiving letters from Getty Images addressed to my broker's Legal Department with my name on it; ie: Legal Department/Broker's Name - My Name/Broker's Address. It's probably worded the same way every else's letter is so I won't go into that. I'm having an issue with the fact that they are sending me letters stating that I've been using a picture on my website that I've never even seen before! It's a picture of a dog and cat sitting next to each other, nothing at all do to with real estate. I've been doing some research and every blog and post I've seen says that the first thing to do upon receipt of this letter is remove the image. How can I remove something that was never there? It seems that the majority of people have used one of their images unintentionally, but what happens in my situation?
When I received the first letter, I kind of laughed it off because it was so ridiculous that some company was going to try to con me out of $800 for a picture that I've never even seen before. I figured they'd get the hint that I'm not naive and it would go away. I was wrong. I received another letter 30 days later telling me I had better respond. I'm not laughing anymore. I'm not afraid that anything will happen to me, because I did nothing wrong. I am, however, irritated that they are making false accusations and threatening to sue me for something that never happened. How do I make it stop?

[Robert Krausankas (BuddhaPi)]

did they supply you a screen capture showing your page with the image on it?? I have seen examples where the image is never on the site, but is displayed by an ad feed, which would NOT be an infringement..IMHO this is a perfect scenario for filing complaints with the Wash. Attorney General, especially if they continue to hound you for no reason..

[tlc.reprofessional]

Not quite. The letter states "Attached is a copy of the image(s) in question along with the usage found on your company's website." However, they only provided a picture of what they said I posted on my website. It goes on to say "Usage: Web - Corporate or promotional site" "Placement: Secondary page" Release Information: No release, but release may not be required." Then under "Screen Capture" is a blurry image of what I think they're saying is my website, but it's not. 

[Lettered]

I think that picscout can find images that you cant navigate to with the normal links.  Maybe whoever designed your website left something behind?  Did Getty mention the URL?

[tlc.reprofessional]

No URL for where the picture is supposed to be, just my home page address. I did the website through my broker's templates. It's pretty basic. I'm no techie, so I'm not sure what you mean by "left something behind". If you'd like to check it out, it's www.realestatetlc.com. I clicked on everything and can't find what they're talking about. Like I said, it's the most basic of basic, nothing fancy. And there's no reason why I would have pictures of animals on a site designed to sell houses   

[Robert Krausankas (BuddhaPi)]

it's possible that picscount followed the url of your page image, and scoured that url and found a hit, in laymans turns, I looked at your code and the images are coming from outside of your site, there may have been a cat/dog image in this directory, and getty is simply assuming the image appeared on your site.. they have no case, zero, nada, tell them to pound salt, as the image is not nor never was on your site, tell them you will file complaints if they continue to pester you, and if it were me I would also tell them, they will be invoice for every minute you have to devote to this..time is money....asshats

[stinger]

If you ever get to the bottom of how Getty found this image and attributed it to you, this may be a Gettyflub and any information learned my be useful to anyone on this site who may some day wind up in court with Getty.

My thought is that their process is (might be) flawed.  If so, failure to correct said flaw, might help in proving a case of extortion against them someday.

[tlc.reprofessional]

Thank you so much guys! I'm glad this isn't all in my head. This site and its contributors are amazing and I will absolutely keep you posted on how everything turns out.

[Jerry Witt (mcfilms)]

tagging this: #gettyflubs