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Getty Images Letter Forum / Letter from photographer over Getty image

« on: March 19, 2013, 01:01:31 PM »

Hello, I am new here - I hope I am posting this in the correct place - it is Getty-images related, but the letter is from the photographer. I was a part of a blogging team that frequently featured artists in our posts. We were not claiming ownership in any way - we thought promoting the arts was a nice thing to do (I also realize now that ignorance of copyright law is no excuse - but we thought we were doing a nice thing by periodically sharing low-quality images of art we liked and directing our readers where they could buy the art prints directly from the artists).

Recently, we received a notice from a photographer who says their image is now a Getty image, and that we are to remove the photo at once (we did). They also said it would be polite to pay them (the photographer) an obscene amount of money, and gave an address to send it to (the address DOES match the location of the photographer). They said that if we did not remove the image by a certain date, they would send a cease and desist to our web host to have them remove it.

I just do not understand what type of letter we have received. The second half of the letter matches word-for-word a DMCA takedown notice, but I am thrown-off by the "would be nice" attitude of payment. We have taken down the image and removed it from the server - what now? Do we reply?