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Getty Images Letter Forum / Oscar Was Paid In March ... No Movement On My Case?

« on: June 17, 2011, 09:42:09 AM »

I retained Oscar's services in March of this year just a couple of days after my first letter ... Inside of a week, I found this forum, contacted Oscar, sent in my payment, and figured the issue was resolved. (My infraction was for 1 image that was up less than 60 days ... I offered a $250 settlement to Getty which they refused.)

Since, a second Getty letter has been received and I have tried to reach Oscar for over week now on a couple of issues ... mainly being, why did I receive a 2nd letter after I retained his services 3+ months ago? Did my case get lost in the barrage of cases I'm sure he handles? Did he simply forget? What are my next steps?

I am posting this not to rip into Oscar or complain openly, but merely as another means of trying to have him contact me ASAP on what's being done, if anything ... I feel like the original letter was never sent and I need assurances that this is being handled.

Thanks!

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Getty Images Letter Forum / OK ... A Friend Got "The Letter" from Getty

« on: March 29, 2011, 09:32:07 AM »

Site I did free for a friend ... It's his side business and the site A ) gets MINIMAL traffic and B ) has been up less than 5-6 months ...

Here's my response to the letter Getty sent;

"A friend of mine received a letter from your company today demanding a $600 payment for settlement in a copyright infringement. The site listed for infringement was www.champions-for-life.com and since I don’t have the letter in front of me yet, I am unaware of the Case ID or Reference#. When I receive a copy of your letter, I will use those numbers to reference the case … However, I hope the URL is enough to start a dialogue.

First off, thank you for bringing this very important information to our attention.  I am treating your letter with the importance and attention it deserves, as the offending image was immediately removed upon my learning of the receipt of the letter late last night. As the site’s designer (I am not a design firm – nor do I do this for a living – just helping out a friend), please understand that this was a completely innocent mistake as I saw the image on a different site – not watermarked or tagged – via a Google image search and decided to use it because of the assumption that it was public domain. Had I known that there were rights to this image and that it was *not* public domain, I can promise you that it would have never been used. Coincidentally, because of this incident, I changed other images that were grabbed via Google Image Search as well as my intention is not to steal other people’s work. However, please be assured that the alleged infringing file has been removed and will no longer be used in any way.

From what I understand, the initial settlement amount was listed at $600 … I would like to offer a one-time settlement of $200 that would be paid immediately should you decide to work with me on this. I am not in disagreement that the image is/was yours … I actually used your site for the first time early this morning and found the image in question posted, so I am not here to debate ownership. (Please understand that no one affiliated with Champions For Life, LLC had anything to do with the site’s creation. I offered to do the site for free as a favor and no one at Champions For Life, LLC was involved in the design or implementation in any way.)

All this being said, I would like to settle this *quickly* and *amicably* and I hope my actions have proven that … I removed the image IMMEDAITELY upon learning of the letter - this is most assuredly a case of unintentional (and far from willful) infringement – and lastly, it was (1) image on a sub-page of a website that receives minimal traffic and has been online for less than 5 months.

I would love to speak to someone at Getty about this as soon as possible in hopes that we can reach a quick an fair settlement in this matter."

Anyone think they'll settle or is a $150 retainer investment worth it? I figure I'm gonna pay something b/c I think it was a legitimate mistake.

Ideas?!? Help?!? Wait and see what Getty comes back with?!?