new info on Getty

[djsek]

i was talking to a buddy of mine who also rec'd a letter from getty he did some research and found out that supposedly most of the images in question have been registered but under photographers not Getty .Supposedly Getty has agreements to represent the photographers .He also said that most of the copyrights are searchable thru www.copyright.gov under registrations and documents then clicking search catalog.He told me to use the info on their "settlement demand" where it shows the image name and photographer info.I have actually searched and found one of the images via that site and does show it was copyrighted the image in question was titled..."young woman using telephone,smiling,close-up" on the same registration it showed me the actual Getty reference # shown on settlement demand BA60532  ..can someone confirm that www.copyright.gov is government site? Now I am scared that there is some legitimacy to Getty's claims

[Matthew Chan]

Yes, copyright.gov is the U.S. government site.

Matthew

[djsek]

thank you mathew and i do apologize if my tone earlier was offensive..i realize now our passion for this

[Matthew Chan]

Your welcome and apology accepted.  I told you asking questions is perfectly ok here.  

Matthew

[Oscar Michelen]

What was the date of registration? By the way, registration does not hurt our cause at all. The Copyright Act of 1976 specifically allows a court to reduce all damages to $200 per infringement for "innocent infringement."  I have posted some language from federal decisions showing that judges aren't big fans of big corporations going after small innocent infringers

[worried_c]

I just searched, and under Getty Images ...
138 Copyrights

Search Request: Left Anchored Name = Getty Images
Search Results: Displaying 131 of 138 entries

[davep42]

Oscar, I could be wrong but did you mention that getty (if in the even they took you to court) would have to provide copyrights for the images in question?

I am familiar with trademarks, etc. but thought that copyrights did not have to be registered, just published and noted?

One of the reply letters back from getty (on the main site) seems to imply this.  But I wanted to clarify because published work like websites (and I assume pictures) doesn't have to be "trademarked" with the patents and trademarks office.  Only service marks, trademarks and patents.  So do they really need copyrights or just proof that the work was published?

[Oscar Michelen]

While this has been discussed all over the site, let me clarify it once again:  US Copyright law says that a person who creates a "work" (a song, an image, a painting a novel, etc etc)  owns the copyright to that work once it is created. The minute you put the pen down on a novel you own the copyright to it.  Registering it does two things for you however, both of which impact Getty in this situation: (1) It makes it easy to prove that you own the copyright to the work- here one of Getty's problems is that they don't track what their photographers are doing with the image; so that if a phtographer (before they gave it to Getty) put the same image on a site for free download, then Getty may not have exclusive use. Also since the image is not registered or watermarked or copyright noticed, then it is easy to prove innocent infringement.  (2) It entitles you to statutory damages including costs and attorneys fees.  Otherwise you are stuck suing for actual damages- which sometimes you cannot prove or which are very low. You also do not get actual damages for a minmal infringement  and you cannot recover your attorneys' fees and costs as actual damages.    

So while Getty is correct that they do not need to register an image to own the cpoyright to it, the lack of registration greatly effects the value of their claim.

[davep42]

Thanks Oscar.  

I too felt that Getty did not take measures to properly "mark" their property.  As you probably know, a simple "right mouse click, then save" will capture most images (flash excluded) to your hard drive.  The ease of this function only highlights the probability of "innocent infringement" due to the very young and hyper-dynamic nature of the internet.  

Billions of images continue to "float" around the web completely unguarded.  No protection, no watermarks, nothing.  Many have owners who have not taken adequate measures to, or have simply not been able to properly guard them.  No technology exists to do this (unless you want to discuss whether Pixelscout counts as a protective technology)  And therefore, the probability of unlicensed images ending up on a novice or pro designed website in error - is just too great.  

I believe you are on the right track Oscar.  I would want to believe that any judge looking at how the internet has developed would agree with the "innocent infringement" defense - unless of course, multiple violations occurred by the same person and requests to "cease and desist" by that same person were ignored.  

I just hope there is a way to punish Getty for their heavy handed response.  Some very good people who have never been in trouble now have to deal with the extreme stress of a Getty demand letter for thousands of dollars, or a unnerving call to their home or work to collect this outrageous amount.

[AZRealtor]

davep42 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>... I believe you are on the right track Oscar.  I
> would want to believe that any judge looking at
> how the internet has developed would agree with
> the "innocent infringement" defense...

That's where I see a big problem.  Judges understanding how the internet works, how websites are developed, how results show up on Google and Y!, etc., etc.  

I tried to explain a situation involving how websites compete for Internet placement (results pages) to my attorneys (at the largest firm in the SW), and it was very difficult for them to grasp, even though two of them were relatively young.  I doubted they could write an answer to a complaint from a competitor of mine, and so I had to do all the work so they could defend.

I worry about judges being uninformed or misinformed, or not able to grasp how the Internet really works, and how the law applies to cyber issues.

[Oscar Michelen]

I worry about lawyers who allegedly do intellectual property law dealing with the internet and don't understand how websites compete for internet placement.  My partners and I took classes in web site optimization etc, just to improve our own firms website placement. As to helping draft an answer, I often ask my clients (many of whom are very sophisticated and much more knowledgable in the subject matter) to help answer the complaint so there is nothing wrong there.  One of the hardest things a skilled trial lawyer has to accomplish is to make the highly complicated and technical issues understandable to judges and -even harder -juries so that they can understand the client's case.  But courts have dealt with extraordinarily  complicated issues before and have been made to understand the science behind a  case. Its what lawyers do.