Messages

2806

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Profile sniffers

« on: August 19, 2011, 02:21:52 PM »

Thanx for sharing DoctorC and welcome to the forum!

Going to look further into the bot trap, it's seem a little outdated so some modification may be in order. I've already blocked all of Israel, but now that getty has accquired picscout there is the chance they may move the operation to the states..

2807

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: A purely hypothetical question

« on: August 19, 2011, 06:57:58 AM »

I'm hoping picscout is still based out of israel as I've blocked every IP from there via htaccess, sine we know picscout doesn't adhere to robot.txt. Could you possibly post a screenshot of a portion of a log showing piscouts spider, I'd be curious as to if there are any other telltale signs that may be worth adding to my file.

2808

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: A purely hypothetical question

« on: August 18, 2011, 05:04:32 PM »

Thanx for the detailed feedback SG!

It was the visual part that got me to thinking about it.. I would think whomevers is manning the picsout division, they they would bother to have someone actually visually inspect the domains in questions, but it's certainly plausable.

And I would have to agree that "pulling" an image would be willful infringement.. On the other hand if a company is "pushing" the image in question I would have to think and hope that any judge would toss this out without batting an eye. I hope the person that first mentioned this comes  back here with an update..

What are you thoughts on whether when picscout does it drilling if it can get into password protected directory's?? I would think not, but if they did there could be some case against them, and in like breaking and entering for lack of a better term. The reason why I bring this up, is when developing sites for my clients I almost always upload the projects on the backend of my domain behind a password protected directory, so the client can see the development as it progresses.. as I've said before I'm almost certain that some client supply me with images they grabbed off the net..any thoughts?

2809

Getty Images Letter Forum / A purely hypothetical question

« on: August 18, 2011, 12:39:49 PM »

Again to much time on my hands, I should be registering my works so I can make some fast cash!! just kidding...

So I have a site and saw this really cool image of the Nebraska skyline, I truly love this image but am to cheap to purchase it, so instead I just link directly to the image from the photographers blog, cause the one he has there doesn't have the ugly watermark... So now the image "appears" on my site, but is not on my servers, I'm guessing I could still be on the hook??

I think i saw a similair thread somewhere, where someone had an ad banner being dynamically served to his site and the banner had a portion of one of getty's images on it..They didn't seem to care that the actual file was hosted elsewhere, and proceeded to go after him anyway..

You'd think if picscout was scanning the server for images in question, it would not "see" this image as it's only a link, and doesn't it have to read the code...last i knew bots/crawlers didn't have eyes in which to actually view an image online..

okay back to your regular scheduled programming unless you feel the need to discuss this which would be nice

2810

Getty Images Letter Forum / Karma is a wonderful thing

« on: August 18, 2011, 09:18:30 AM »

I'd post the entire article here, but i don't want to ruffle any feathers! 

COURTROOM ARTIST SUES AP, GETTY

http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/news/artnetnews/courtroom-artist-sues-ap-getty.asp

2811

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Masterfile, Getty and others act like a dumb farmer. US courts too dumb to see.

« on: August 18, 2011, 07:59:15 AM »

Speaking as a web developer/designer, I have always insited that my clients supply me with all images and content for various reasons. I never took it upon myself to educate my clients to the risk of grabbing images from google search, until recently.. Now they get a quick education and at least my side of the street is clean..It's amazing to me how many of my clients brush it off as nothing and continue to send me images to use which are clearly stock images and I just know they didn't purchase them.. So yes there actually innocent infringers out there and a good number of them I am sure, then there are the others keep that help the letter campaign rolling along..

I just had a client call me yesterday telling me she had her daughters friend build her a new site, she's fresh out of college and just starting her business.. I go to look at the site and low and behold there is a page with the privacy policy/ terms of use which I generated years ago and use it for most of my sites, it's the only content I don't require my client to supply me with..so she grabbed my content for which I own the copyright to..  I guess I could send a letter with a cease and desist, just to prove a point but I'm not in the mood to be pissing in the wind today..


Another client notified me that another realtor was using his verbiage from his site, after checking out the pages in question, the infringer did indeed copy the content verbatum, going as far as to not even strip out/replace my clients name, she had about 5 pages worth of stuff on her real estate site telling people why  they should hire my client as their real estate purposes. That was classic

2812

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: GR/PPH/CON Form

« on: August 17, 2011, 06:13:52 PM »

What he's saying is that instead of filling out "paperwork" you can submit the forms online and save yourself some money. I think there is a 3 month grace period as far as infringement is concerned.. In other words if I swiped one of your images that fro my site, and you found it, and said "Ha Busted!" then realized that the image in question was never registered, you have 3 month to register the image in order to try to collect any damages... at least "think" this is how it works, but admittedly sometimes my thinking is way off base, perhap newzshooter will chime back in and correct me if i am wrong...

2813

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Getty sends DCMA notice to google

« on: August 17, 2011, 03:46:25 PM »

Thanks to buddhapi for posting the link.  Great research as always!!

In all cases, the ISP hosting a site is protected by the DMCA, whether it's Google, or GoDaddy.

Reasearch?? I like that, even if it looks like I have too much time on my hands! I actually stumbled upon it  un-intentionally  

So SG, If i'm a hosting provider would I be covered by DMCA? , not that i'm to concerned, I'm not scared of anything at this point in my life..

 I've had several clients get letters that host with me, and the first thing they do is call me frantically..I've been warning client of this issue since I became involved, but some just don't want to hear it.. I have it in TOS that if I receive and copyright infringment notices, DMCA notices or whatever, their accounts will be closed, and all files deleted..& no refunds end  of story..

2814

Getty Images Letter Forum / Getty sends DCMA notice to google

« on: August 17, 2011, 11:34:23 AM »

I would not want to be the user on the other end of this, I'd be willing to bet they got a very long letter, with lots of pages...and they probably had their picasa account yanked..

http://www.chillingeffects.org/dmca512c/notice.cgi?NoticeID=69280


::EDIT:: can GI actually go after the end user in this case...the images were not stored on their own domain, they were on shared environment..??

2815

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Unfavorable Court Rulings ?? Getty ??

« on: August 16, 2011, 09:36:07 PM »

SG,
Do you know something we don't know about Ryan McGinnis and improperly registering images?? You've got me curious.

2816

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Unfavorable Court Rulings ?? Getty ??

« on: August 16, 2011, 12:00:19 PM »

  If you google search the same image that MF claims is worth $5520.00, it is on 43 other sites at the present, mostly in foreign countries.  These look to be small businesses, so I doubt very much they paid for licenses on rights managed images given the cost and time restrictions.  So, the question is .... how did they come across that image?

even these foreign companies are getting letters, theres is some interesting math here.. I think the number they come up depends on how long the image was used for...so your's is 5520, let just say for giggles that the over 43 site used the image half a long as you did...2500.00 x 43 = $$107500.00 nice potential  payday for one single image, if they all pony up the cash..these companies are making tons of money, all the while closing small business down...and we thought the oil companies were a bunch of douche-bags!

There is another thread somewhere, raising the question of whether some of these images appear on other "free" site and whatnot, and this would not surprise me in the least

2817

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Unfavorable Court Rulings ?? Getty ??

« on: August 15, 2011, 10:26:50 AM »

Anyone else here getting the feeling that they're glad that they didn't become a photographer?

S.G.

Actually just the opposite, I no longer have to rely on stock image companies. I also highly dount anyone would want to grab my images, being the hack that I am... : )

2818

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Unfavorable Court Rulings ?? Getty ??

« on: August 14, 2011, 06:07:53 PM »

I would think that GI and I-Stocks contractual numbers woulkd be very similiar, as Getty owns them both, and a bunch of others..To bad they didn't Corbis otherwise they may very well have a monopoly, not that it would matter much...

2819

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Unfavorable Court Rulings ?? Getty ??

« on: August 13, 2011, 08:23:19 PM »

I will say it's comforting that GI will give the whole percentage of the amount, and I also agree thats it's not just offshore people. The problem I have is mainly how they go about it. Last i knew this was the USA where one is innocent until proven guilty, GI seems to think the other way around with the threatening letters, I have myself had issues to deal with as well, but I send a cease and desist first, I have also thought about registering my works so I could have more protections if the CD doesn't do the trick, but it certainly woul;d not be my business model as it appears to be with GI. Just so you know a little about where i'm coming from, GI came at me for an image which I did purchase almost 12 yrs ago. I provided the license to said image, but they also insisted on an invoice..I keep very good records, however I don't have an invoice dating back that far...

So another question for you...whats to stop an artist / photog from working with getty and also selling that image to a smaller image company that is affiliated with getty.. Besides the fact that the getty contract states they can't do this , doesn't mean that it doesn't happen, as you well know there are dishonest people everywhere in just about any business...

so now the image is for sale in two places ( maybe more) who has what rights to do what?? or do they both come after you??..

I also tend to agree it's a double edged sword, there needs to be some way that artist's can better protect their works , whilst at  the same time protecting the users of these images from suits/demands that could potentially put people out of business..

2820

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Unfavorable Court Rulings ?? Getty ??

« on: August 13, 2011, 05:42:08 PM »

so is what you are saying is that is getty licenses your image on their site for say 49.00, you get x% of that 49.00 seems right and fair to me.. However if Getty sends out a demand letter for 1200.00 on the same 49.00 image and the person settles for say 800.00, are you saying that the photog still gets the standard percentage of xx based on the 49.00?? If so then GI is screwing you as well. I would hope that if they demand 1200 and settle for 800 that the artist would collect a bigger chunk of this..

Bottom line as a photographer/ hack  myself I respect the rights of copyright owners, and would never intentionlly steal, grab, borrow, ect anyone elses work. Yes there are folks out there that do this, but I think Ia majority are just ignorant of the way it should be done, they figure if it's on goole it's free..then there are those who get tangled up with off shore develope companies that are well known to use anything and everything, because they have no scruples or morals and are looking to make some fast cash.