Messages

211

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Beware! Corbis Demand Letter Now Prevalent !

« on: February 14, 2010, 02:36:25 PM »

Interesting ... hired in Jan ... presumably just for this.  Didn't waste much time putting him out there "earning" did they?  Glad I don't use image companies anymore.

http://www.clm.com/release.cfm/ID/1181

212

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Anyone offer a "good faith" settlement?

« on: January 25, 2010, 02:41:21 PM »

My thoughts:

Personally I think its a good idea to offer them what it would have cost to license it.  When I checked on the image they complained about on our site the license fee was $49 for 3 months use in low resolution on a web page. Personally, I think its a good idea to offer at least that or even double.

1) They probably won't accept it.
2) In the unlikely event they take you to court over 1 image you can say you made a good faith effort to settle.

#1 is the belt and #2 is the suspenders.

I'd get Oscar to review your circumstances and write the offer letter.  Thats pretty much the way we handled our situation.

All this is just my personal opinion (obviously Im not a lawyer).

213

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: How they find you

« on: December 18, 2009, 04:21:27 AM »

Statik Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> FYI, I just emailed PicScout to ask if they offer
> a free or inexpensive, self-scan service that
> would allow a web developer to scan their own
> website voluntarily, and remove infringing images,
> without PicScout reporting back to the copyright
> holder. I'm awaiting a response.
>
> Rod


Their site talks about a beta product that might be functionally similar to what you are talking about.  It looks like a Firefox addon that supllies copyright info on images showing up in your browser as you browse the net.  Thats what it looks like from the description to me.  Personally I dont have enough confidence in their company to install their software on my machine (I would be always be wondering what the software is REALLY doing).  I also have no way of knowing if Getty allows them to use their images in the database associated with this product. Info here:

http://www.picscout.com/solutions/image-exchange-addon.html

As for me, I continue to take the easy and cheap way out.  I invested in a good camera and now take my own pictures.

I score it:
Canon 2
Getty 1
Pro Photographers 0
Consumer 0

(at least Getty isnt at top)

214

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Vote for us: to campaign Getty

« on: November 19, 2009, 08:55:26 AM »

Hello Director ... just curious as to what you plan to do with the data.

215

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Recent Masterfile Federal Case Vindicates Our Position! A MUST READ

« on: September 26, 2009, 10:00:46 AM »

The ruling seemed to contradict itself in one area to me. MF asked for $22,000+ .. Brook countered $1,000 ... the court awarded $1,120.  THe court then said it was reasonable for MF to ask for atty fees because Brook "declined to settle for anything greater than the nominal amount".  Brook's "nominal amount" was within $200 of what the court gave anyway.  Did the court see this as a significant gap? If Brook had offered $1121 would the court have disallowed atty fees?

216

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: damages

« on: August 07, 2009, 03:34:58 PM »

pretty incredible, isnt it?  Getty has us jumping through hoops to get [accidental] images down asap, and these clowns can just say no when we ask to have our copyrighted material removed from their server [that they display on purpose].  How did copyright get so twisted?

217

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: damages

« on: August 06, 2009, 07:03:52 AM »

Oscar,

I didnt buy a membership to verify this, but it looks to me like the only history they have at domaintools is the whois records, which just gives info about who owns the site.  It doesnt look to me like they have any historical webpages archived.  Have you seen something different?

218

UK Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Getty file complaint in high court against JA Coles

« on: July 13, 2009, 07:09:21 PM »

They have discussed this case at the FSB forum: http://www.fsb.org.uk/discuss/forum_posts.asp?TID=194&PN=1  (also linked to from this sites front page).

I think the guy that actually designed the site for JA Coles commented somewhere in there.  Its a long thread ... 120+ pages ... so you may have to look a bit to find the JA Coles references.  Since you are in the UK, there is probably a lot of other information you can benefit from there as well.

219

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Windows Vista sample images

« on: July 10, 2009, 12:23:48 PM »

Regarding the fair use question.  I've read quite a bit about this, as a layman (so take it for what its worth).  I found the following site quite informative:

http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/chapter9/9-c.html  (make sure you read the one about the poster that appeared in the background of a TV series for 27 seconds).

Anyway, after all the reading I've done, as a layman, I can answer your question with the utmost confidence: "I have no idea."

220

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Can we just ingnore the Getty Settlement demand?

« on: July 08, 2009, 10:07:29 AM »

Here's a theory (wish I could offer proof and call it fact, but I cannot):  They don't go after Google Images and archive.org because the effect of naive web designers using their images benefits them ... they like this because it equates to more letters to send out with more people settling. They also benefit from archive.org because they can crawl old history as well as current.  They allow Microsoft to ship thier images with Vista in a folder called "PUBLIC".  This, in my opinion, almost guarantees that a significant number of unknowing people will innocently infringe using their images on the web ... which is more letters for them and more settlements.  Think about it ... if you really were sincere about protecting your IP, would you ship a copy of it with every copy of the VISTA operating system in a folder named PUBLIC with no immediately visible watermark or disclaimer?  Some folks may have legitimate licenses that they bought legitimately through sources other than Getty, but have long since lost any proof of purchase.  Some percentage of these will get scared and settle for the inflated demand price.  I think it is all systemic part of their program.  If they simply started watermarking all their images and ceased shipping "example" images with VISTA, Im convinced that the number of innocent infringements would significantly drop ... however this would result in less letters for their program, which would be a reason for them to NOT do it.  Is all this legal technically?  I dont know (Ill leave that to the attorneys and courts), but I do hope someone will eventually be able to prove this or a similar theory and bring an action against them.

btw, I did not settle (1 image).  I probably would for a reasonable license fee for the image in question which to me is their ~$50 low res web use license fee.

In any event, until someone is able to shut down their letter program, I don't think there is a standard one size fits all response to the letters.  A demand for 1 image from Getty is an entirely different situation compared to a 20 image demand from Masterfile for example.  Any recipeint of the letter would be well advised to spend some time reading this forum (especially Oscar's summary) I think.

221

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Used Swishzone.com movie and now Getty Images wants to get me too

« on: July 08, 2009, 08:22:32 AM »

Nice!  Can't wait to see Getty on one of these, and I hope it happens eventually.  Thanks for the info.

222

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: INSTRUCTIONS FOR ARCHIVE.ORG REMOVAL, AND GettyIMAGES CRIMINAL LAWSUITS

« on: July 08, 2009, 08:15:28 AM »

Ariella,

I'm not sure why my edits are relevent or why they would make anyone paranoid. They were all made before any replies to them. You are resorting to argumentum ad hominem ... and I really wasn't trying to argue at all.

The reason I asked if you were hearing this from a lawyer is that attorney opinions I've heard regarding this matter don't give me confidence that a criminal case against Getty would be so cut and dry as you are making it sound.  Here's one such opinion from this site:

http://www.extortionletterinfo.com/forum/read.php?2,583,598#msg-598

I wish it were so cut and dry.  I hope it eventually comes to some sort of class action against Getty to shut down their letter program.

223

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: INSTRUCTIONS FOR ARCHIVE.ORG REMOVAL, AND GettyIMAGES CRIMINAL LAWSUITS

« on: July 08, 2009, 12:29:51 AM »

AriellaGamer Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
...
>
> The very ACT of refusing to provide proof but
> claiming they have it but will only provide in
> court - is ILLEGAL. It's a very clear case for
> extortion.


Just curious: are you hearing this or a similar opinion from a lawyer or the police department you're complaining to?

regarding archive.org ... that is good news if they are indeed now actually removing content now instead of merely blocking.  I'd still advise anyone to test it for themselves based on earlier experiences.

224

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: INSTRUCTIONS FOR ARCHIVE.ORG REMOVAL, AND GettyIMAGES CRIMINAL LAWSUITS

« on: July 07, 2009, 11:41:35 PM »

I don't understand your post.  I wasn't talking about "new history".  I was talking about pages archive year(s) ago.  Here is approximately what I went through several months ago:

1) history from the previous year showed up on archive.org
2) I put up robots.txt and could no longer see the history
3) I submitted the site to be crawled
4) a week later I took robots.txt down and could again see the history from last year (just like on the day before I put robots.txt up)
5) I repeated #2 and #3 above
6) another week later I took robots.txt down and could again see the history from last year (just like on the day before I put robots.txt up)

This is also consistent with the behavior described in the link I posted.  I don't have any reason to lie.  Maybe it is different now, I don't know ... my experience was months ago.  I can't understand your post enough to tell if you tested it the same way I did.

225

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: INSTRUCTIONS FOR ARCHIVE.ORG REMOVAL, AND GettyIMAGES CRIMINAL LAWSUITS

« on: July 07, 2009, 09:50:29 PM »

Do test it.  I did and I found that the behavior was not as the FAQ described. Weeks after following the "removal" instructions, I removed robots.txt as a test and the old history reappeared.  This was in contradiction to the FAQ (the way I read it) even back then, but thats the way it worked out. Maybe this was due to an oversight that has since been corrected.  It would be interesting to hear what you find.  My guess is that your old history will reappear.  I hope you find me wrong.  Please post what you find here.

If this is indeed still the behavior, you can contact archive.org directly and have them block it on their end ... though you may have to persist through multiple form letter responses instructing you to put up a robots.txt file before you get someone to actually read your email and act on your request.  My guess is the content will still be stored there, just blocked at the archive.org server level.  This is better, because at least your historical content won't become viewable every time your website is down for whatever reason (making your robots.txt inaccessible).   However, I suppose that if it does indeed exist (and isnt just blocked) that it could still be obtained with a court order.

I hope something like this (posted by goober in an earlier thread): http://www.courthousenews.com/2009/04/03/ITNevada.pdf will eventually be brought against Getty.  Maybe someone will one day be able to convince the courts that Getty is either purposefully creating infringements or at least encouraging infringements (with sloppy protection) in order to create a cash business of suing and threatening to sue people.