Possible Class action strategy against Getty Images by Photographers

[Matthew Chan]

Over the years, there has been quite a bit of mention to file a class action against Getty Images.  Recently, Katz v. Getty Images was settled. However, that lawsuit alleged that Yahoo Flickr users were not getting paid commissions. Based on memory, I think there was a complaint about whether photographers even willingly enrolled into the program. Regardless, knowing Getty Images' ugly copyright extortion operation where they regularly engage in dishonest behavior, there might be an opportunity for photographers to file a class action against Getty Images if they believe that the monies being collected from their extortion letter program is not being properly or equitably distributed to the photographers.

Photographers are going to be on the short end of the stick because I believe the agreements they sign allows Getty to charge whatever administrative fees they deem appropriate under the auspices of collection efforts and legal fees.

My guess is that Getty Images could be engaged in a form of "Hollywood accounting" whereby it doesn't how much money a media project generates in revenues, "creative accounting" techniques are used to assign egregious administrative-related expenses to a media project thereby creating the illusion that a project is unprofitable.

Given how much money Getty is earning through their extortion letter program, I am not convinced that photographers actually get much of it at all. It would not surprise me if the "copyright compliance" department assigns such a high administrative cost that photographers see very little monies collected.

It is especially convenient now because Getty can now "double dip" because it also owns PicScout. One dips through "revenues" collected by PicScout, then another dip when it goes through the Getty copyright compliance department.

According to GlassDoor, Getty attorneys make a nice base salary of $120K-$170K. But then there is this "bonus" of $40K? 

http://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Getty-Images-Attorney-Salaries-E7793_D_KO13,21.htm

Since when do corporate lawyers get bonuses unless it is tied in to performance? It seems to me that the Getty corporate lawyers "performance bonuses" is most closely tied into their extortion letter program as they have the most direct impact there vs. other sales goals that might exist for the company.

The Getty Images corporate compliance lawyers are probably one of their few lawyers in any company that might have a huge bonus incentive.  Their department is a revenue-generation department not a loss recovery one.  The distinction is that revenue-generating is expected to generate monies in excess of their expenses.  Loss recovery is an operation where you only get what you would normally charge someone minus overhead.  You never collect as much as if you had a cooperative, full paying customer. Loss recovery is often associated with collections departments.  Their job is to collect as much as they can but it never exceeds "market value" or the face value of debts being owed. They don't pad the collection amount.

The copyright compliance departments routinely collect monies many multiples in excess of market value. Hence, I refer to them as a revenue-generation department.

In any case, Getty is hated by many including photographers.  All it would take is one disgruntled photographer to initiate a class-action suit against Getty Images regarding unaccounted "revenues" generated from the copyright compliance operation.