NCS called today

[dang99]

So I finally received another call from NCS.  Their last call was over a month ago and I was not armed with the information that this terrific site has provided (THANK YOU!!).  I was polite, and when asked about payment, I requested that they send me proof of registration. The guy tried to bluff through the fact that they had registration, but when I told him that I was currently looking at the Copyright Registration site (copyright.gov) and asked if he could direct me to the copyright registration he backed off and said that they did not need it.  I told them that I was willing to wait for a judgment from the courts and that they might want to hurry up because my image was removed almost 2 years ago and that the statute of limitations was running out (3 years).  His response was that there is no statute of limitations on copyright infringement. We agreed to disagree on this matter. He then told me that anything that I am reading on the internet is incorrect and that Getty's likely next action is to take all infringers to court simultaneously so that someone like Oscar will not be able to help everyone at once. I refused to give an inch and the called ended when he shouted "infringer" and hung up.  It felt like a small victory.

It is becoming so obvious that their mode of operation is to simply create mass fear by any means (blatant lying and false threat of lawsuits) and settle as many as possible. I assume that since this is not an official "debt" collection, that no rules apply to these guys.

I hope that I get put on some sort of "informed person" list and they leave me alone.  

Has anyone had any further contact with NCS after letting them know that you are an innocent infringer and that you are informed of your rights and of the ramifications involved with the lack of registration?

[Lettered]

thats interesting ...

the tone and content of the conversation you describe reminds me a lot of another poster on this forum who made several posts awhile back.

what was the first date Getty contacted you dang99?

[dang99]

I received the first notice from Getty in February 07.  I ignored many letters and emails because I felt it was a scam from the start. Once NCS found me and started calling, I decided that I needed to dig a little deeper and eventually ended up here.  Now I am trying to gather as much information as possible about the matter and am taking some pride in trying to defend myself.  

It would be nice if all of the innocent infringement victims of Getty found this site and we could have a unified voice. Please direct any victims you encounter in other forums and blogs to this site.

[Oscar Michelen]

I can't believe the NCS rep responded in that fashion. As for Getty taking all of the innocent infringers to court at once so that I can't represent them that has been threatened before (by a poster on this site actually)  and my response was that we are aware of that risk and have been trying to plan for that contingency by (among other things) communicating with law schools that have intellectual property or civil advocacy clinics to help with the litigation if that arises. There are other contingency plans that I  haven't solidified and don't want to discuss in a post. But, for example, folks can represent themselves if need be with my firm providing advice without actually having to appear as attorneys on their behalf. Let Getty take whatever action they need to take, we are still waiting for them to respond to our latest letter which caught them in a difficult position - they claim they are entitled to these sums because of "multipliers" yet court do not award multipliers in these type of cases and better yet - Getty recently sent a memo to its photographers advising them to copyright their images because otherwise it will be very difficult to get multiplier damages. So they are definitely sending out mixed messages.