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Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Client received letter demanding $15,000 for single image usage. How to respond?

« on: December 02, 2012, 12:21:54 AM »

Gentlemen,

Greatly appreciate your responses and insight. Because I'm not an attorney nor versed in this sort of matter, I want to be very careful about  any mis-steps or posting information without my clients knowledge or approval. I've sent my client an email asking for their permission to post the letters received by the law firm.

Regarding the law-firm, I posted a link to an article (in my original post) which references the attorney that represented the photographer.

I'll post more on this shortly. And again, THANK YOU for taking the time to respond.

Greatly appreciated!

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Getty Images Letter Forum / Client received letter demanding $15,000 for single image usage. How to respond?

« on: November 30, 2012, 09:37:04 PM »

Some Background:

I am web designer who was hired to develop an ecommerce site on behalf of a client in Dec 2011. The Ecommerce store launched around Feb 31, 2012.

Around September 30,  2012 my client informed me that they had received a letter from a law-firm stating that one of the banner images used on the store was a copyrighted photo and the firm had been retained by the original photographer to seek monetary damages.

My client (who has a CMS) immediately took the photo down and wrote an email to the firm stating that they were not aware of the copyright violation, immediately removed it, and apologized for the oversight. 

During the development of the store, I had a buddy (who is learning design) help in sourcing stock photos from free stock sites. I implicitly explained to stay away from any Getty photos and to check if there was a Creative Commons license for commercial usage on any photos that were sourced from the countless “free stock photo” sites.  Unfortunately, one of the shots (which was repurposed as a banner) was copyrighted and now the law firm is seeking damages in the amount of $15,000 for a single photo that was accidently used for roughly 7 months on the store

In doing some research, it appears that this person/law firm is  an adovacate and quite versed in photo copyright and there’s numerous sightings of his name on various cases.  I can’t attest to wether this firm/person is a copyright troll, but I read the article below which is quite sickening and this attorneys defense of his photographer client seems a bit absurd.

http://www.petapixel.com/2011/02/19/public-outcry-causes-photographer-to-drop-copyright-lawsuit/

I’m not disagreeing that the photographers copyright was violated but the intent was not willful in any manner.  Nor did my friend knowingly use copyrighted material. It was an oversight while working on the site and accidental usage of an image.

I’ve since tried to determine where the shot ‘may’ have come from. In doing some research, the photo in questions is publically posted on a stock sharing site under a different filename and different author than the original photographer. Additionally, the photo in question is on numerous other sites that I have identified.

I feel that this is an extortion tactic to try and squeeze dollars from my client who  does not have the resources to pay $15,000 for a single image. Nor do I feel that the damages that this firm is seeking on behalf of their client are justifiable.

The firm recently sent my client a letter stating that they have 10 days to respond to the $15,000 demand.

Some questions:

1. How should we respond?
2. Should my client make an offer to settle?
3. Neither myself nor my client can afford attorney fee's. Is there some sort of pro-bono outfit that we can perhaps get some additional insight from?

Looking for any insight on how to handle this. I’ve been a freelance designer/developer for nearly 18 years and this is the first time I’ve encountered anything like this.