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Getty Images Letter Forum / Lessons and closing thoughts from a letter recipeint

« on: June 26, 2012, 12:21:47 PM »

It appears as though this debacle is behind me now.  As Matthew said in another thread, "There are some valuable life, business, and legal lessons from this."

General lessons

• First of all, if you get a letter, don't just ignore it and hope it will go away. Seek help, and if you're reading this, you've come to the right place.
• Your local attorney may be a great IP lawyer, but they're almost certainly not as familiar and well-versed on the tactics used in these type of cases as are Matthew, Oscar and others on this forum.
• Assuming it's your first letter, your instincts may not be a good guide. If your instincts run contrary to Matthew's, you're probably wrong!

Lessons for webmasters & business owners:

• Just because the image doesn't indicate that it's copyright protected on the site you're viewing, doesn't mean someone else doesn't have a copyright on it somewhere else on the web
• Don't assume that a "noindex" or "under construction" page is really "private". The vultures have tools to find these pages, too
• Assume everything is copyright protected unless:
  
• It specifically states you can use it (like Creative Common rights).
• You paid for the rights, like from iStockPhoto or similar, or
• You took the damn picture yourself!

Lessons for copyright owners and their attorneys

• The court system is designed for people who can't settle their differences in any other way. It should not be used as a threat upon first contact.
• If you think someone took your photo, contact them, inform them you own the copyright, and ask them to take it down. Most likely they don't realize they are infringing.
• If that doesn't work, you can file a DMCA takedown notice.
• If that doesn't work, try a Cease and Decist
• If the infringer refuses to cooperate, only then should legal action be mentioned.

Over the years, I've seen dozens of my own images used on other people's sites. I've even had my entire website cloned, twice! I have always found that a simple email resolves the situation.  The fact that these threat letters immediately ask for extreme amounts and threaten legal action shows that they're all about money, and not about protecting copyrights at all.

JMHO, YMMV.

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Getty Images Letter Forum / Another recipient of letter from Ms. Wright & Mr. Andersen

« on: June 20, 2012, 11:19:38 PM »

I've received one of these letters, and even after reading this site extensively, I'm not sure what to do.  I've seen Ms. Wright described here alternately as a "troll of Epic proportions" as well as "well respected" (in fact both comments by the same poster!), so I'm not sure what to think.

The letter I received looks a lot like the one Matthew posted on Scribd, but has some twists. First, they claim I took the photo from another business's website, which I did not. The photo was from another source where it was not marked as copyrighted nor did it contain any watermark as claimed. I used this photo on a page which was under construction as a placeholder until I could take my own photo. The page was not accessible by visitors to the site. Anyway, I have since taken my own photo and removed the alleged infringed photo.

So here's the kind of odd thing. The site from whence they allege I took the photo apparently did register it, but they are not bringing the claim. That site owner recently signed their rights over to a newly-formed LLC, which is the entity that's making the claim against me through Ms. Wright's firm. It's like they created a brand-new LLC just for the sole purpose of sending extortion letters. Anyway, they are asking for $15k to settle.

So, what to do?  Many on this site say to ignore it, as it's just a scare tactic and not worth their time/money to actually bring suit.  Others say to "take it seriously," whatever that means.  It's hard to take serious a demand for $15k for a photo that would cost 5 bucks on iStockPhoto, was not marked as copyrighted, was used on a page that was never visible to the public, and is had already been removed!

Thoughts?