I guess I should introduce myself somewhat. Have never received any letters wanting to bankrupt me for life so I'm not here because anyone is threatening me per se or anyone I know. Of course, it seems like anyone who has a website and for the most part lives from paycheck to paycheck seems to be the target so I guess everyone may one day wind up in this predicament. Forewarning and education is definitely in order here. Learning a lesson from other people's mishaps is of utmost importance.
Due to my interest in photography and music, someone told me about this particular situation and I and a few others started doing a lot of reading on this. I have photographed many bands as well as interviewed purely for the love of music. There is absolutely no monetary compensation involved in this. That's what I have a day job for. If I found my photos or interviews on someone else's website, as long as I get credit in name only, it's an honor and pleasure. A compliment if you will.
After a few of us read these horrific stories a website has dealt with any infractions. Due to the nature of the website, there is no reason to get sued by anyone over pictures. No monetary compensation is made for any reason and no one involved even has any money. I would say maybe only a couple of hundred bucks would be affordable for any infractions. No one intentionally wanted to hurt anybody or cause a lack of revenue or what not on photos and any stupidity has been rectified and continues to be. Valuable lesson learned with hopefully no horrific financial consequences. We can keep our fingers crossed.
This whole situation really bothers me in retrospect and I'm not trying to malign anyone but I get this eerie feeling that this is being done in the same way the RIAA has done this. Not really with the artist in mind because no artist gets any revenue from what the RIAA has done and in my research I'm not sure that any photographer is getting revenue out of this either. I could be totally wrong on this of course but I haven't turned anything up yet. This does appear to be an issue of wanting to add extra revenue to coffers and nothing more.
Whether you committed an error out of stupidity or unknowingly, to be sued into extinction over one photograph or a handful is absolutely horrible and unnecessary. A few of us have done some looking into the stock photography thing and unless you photograph major political, celebrity, or sports events, I don't think this sort of thing is going to rake in any major bucks and the rental prices seem to be extremely low from what some of us have found.
We seem to have found that at least 98% of those targeted run small businesses and as a result of nearly or lost that business. I wonder if that is one of the intentions. Small businesses while lauded in political circles seems to be on the chopping block in major business circles. The other 2% of those targeted seem to be people with no money whatsoever and I don't think that GI or anyone else really has much hope in extracting large sums out of people who have no money so I guess collecting a couple of hundred here and a thousand there eventually winds up amounting to a lot of cash once it is all tallied up.
The Getty family has a very interesting and lurid history to be sure. GI apparently is now owned by an equity firm that buys up a lot of businesses and perhaps it is their intention to ultimately own every photograph known to mankind and therefore will extract money from probably everyone that has ever had a website or close to anyway. I find this whole thing to be absolutely shocking and will continue to read up on this and be a small part of this community. If I or anyone I know should ever be on the receiving end of this either through stupidity or unwittingly, probably more so stupidity in our case, at least we know who to come to for advice or help and when I have a few bucks to spare and I may have some actually, I will make a monetary donation.
I have been reading a lot of your comments for a few days now and I figured I may as well join the forum and offer any humble input that I can in light of reading this extremely unnerving stuff. I guess I may well be in the minority of not having been contacted by anyone for any reason. No one has even been asked to remove anything much less threatened due to the nature of the website in question so anything done in stupidity that has not been rectified will be.
http://www.artisticrepresentation.com/2011/05/courtoom-sketch-artist-sues-ap-getty.htmlThis is something one of my associates came across. There definitely seems to be a good amount of suing going on on either side of the fence. I myself am not really fond of people suing each other as it seems to have become a national pastime and it seems to have gotten way out of hand. So hello to everyone. I look forward to reading more discussions.
Show Posts
