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ELI Forums => Getty Images Letter Forum => Topic started by: phxsunbum on September 13, 2011, 09:56:23 AM

Title: Image deleted well before receiving Getty Letter
Post by: phxsunbum on September 13, 2011, 09:56:23 AM
I download an image from a site that offered royalty free images and included it in a site for my client to review.  The image was on our server but never published to the world, however I assume it was searchable via google until the final product was released and the link published.

After reading about the Getty Letter on other forums I found out about ImageExchange that can be used to identify rights protected images.  To be safe I immediately began checking all the sites I produced and found the image referenced was actually owned by Getty.  On July 14, 2011 at 2:36pm the entire site was removed from our servers as a result of this self-discovery.

On September 8, 2011, almost 2 months later, my client received a letter from Getty demanding payment of $760 to "settle" this matter.

I believe I was proactive and did my due-diligence and as a result of self-discovery removed the image rather than wait for it to be discovered.  I believe this is a valid defense.  Any thoughts from anyone else?
Title: Re: Image deleted well before receiving Getty Letter
Post by: Robert Krausankas (BuddhaPi) on September 13, 2011, 10:10:56 AM
I would agree, hence the problem with archive.org and other sites that cache pages, there always seems to be a trail..