Messages

181

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: OK...got a surprise letter

« on: March 22, 2013, 12:04:31 PM »

Yeah, this wasn't really innocent infringement. This was pretty willful and you gambled that you wouldn't get busted. However, I would argue with them about the size of the image. 100 by 100 pixels is thumbnail sized and you might be able to use that to get them to accept a few hundies.

NEXT time, visit a micro stock company like Pond5.com and spring for the few dollars to license the image.

182

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Letter Received But No Such Image

« on: March 21, 2013, 11:26:04 PM »

Clearly this thread is in need of our #gettyflubs tag.

Eznoh please don't loose any sleep over this. At this stage you could argue that it seemed like an Internet scam. Please keep us posted on how this develops.

If Getty really wanted to, they could make PicScout do a better job checking if the image in question was hosted on the actual site. Or they could do the courtesy of actually having someone look at the page before sending out a letter. But for some reason they'd rather piss off current and potential customers and convince them to never do business with them.

183

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Recieved a demand letter today.. What do you think of my response?

« on: March 19, 2013, 08:09:15 PM »

Just tagging this as #gettyflubs

Almost forgot that Lucia came to ELI thanks to Getty not even checking to see if an image is hotlinked.

184

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Letter from photographer over Getty image

« on: March 19, 2013, 08:07:17 PM »

Yeah in this case I don't even know if I would engage this person. If he is truly being represented by Getty, then he is violating their agreement. Is the photograph in question the actual artwork? Or is it a picture of another artist's work?

185

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Getty Images Letter relating to Twylah Tweet storage

« on: March 18, 2013, 09:10:17 PM »

First tagging this as #gettyflubs for future reference.

Second, if this is images collected by an aggregator (twylah) and not even displayed on your site, in my opinion you are free to do whatever you want. You could ignore the letter. Call the company up and launch into a vitriolic hail of indignity, or you could write a letter calmly telling them they got jack.

If you poke around on these threads you'll see Getty has tried to hustle many other people for images not on their site. Maybe you'll think this scheme is evil enough for you to do something about it. You could stop buying images from Getty and subsidiary iStockPhoto, you could follow Greg's lead and complain to the Washington state Attorney General, or you could share your experiences with other business people so people are aware of this particular scam.

186

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: A new tag #gettyflubs

« on: March 16, 2013, 09:49:34 PM »

Nice! I had some of those in mind. Glad you had a minute to get around to it.

187

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: A new tag #gettyflubs

« on: March 16, 2013, 02:26:38 PM »

Thanks Oscar! It's great to see you 'round hear. You really are unstoppable.

188

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Looking to purchase stock images???

« on: March 13, 2013, 05:42:30 PM »

Surprisingly this list does not contain ISTOCKPHOTO.COM, which I understand is owned by Getty Images as well.

189

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Another tale of attempted extortion

« on: March 13, 2013, 12:12:07 PM »

RosebudTiger -- I'm not sure at what point you found the ELI site, but I think you navigated the Masterfile situation very well. You made a reasonable offer, they chose not to accept it, and now they have recruited another person to join our fight and help stop copyright trolling. Good job Masterfail.

190

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Received a letter... No longer own the site

« on: March 13, 2013, 11:59:40 AM »

Is it better to be that aggressive up front? 

The anecdotal accounts I have tell me that the people that come back and firmly state their position and the consequences of continued harassment seem to get left alone quicker. The people that think they are going to "nice" their way out of it get pestered more.

If you are certain of your course of action, you are doing yourself and them a favor by firmly stating your position. That way Getty can turn their fangs toward some other party quicker.

191

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: A new friend and ELI ally

« on: March 08, 2013, 12:15:06 PM »

Nice site. Glad to see others are engaged. I signed their petition, but I have to say I'm not crazy about how it takes your signature and then asks for money.

192

Getty Images Letter Forum / A new tag #gettyflubs

« on: March 08, 2013, 12:09:36 PM »

There are so many threads on ELI that mentions serious gaffs on the part of Getty Images. They include mis-identifying the image, claiming the amount they are trying to collect is ten times higher, identifying the wrong person or business -- the list is quite long. I am going to start replying to these with a tag: #gettyflubs. I encourage everyone else to do the same.

Why?

In the event that GI decides to take legal action against anyone, I think it would be valuable to be able to show a history of what can best be described as sloppy business practices. Being able to do a search for threads with "#gettyflubs" will make it much easier to collect all the times they've messed up and show a history of how frequently the company "got it wrong."

193

UK Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Date on letter

« on: March 08, 2013, 11:58:31 AM »

I'm just tagging this for future reference. #gettyflubs

Clif, if you have the postmarked envelope, could you please retain this?

194

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Getty Claiming I Emailed Them...

« on: March 07, 2013, 03:50:02 PM »

I wish there was an easy way to #tag threads on this forum. That way I could tag every thread that mentions some of the amatuer-hour antics that Getty Images chooses to employ when they try to collect. If they don't know if you replied via email or letter or have the amount they are collecting wrong by a factor of TEN, how are we to believe that they even control the rights to the images they claim to represent.

Threads like this will be tagged with #GettyFlubs from now on.

195

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Masterfile seeks "damages" in Canada

« on: March 07, 2013, 03:44:43 PM »

Yes and be sure to give them a ridiculously short deadline of 10 days or so.