Messages

301

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: We are the latest victim of the Getty Image extortion scam

« on: January 11, 2013, 02:22:41 PM »

Ultimately you'd like to shut them down in one shot, but this may not happen
May not? Even if they are totally wrong, their first response will likely to be to explain why you are wrong and demand money.  I explained I hotlinked and cited Amazon v. Perfect 10 twice before they went away.  They did not respond to the 2nd letter admitting that to the extent there are any precedents, the US precedent is that hotlinking is not a copyright violation.  (And never mind that I have a number of other points in my favor which would likely make their case bogus even if my case wasn't just hotlinking. )

So, at this point, in principle, they may be sitting in their offices contemplating suiing and may suddenly decide to sue. (Which would be nus on their part.)  In two years the statute of limitations to runs out and they will be precluded from suing for that claim. 

So... everyone -- no matter how sound their first letter to Getty is-- should count on getting at least one response that tells them they do own Getty money. Because that's what happens. 

That said: Each case is different. Some people did copy. Potentially, some day, we'll see the person who copied the entire Getty Catalog and was selling bogus licenses in parallel..... But so far, we mostly seeing letters to hobby bloggers, very small businesses (who are often bankrupt) who posted a fairly run of the mill non-descript pictures.  Depending on the case-- and the personality of the letter recipient, they can either communicate with Getty or hire Oscar.

302

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: We are the latest victim of the Getty Image extortion scam

« on: January 11, 2013, 12:20:04 PM »

First: it's best to know your position before you communicate with Getty.  We are all under the impression that in the past-- and likely the present-- Getty relies on letter recipients volunteering information that could be used in a case against them. So, it's good you haven't written them  yet.

Once you write the letter, everything in it should be the truth. But just as their letter their position, yours can give yours. And just as they don't tell you everything they do or don't know, and they volunteer no information that might favor your case,  you also don't have to tell them everything you do or don't know and you don't have to volunteer stuff that might be in their favor.

For the next few days, you are on "datagathering" mode-- done without communicating with getty.  The first things you need to do:

Is your blog hosted in the US. The relevant law matters for some questions.

Have you looked the image up number in the Getty catalog?  If we know what the image is, we can help you figure out if it's registered at the copyright office either individually or as a collection. Getty Images are often not registered at all, and when they are registered, they are sometimes only registered as a collection. This makes their legal position weaker, limits how much they could possibly collect and so on. So you want to know details about the registration. 

We can also look into similar images-- which we will want to do.

Do you know if you hotlinked the image or hosted it on your server? ( If you hosted on your server, do not post that information publicly and do not ever volunteer it to Getty.  But you need to know for your own sake. If you are in the US and-- hotlinking-- that is displaying an image on another sever-- means you have no worries.  We can tell you what to write back.)

Have you removed the image from displaying in the post? (And if from your server from your server?) You should remove the image from displaying.   Later when you communicate with Getty, say you have removed the image from the blog post as a courtesy to them or something similar. (If you hosted it on your server, do not volunteer that information. If you did not host, do say that explicitly. )

Most of the following are unlikely to matter, but it's worth your knowing for your own sake: In your blog post, were you discussing the image itself? (This could matter for "fair use". ) Does your blog run ads? (This could matter for fair use.) Is it affiliated with a business? (Also could matter for fair use.)

There are other things you will want to do, but which things will depend on some of the answers above.   

303

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Latest image scraper – a troll by any other name

« on: January 10, 2013, 09:36:31 PM »

Many bots that say you can use robots.txt to block them don't obey robots.txt.  It's best to take additional measures to block these sorts of things.

304

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: ELI Support Call: Don't Be This Bimbo and Waste My Time

« on: January 10, 2013, 06:05:55 PM »

However, our attorney will be very hesitant to send this documentation without some sort of vetting process.

Oddly, I can understand why an attorney representing her would be reluctant to both (a) supposedly be the one advising and representing her and (b) having her simultaneously consulting someone else who might give entirely different advise.  Either she thinks her attorney can represent her or she doesn't.

To some extent, if she needs an ELI person and wants that person to be  bound by attorney-client privilege or confidentiality, she needs to hire Oscar not Matt. Right off the bat, that would cost more.

But on top of that, if she's going to continue to retain her other attorney, I'm sure that wouldn't fit into Oscar's letter program because that letter program doesn't include consultations with a clients "team" of attorneys. So I would think that if Oscar was willing to take a case under those conditions (and he might not be), he would insist on his normal fee structure.

Paying two attorney's at normal rates? She might as well pay McCormick!

305

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: My commentary on the recent PDN Article

« on: January 10, 2013, 11:38:16 AM »

Why don't they name the company so interested readers can do some checking to learn the details of the case?

306

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: ELI Support Call: Don't Be This Bimbo and Waste My Time

« on: January 10, 2013, 08:29:28 AM »

So who was she going to hire to "vette" you? And how much was she going to pay them?  Obviously, she isn't required to hire you if she doesn't trust you. But hiring you and not supplying documents you need to do the job she is engaging your for is ridiculous. It's like hiring painters to paint the dining room and then not letting the painters into the house because they aren't "vetted" and you can't be sure they won't steal the silver. 

Well.. guess what. You can't be sure they won't steal the silver.  But obviously, they can't paint the dining room unless you let them in the dining room!

307

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: just received an email

« on: January 03, 2013, 10:04:18 PM »

They have now started harassing me on my site's facebook account.

Can you block them?

308

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: just received an email

« on: January 03, 2013, 09:54:03 PM »

Also, I'm located in the US

Good. Knowing that helps us take certain issues "off the table".

If you are in the US, the hotlinking part is not copyright infringement as per Amazon. v. Perfect 10. (We can give more details.) That's off the table in terms of anyone suing you and hoping to win.

The thumbnail is trickier. OTOH: It's a thumbnail.

Have you registered a DMCA agent?  If you permit users to submit content, it might be wise to do so. This is especially true if they can do something that results in images stored on your servers (even thumbnails.)  Having a DMCA registered would take even more things off the table.

I'm not a lawyer-- but I can't see how you could be liable in anyway for Twitter postings by a person who merely visited your site. If I posted something insulting about 'person X' on Twitter, Mathew Chan would not become liable merely because I also post comments here.  So unless I misunderstand that aspect, I don't see how that can be an issue between you and the copyright holder. 

309

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: just received an email

« on: January 03, 2013, 03:07:23 PM »

rudy--
Is your site hosted in the UK or the US? 

I'm not sure I understand the references to the exchanges on Twitter. I'm guessing you edited the letter a bit.  Do I understand correctly that the photo company requested the copyright issue be discussed on Twitter? Then did someone respond to them rudely on Twitter?  If so, their suggesting conversation on Twitter would strike me as a very odd thing for them to do. (I don't know if it's relevant to the copyright issue. But if they did that, it's odd. )

310

Hawaiian Letters & Lawsuits Forum / Re: PDN Article Featuring "Kindly Uncle" Glen Carner

« on: January 02, 2013, 03:14:35 PM »

I sort of agree with Glen Carter's approach.  Where I disagree with him:

1) The Market value of the image should be used for the "demand" and be based on sales history.  Where no sales history exists, a market average for similar images could be used.

If the image has been made available for more than 6 months and no one has bought/licensed it at that price, I think that should be taken as evidence the requested price is too high.

Moreover, I think a photographers failure to even bother to register a copyright on an image made available on the web should be taken as evidence the photographer thought the likely revenue stream from that image was low.   

There are photographers who take photos that are potentially very lucrative.   These can include celebrity and sports photos.  (example: http://c4241337.r37.cf2.rackcdn.com/2012/215/239/gabrielle-douglas-performs-on-the-balance-beam_420.jpg )  Those photographers or their employers are well advised to register copyright-- and I imagine they do register them.

In contrast, people who take post images to flicker generally don't bother to spend the relatively modest copyright registration fees because they don't anticipate sales sufficient to cover the fee nor the value of their time filling out forms.

2) The above soft handed approach should not be required for blatant thieves of registered works.  For example, if someone is a repeat offender, or a self confessed theif ("screw you I'll steal any image I want"), then I think some of the more heavy handed approaches we've seen (e.g. Masterfile) might be in order.

If someone was stealing images to populate a "free wall paper" site used to draw in clicks to advertisers, that copyright violation should be penalized heavily. I don't think we've read of a single example here where a Getty Letter was sent to someone running a free wallpaper site.

311

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: PDN Article on ELI, Copyright Extortionists, and my position on the matter

« on: December 28, 2012, 05:44:05 PM »

Not only is Getty's opinion just an opinion, we know that their decision was to not pursue the matter in court.

The article is worded to make it seem like Getty wants to be "tough" and is just exercising their rights. But it drops the ball when it fails to point out that while the initial letters are threatening, in many-- if not most-- cases, that's really as far as it goes.  Moreover, when they do go to court, they either (a) lose or (b) win pyrrhic victories (a violation found but very small fine levied or they find they've sued a bankrupt company.)

Also, the article doesn't mention flat out mistakes on Getty's part-- sending letters for hotlinking.  Never recognizing "fair use" and so forth.

312

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: PDN Article on ELI, Copyright Extortionists, and my position on the matter

« on: December 28, 2012, 10:24:30 AM »

pdn appears to be an online periodical trying to attract photographers.  It would hardly be surprising if it's articles tend to be a bit biased towards those trying to make money selling photos even if this means sometimes overlooking that some entities "selling" aren't really "selling".

313

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Letter help: Fair Use

« on: December 21, 2012, 04:14:05 PM »

The effect of the use upon the potential market for, or value of, the copyrighted work

I would think the effect of copying the cover of a book on a post discussing the movie  on the potential market for the cover art is exactly zero.  The image has already been licensed for the book cover.  Copies of the book cover appear in ads for the book in scads of places. (Amazon. Links to amazon. other book stores etc.)  It is possible that in future someone might like the image. But since it already appears as the cover of Freakonomics, that person would either (a) decide to not use it because it appeared on the cover of Freakonomics or (b) use it because it appeared on the cover of Freakonomics.  In both cases, the fact the the cover of the book appeared in a blog post  or similar would be discussing Freakonomics itselfirrelevant to whether someone would want to license the image for some other use.

So... zip. 

The analysis might be different if someone was selling t-shirts with the image or selling a second book with the image and so on. But really... there must be some sort of implied agreement that people can show pictures of the book when discussing the book or movies about the book!

314

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Letter help: Fair Use

« on: December 20, 2012, 06:31:41 PM »

Ok. That at least looks like the same image and may not suffer from the flaw in date!  Other than that, I'm not the one to advise on fair use. I would hope a photo of the entire cover would be fair use.  I would hope anything that made it clear that you just took a photo of the cover of the book seems like fair use to me-- but I'm not an IP attorney. So, we need to wait for the more legally qualified to say what they think.

315

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Letter help: Fair Use

« on: December 20, 2012, 05:54:02 PM »

I'm going to stay away from the fairuse issue. I hope our laws see that as fair use too-- but I'm not a lawyer.  But some additional specifics might be useful.

Are they claiming you infringed this specific image.
http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/apple-orange-hybrid-royalty-free-image/148439467

Or are they pointing to a different image at Getty?

I ask because I notice
a) Freakonomics is published in 2011.
b) the image shows © 2012 Michal Baran
c) The apples, while similar aren't the same.

But (a) and (b) would suggest that *if* there is a copyright issue, it's Michal Baran who *might* be violating. So.. is it a different apple? Or that one?  (You'll want to do a little ground work on this.)