Yet another letter recipient

[Nodge]

I received my letter last week and thought I would share my experience to date. I have a home based typesetting business which is only just surviving so when I saw the demand for £1000 plus £230 VAT I felt physically ill. The paperwork showed the full image in question together with a screen print of the image in place on my website. I hadn't used the image as is, I had cropped a small section of it and incorporated it as part of a bigger image. I was completely baffled as to how they had made the step from the image on my website to the Getty image. I had produced the website myself with the aim of zero cost and also to teach myself something about website design. I have no record of how I acquired the image but as a typesetter I am aware of copyright issues and I'm sure I got the image either from a library on a magazine disc or from a free website. I didn't get any sleep that night and the next day I started researching on Google after first taking the image down from my site. A few days later and I think I must have read many hundreds of posts on the subject. At least I knew I wasn't alone but I was still unsure of how to proceed. There was the ignore them and they'll go away advocates. There were those who said that I was in the wrong and I should just pay up and there were those who said get a solicitor. I read all about Picscout and msut admit to being impressed with what it can do. After a week I thought I needed to stop researching and just step back and re-assess things.  I realised that after the initial shock I had started sleeping better and generally just felt better about things - more ready to take them on. My situation seems to be very typical and I had been hoping to find info on a recommended plan of action - maybe a letter template for a response, plus details of how cases had been resolved. I didn't really find anything much like this. So I need to form my own response.

I decided not to just ignore them (though I suspect this approach does have it's merits). The "ignore them" brigade were saying that if you reply they know you are taking them seriously and will pursue you even more. This may be true but I had also heard that you could ignore them and hear nothing for years and suddenly they will start chasing you again. I decided I wanted a definite end to the matter, even if I did have to pay something at the end of it. So I am planning the following course of action ..

1. Reply to Getty stating that it is my contention that the image was obtained legitimately and as such no fees were payable to Getty. As an act of good faith I had removed the image anyway and hoped that would be an end to the matter.

2. Getty will send a second letter, ignoring my response and repeating their demands for the full payment.

3. I will reply stating that any payment was out of the question. They would first need to provide proof of registration etc, (not just for now but for when I obtained the image) to support their claim of infringement.

4. Getty will reply that they have proof but will only provide it when the case goes to court.

5. At this point we could have a stalemate. I could refuse a settlement and Getty could send repeated demands and I could quote various acts and accuse them of harassment. However, I think I would prefer to cite their refusal to provide proof, together with other mitigating factors such as the very low hit count on my site plus the fact I had only used a small fraction of the original image as bargaining factors to try and get them to accept a greatly reduced figure in settlement.

So how does the above sound? Any feel for what the minimum percentage is they might settle on?

Finally just like to say thanks to Matthew and Oscar for all their work on this site. I've watched all the videos

Thanks.

[Jerry Witt (mcfilms)]

This sounds like an ideal strategy. For #4, should they provide proof of registration , then I would require sales records for that image to prove that is the "going rate." (Which, I believe, it is not).

When they do come back at you with #5, I think it is important to just reiterate what you require. Meanwhile it is worth some effort on your part to try and track down sites offering that image for free. Tineye.com may help here. If you can't find the exact image, find similar microstock examples.

[Nodge]

Thanks for the reply Jerry.
With respect to what is the "going rate" I did go through the exercise of checking what it would have cost to licence the image from Getty in the first place. Many people have stated the actual figure would be £10s or maybe £100s. If I enter my details correctly (image on multiple pages, length of time etc) then the licence fee would actually cost me substantially more than what they are claiming in settlement. Even for a medium res image on 1 page for the minimum time of 1 month I believe the fee is £435. As you say, it would be the sales record which would determine the current rate and if there have been no sales then there is no current rate. I'm left wondering what sort of business model is it that allows a company to set it's prices at a level that no-one is ever going to pay. I can certainly find similar photos at around the £10 mark from other places including iStockphoto. If Getty own iStockphoto then why are the prices worlds apart? I could understand it if Getty's images were all exclusive premium quality stuff but what people are being chased for seems to be average quality general photography and everyday clipart like shopping carts.

I had come across Tineye in the course of my research and checked my image. I only get 3 hits but none were offering the image for sale.

[Robert Krausankas (BuddhaPi)]

You can also do google reverse image search. Go to google, click on images, click on the camera icon in the right of the search bar an dpaste the url of the image in the search box..might yield better results than Tineye.

[Khan]

Here is a link with different search engines

http://www.comptalks.com/top-10-reverse-image-search-engines/

[Nodge]

Thanks buddhapi & Khan. I didn't know about any of those. I tried the google reverse image search and it did find a couple that Tineye didn't but still nothing of any help to be honest. I'll try some of Khans next.

[Jerry Witt (mcfilms)]

As you say, it would be the sales record which would determine the current rate and if there have been no sales then there is no current rate. I'm left wondering what sort of business model is it that allows a company to set it's prices at a level that no-one is ever going to pay. I can certainly find similar photos at around the £10 mark from other places including iStockphoto.

I think most of us believe that it is this exact shell game that is going to bring this practice to an end. Sooner or later someone is going to take this fight all the way to court. GI will have to document how many images were actually licensed at this inflated rate. In the cases where the image is mundane, like a shopping cart, I'm willing to bet it is ZERO. Then GI is certainly going to have some 'splaining to do.