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Legal Controversies Forum / Re: A message from the little guy
« on: April 18, 2013, 02:24:56 PM »Reading what you've posted so far gives me the impression that I should be following your model and spending a good part of my time each day contacting offenders and then negotiating fair settlements.Oddly, I get the opposite impression. My impression is that DavidVGolliath probably takes fairly time sensitive photos either in the 'celebrity' or 'fashion' areas. In these areas, publishers and advertisers often do want fresh copies and they want exclusivity. Even bloggers who swipe the photos often want very specific photos-- not just "knobby knees of man on ladder". Taking good, clear commercially desirable photos in these instances is a skill-- and it's not replaced by Getty's batch of Flickr contributors who upload their images -- which as attractive as they sometimes are -- are quite often fungible commodities.
It's actually quite interesting to see many of the difference between the DavidVGolliath situation and Getty. For example:
DavidVGolliath says he routinely registered each photo. Getty asks for large sums for photos whose value is sufficiently dubious that almost none in the entire collection are properly registered. (For example: in the case of the letter they sent me, it seems the image was not registered properly and possibly not at all.)
DavidVGolliath does sue and even for 1 photo and evidently gets settlements in those cases; it sounds like his rate of suing and getting settlements vs. approaching people is fairly high. Getty rarely sues and rarely for individual photos.
DavidVGolliath is dealing with his own photos. So there is no question he has a right to press the claim. Getty has been sufficiently sloppy in dealing with paper work or overseeing contractual obligations that it's not clear they even have a legal right to press a claim. (For example: in the case of the letter they sent me, the copyright owner who was the heir to the photographer was offering the image as a free download for personal use on her own site. Getty doesn't monitor for these uses. )
DavidVGolliath says he makes sure he has a claim. If so, that's different from Getty. In the case of the letter Getty sent me, my use does not violate US copyright law as ruled by the 9th circuit court in Amazon v. Perfect 10. So there would be no claim even if the copyright owner had registered the image and even if Getty had a valid exclusive l icence.
And on top of that: it was a tiny, tiny thumbnail of a photograph of a cardinal on a branch hotlinked into a comment deep down on a web page. (Someone in the UK wanted to know what a cardinal looked like-- so I posted an image link). The photo was charming-- as are hundreds of other lovely images of cardinals sitting on branches that appear all over the place. But the commercial value of this image to the photographer's heir was indisputably small. This fact likely contributed to her decision to offer it as a free download at her own site. Yet Getty was asking $800.
So the fact is: It is entirely possible for some photographers to deserve large amounts of money for the some photos and at the same time Getty's behavior to represent extortionate demands for payment. Often, you can tell the difference when you see the examples of photos and hear the background.
