I agree with Mr Michelen. If youâre worried about it, you can ask for a âfull releaseâ which would simply state that the matter is settled, and cannot be brought up in the future. If you have other images on your site whose origin youâre not sure of, you should remove those to avoid possible future trouble.
Iâve seen quite a few people on this forum state that Copyright Trolls such as Getty or Masterfile are harassing them over one or two images. There are some things that are important to keep in mind in such situations. These cases are extremely low-priority. At any one time, the Copyright Trolls are likely pursuing thousands of similar people. Although they make it seem that the copyright boogeyman is out to get you, you must realize that thereâs no âwar roomâ set up with your name on the wall, theyâre not saying âthat ignorant John Doe who stole one image better pay upâ in the boardroom, and theyâre not saying your name in the lunchroom on break. They have a project management system on computer that reminds them of who they need to send letters (or even phone) to at preset intervals. The letters are simply form letters with your name stuck in there saying youâve stolen âxâ number of images on âyâ date, and âhereâs another photocopy of your web siteâ attached. Each form letter is pre-made to sound more serious in tone each time, to make it seem like things are escalating. Although the fact that they donât negotiate on price makes it appear that they are confident and quite serious, the real fact is that they simply could not afford the staff that it would take to make deals with thousands of people, so the answer is, âjust pay itâ. Those who have allegedly absconded many images might wonder why they always phone on Wednesday at 1:30 PM, for example; thatâs simply their project management system reminding them to bug you at a preset time; theyâll spend a couple of minutes a week on each target. They next guy always gets called on Wednesday at 1:32 PMâŠ
Getty in particular hasnât done much to copyright any of their content at this time. So, the likelihood of them winning anything in court is practically non-existent. Similar companies are presently losing court cases because they didnât register their content correctly, so how could Getty win by not registering anything at all? To keep things in perspective, imagine that they sued you for use of their $49 image. Even if they won, and got their legal fees awarded too, they would net a big $49 dollars for going to court. That $49 dollars would be eaten up several times over by the labor of preparing a case. Itâs just not worth it for them to sue you for one or two images. In addition, they cannot âinventâ phony damages and seek them in court. Even if you used one of their images, this never prevented them from selling the image to others or damaged the reputation of the company, etc.
The more Copyright Trolls such as Getty, Masterfile and others harass people, the more their reputation is damaged. Type âgettyâ into Google search. Google attempts to complete the search with âgetty imagesâ. But how long before thatâs replaced with âgetty extortionâ, or âgetty copyright trollâ? People will click on those to see what the rhubarb is about, then theyâll begin to approach any business with them with distrust, and they lose. You donât need an MBA to figure that out.
S.