Messages

2401

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Images from RSS - Getty images letter

« on: January 13, 2012, 08:30:46 AM »

If you plan on responding to them, the first thing I would request is a clean copy of the complete path to the images in question. Again if this path indeed shows the images being pulled from elsewhere, that is END OF STORY..they know this and may explain why it appears blurry... a screen capture or a copy/paste of a path /URL would not be blurry..

2402

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Attorney Bruce Rosen (representing Julie Stewart) Sends Certified Letter to ELI

« on: January 13, 2012, 08:23:47 AM »

What you have to understand is that Julie Stewart of Blackline Entertainment Law based out of of Toronto is really attempting  to clean up the bad online reputation that has resulted mainly because of her own actions. Unfortunatley a few generic and dare I say it "cheesy" articles that are fed to 100's of sites, and complaining to the likes of facebook, scribd and who  knows who else, is really not helping the cause. She would be better served to focus on her law practice...

2403

Righthaven Lawsuits Forum / Three attorneys face Righthaven inquiry by State Bar

« on: January 13, 2012, 07:12:45 AM »

Copyright lawsuit filer Righthaven LLC of Las Vegas was hit with a new problem Thursday when the State Bar of Nevada said it’s launching formal proceedings to deal with grievances involving Righthaven CEO Steven Gibson and two former Righthaven attorneys.

http://www.vegasinc.com/news/2012/jan/12/three-attorneys-face-righthaven-inquiry-state-bar/

2404

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: So I really Screwed up...

« on: January 12, 2012, 08:16:32 PM »

you need to take a breathe, relax, and come back to earth.. This is not even close to the end of the world! Get educated here on the forums, decide how you want to handle it, and then be done with it.. If you feel that you can't stomach this, I would suggest hiring Oscar and let him handle it for you..there really is no need to get all freaked out... Now if you had 50 images on your site, then that may be a little different.

your options at this point:
1 Hire Oscar for 195.00 and it will most likely go away
2. Ignore it, and they will most likely send you more demand letters, ect...
3. Try to negotiate a lower amount, but they tend to not come down to reasonable amounts..
4. pay the full amount, you'll sleep better at night, and Getty image will put one in the win column, and have more money to send more letters, in the hopes that more people will flop over and pay.

2405

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: A letter to my Congressman and my two Senators

« on: January 12, 2012, 08:00:23 PM »

@Lucia

Being that you run your blog as a hobby, have you considered registering a DCMA agent?? It may be worth it to avoid any of these issues going forward.
Iv'e considered doing it for my clients but it would be cost prohibitive for me, and I highly doubt my clients would want to pay for this, although it could potentially same them aggravation as well. I've already had 4 client get letters from Getty Images ( and no I was not responsible for any of them ) 

2406

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Images from RSS - Getty images letter

« on: January 12, 2012, 07:56:26 PM »

Budhappi--
Mikedrag has 3 they found. If he's picking up feeds, he'll likely have more if they look.

But in this case, Getty is wrong for a different reason.  Even if mikedrag's feed reader picked up a million jillions images this way-- the way Google does every day -- even if all Getty's registrations were lined up in a pretty row, even if Getty has the copyright owner suing along side them, even if all contracts are right, if the courts see things the way the 9th circuit did,  Getty would lose in court.   Perfect 10 lost, and Getty would lose.

Also, copyright is one area where the plaintiff can be ordered to pay the defendants court costs. Filing a suit against a hot linker could potentially cost Getty their own court costs and those of the defendant.

I don't think Getty has filed any suits for under 10 images, but don't quote me on that, however I do agree with you 110% that getty has no case, zero, zilch, nada..and this just adds to the idea that they would never go after him or you for that matter, they would loose and that would be "bad for business"

and he may likely have more, depending on "when" they look...

2407

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: A letter to my Congressman and my two Senators

« on: January 12, 2012, 07:50:36 PM »

I'll throw another 2 cents in...

I think it's a mostly an automated process, they hire picscout ( owned by Getty images) PS does its thing, and send reports back, letter are generated and send. Having personally seen 4 different Getty letters and comparing them, they are all identical in verbage, the only difference is the images in question. Again we have no idea how many letters they send out, but i'd be willing to bet that we see a very small percentage here at ELI.

BTW - there was a hobbyist in Canada that got a nice HAN letter demanding 5k for one image, none of them discriminate in my opinion..

We NEED more of those bloggers to make a stink!!

I have visited a bunch of blogs over the last 2+ years that have gotten the letters and made posts, but they most of them didn't get much attention.

2408

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Images from RSS - Getty images letter

« on: January 12, 2012, 05:44:10 PM »

Getty will very likely not  "go after" someone with 1 image! It would not be a money maker for them, plain and simple. You need to remember they send out 100's or even 1000's of letters in the hopes that a % will just pony up the money, and I'm sure they do. Something else to keep in mind is that it is widely known that Getty has been sloppy at best with registrations, the bulk of there images are not registered, why do you think they never show proof, and always say "we'll produce it in court"...cause they don't have it plain and simple... Try as you might to reason with them, but it will go nowhere, they will continue to go thru the usual steps, in the hopes that the fear/stress level will become to much and people will just pay.

2409

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Images from RSS - Getty images letter

« on: January 12, 2012, 03:22:32 PM »

From Wikipedia:

"The most significant legal fact about inline linking, relative to copyright law considerations, is that the inline linker does not place a copy of the image file on its own Internet server. Rather, the inline linker places a pointer on its Internet server that points to the server on which the proprietor of the image has placed the image file. This pointer causes a user's browser to jump to the proprietor's server and fetch the image file to the user's computer. US courts have considered this a decisive fact in copyright analysis. Thus, in Perfect 10, Inc. v. Amazon.com, Inc.,[5] the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit explained why inline linking did not violate US copyright law:"

there are several posts in the forum somewhere discussing linking to images.. long story short, if the path to the images that Getty supplied you do not point to your domain/server, then you should be as good as gold.

Typically the letter will reference the image in question , as well as the URL to said image..thats where you need to look..if it's different you might consider responding to them , pointing this out and letting them know that you consider this matter to be closed.

2410

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Geoffrey Beal of Masterfile Tries to Suppress Information on ELI

« on: January 12, 2012, 11:48:46 AM »

I have 5 bucks that says you will here from Mr. Beal or perhaps someone else at masterfile, stating that this matter is not closed, and they will then "threaten" to escalate the matter. They will simply state that they do have control of the copyright and not this other site. I would have opted to not contact him again, until absolutely necessary.. please do keep us posted.

2411

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: IT Machines, LLC vs. Masterfile Corporation, NCS Recovery Corp. and Phusion 25

« on: January 11, 2012, 09:00:53 PM »

I for one would like to read about this, did you happen to save them as pdfs?

2412

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: A letter to my Congressman and my two Senators

« on: January 11, 2012, 08:15:17 PM »

Lucia:

I'm not going to get into demographics, mainly because I don't think we really have enough data at this point, true most of the letters we hear about are from small businesses or hobby sites. My theory on why we don't hear from larger corporations and such as I think they have the resources to handle these matters in house, whether it be to fight or just pay. In my time here I have seen no examples of any of them being selective..business sites, non-profits, retirees, blogs, we've seen them all.

We also know that very few suits have been filed from any company, and most if not all of those suits were involving sites that used many images, the only exception that I am aware of is the plastic surgery firm in Hawaii, that chose to default.

I't has been mentioned that Getty alone sends out perhaps 1000's of letter per year..and they have even sent their own customers demand letters.

I certainly would not go in front of a judge with only 1 piece of the puzzle ( implied license) I would also be armed links to all of the site said image was available on, printed copies of sites that have the creative commons license agreement, screen shots of what the actual image is selling for ( $10.00 for a VK Tylor 4 x 6 print..including shipping from Hawaii!), I would show  that some of these site are registered / hosted thur go-daddy ( I don't care if they are from the ukraine) and that no action has been taken to remove these infringers (DMCA Takedowns).. am I hopeful??? yes I'm hopeful that the judge got lucky the night before, and I'm hopeful that he would be a reasonable person.. One other I would like to ask HAN if given the opportunity is not only how many letters do they send, but of the total how many are for single images?

I want to be clear here, and state that try to only post my thoughts/ idea/ opinions, of what I would do, I try not to give anybody advise on how to handle this, we all have to our own fights, if I were to do this all over again, I would most likely handle things a bit differently, althought at this point i'm certainly satisifed.

2413

Hawaiian Letters & Lawsuits Forum / Re: Free Baitpapers

« on: January 11, 2012, 06:34:23 PM »

Prison? for 5 years they actually threatened you with this??

Just when I thought my respect level for Hawaiian Art Network could go no lower, I read this!

I am literally besides myself!

2414

Righthaven Lawsuits Forum / Re: 9th Circuit rejects Righthaven bid to block auction of copyrights

« on: January 11, 2012, 06:27:41 PM »

why did the song "Send in the clowns" just pop into my head?

2415

Hawaiian Letters & Lawsuits Forum / Re: Free Baitpapers

« on: January 11, 2012, 05:08:51 PM »

So I asked them.

I was pleasantly surprised to get a reply the very next day. The position of HAN tracks with what has been said here. They say they HAVE issued takedown notices (hundreds), but many in the Eastern European sites don't respond. They suspect that originally a hacker gained access to the high resolution images. Once distributed to free wallpaper sites, they spread out widely.

I invited the representative of HAN to join the discussion here and I hope he takes up the offer.

I too am surprised you got an answer, I wonder if we'll get a visit from someone from HAN at some point. You would think that as a good measure / business practice they would cut some slack to the "innocent infringers" that have stumbled upon these images and used them.... As much as I hate to say it, and maybe I'm wrong, but I still think they see this as an easy way to generate revenue, by using extortion like demand letter scare tactics. and this goes for all of the copyright trolls out there, not just Hawaiian Art Network.