Messages

436

Hawaiian Letters & Lawsuits Forum / Troll Vincent Scott Tylor pays respndent / defendant!

« on: February 19, 2015, 05:18:52 PM »

Who say you can't beat back these fuckwads?!

http://copyright-trolls.com/site/copyright-troll-vincent-scott-pays-letter-recipient/

437

Hawaiian Letters & Lawsuits Forum / Re: Are State and city offices targets?

« on: February 19, 2015, 10:47:30 AM »

thanx for the clarification!, I doubt the government is exempt, anyone can sue anyone at any time, the issue here is Getty and likes never target anyone with deep pockets, because ( insert shudder here) they may fight back!

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Hawaiian Letters & Lawsuits Forum / Re: Are State and city offices targets?

« on: February 17, 2015, 09:51:54 AM »

a. how do you know they are using "illegal" imagery ( whatever that is), who's to say they did not properly license the images in question?

b. It's highly doubtful the trolls would file suit against people, organizations, or businesses that have deep pockets, hell they rarely file lawsuits anyway against folks that don't have deep pockets.

c. remember it's a money grab and filing lawsuits costs money, money which they may not get back in the long run.

d. most city/state offices would have an "art dept" that would most likely source the images properly. or at least one one think this.

439

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Extortion letter/s from August Images

« on: January 30, 2015, 07:01:38 PM »

the original demand letter comes from picscout on behalf of August, and we know who owns picscout..hence all of these letter are identical except for the company name.. we may have seen a downturn in Getty letters, but we've certainly seen an upswing with letters coming from piscout ( pronounced GETTY).

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Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Getty images Letter about a image on a clients website

« on: January 30, 2015, 10:50:58 AM »

one more fish in the bucket, time to bait the hook again and toss it out there...but hey whatever works for..image probably wasn't even Getty's, but I digress..

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Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Extortion letter/s from August Images

« on: January 29, 2015, 04:28:42 PM »

may very well be a case of fair use here, if you showed a comparrison and discussed it in any way, also worth noting is that you have a photoshop file that shows 2006, if August was founded in 2007, they have no way of knowing if you had a license from somewhere else, if you had permission from the artist, ect.. and it would be ON THEM to prove their case, IF they were to file suit.. If it were me I would not pay, knowing what I know now after 4=yrs in this, I would take the chance and simply ignore them here on out, and IF they file suit, I would immediately file for dismissal based on the fact that august did not exist in 06, but the image did.

I'm not a lawyer...

442

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Please Help! Getty sent my client a demand letter.

« on: January 27, 2015, 03:44:12 PM »

see my comments inline below

Hi everyone,

I really need your help. Recently, my employer got a letter from Getty Images threatening to sue them unless they pay a $944 fine for using one of their images on our website. A brief background about me - I work in the Philippines and my client is in the United States. My role with them is a Social Media Manager (as a contractor, not really an employee), so aside from managing their Facebook, Twitter and Google+ (and all other social websites), I usually do graphic design for them.

The picture in question was **a woman facing a mirror and putting cream on her face**. It was used for a blog post on our website which was about adult acne, more on how to treat it with over the counter drugs. I do not know if this is qualified as "commercial use", but for me it's more about educational, as my client did not endorsed herself (though she mentioned to contact a doctor if it worsens, but she did not pertain it to herself). This was uploaded January 2014 and my client got the letter January 2015.

if on a commercial website, it's considered commercial..

I now know ignorance is not a valid reason to infringe someone's work, but honestly, it is indeed my ignorance that led us to this. I really didn't know that it was illegal. I though all images on the google website was free except for those with watermark. I've learned my lessons and will not do it again. But now I'm paranoid on what may happen next.

watermarks or not doesn't matter someone owns it..the cars in my driveway don't have my name on them, but I own them hard lesson learned here..

   1. Our website is now clean of any images. Now, will they still sue me for something that was already removed? Can they send another demand letter, let say after 1 year for images that are no longer there? I read a forum which claims that Getty (or Picscout) is using Wayback Machine to track down violators, so I checked the site and found that they do not have records of the blog posts.

yes they can, yes they can and will send another letter, the statute of limitations is 3 yrs., They already have a record, if not from wayback machine then another source there are many other options.

   2. Will they sue for images posted on social websites? There might be difference between each sites policy, but what I'm concerned is Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, WordPress and Constant Contact? I have already removed the images from those sites but I'm worried that they still records of those images.

yes they can "sue" they most likely won't regardless of where the images are posted;

   3. I did some google image search and some of the pictures are still there, even though it's no longer in our website. I have used the Google Webmaster Tools to report that the images are no longer there, and up until now it's still in pending status. Is there any way I could contact them to have the removal expedited? I also have the same issue with WordPress, the entire blog is removed. Google search is still showing the images, but some of them already give the 404 Error - but for some reason, the picture which has the copyright still remains on their server.

don't worry about this, if you removed the images from the server the google results will adjust over time, it has no bearing on the demand letter.

   4. Over the course of this fiasco, I've been paranoid to all the things that could still happen. One thing is that my client had been working on having the website transferred to a different developer. The transition has been ongoing for month and from what I understand (though not confirmed yet), there is a chance that the image in question might have been copied to the new website. Take note that this website is not yet live, which should be next month, but what I'm worried is that Getty would send another letter for that website. My question is, how many time would Getty send a demand letter for the same image, same business, but different website?

until someone pays them, you need to advise the client to cull all images that they do not have a license to use.
   5. Lastly, I apologize if this is too long, but can you give me tips to prevent Getty (or other companies) from suing us for the photos I've uploaded? I am now extremely cautious of the photos I'm going to upload, but the paranoia of getting another demand letter for previous uploads is getting too much of me.

don't upload images that you don't have a license to use, unless you've created them yourself..pretty simple solution really..

I realized that my actions were wrong and I want to do something to correct it. I don't want my employer to pay a large amount for fines when it's not really their fault. I have no intentions at all to infringe anyone's work. Thank you in advance for your answers.

you'll need to step up here and either pay your client to pay getty, or work out some other arrangement, Getty will not deal with you, they will continue to hound your client.

443

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Received a Complaint from BWP Media USA

« on: January 25, 2015, 08:20:16 AM »

if they wanted to serve you, they would simply knock on your door..BWP just lost a case, seems they could not follow simple rules of procedure, the court dismissed the case..

http://copyright-trolls.com/site/copyright-troll-craig-b-sanders-of-sanders-law-p-l-l-c-overruns-court-system/

and court documents are here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/253553479/RKCC-Defeats-BWP-Media-Claim

444

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Otto Photograph Copyright Infringment letter

« on: January 23, 2015, 10:58:55 AM »

do as stinger suggests!, be sure to vet every single image on your clients site, any images you did not create or have a license for are subject to get letters..Chances are good they won't want to deal with you, so you may have to either pay up, or maybe use Oscars letter program, and you would foot the bill to keep your client happy.

445

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Copyright Infringement Claim

« on: January 23, 2015, 10:56:15 AM »

I recently received a similar letter. However mine was a very odd situation. I am using a plugin that pulls photos and displays them from Instagram based on whatever hashtag I want to show photos from. So basically a Instagram user took a photo of a supposedly copyrighted photo and posted it on Instagram. My website then showed that photo for probably 30 minutes (popular hashtag) but yet I am the one they are trying to get pay $500. I am curious from the others that received this letter, what ever happened? Did you ignore it, pay it, how did you respond, and how did they respond? Seems like a scam, but I did call and talk to a human, so I'm not sure now... Thanks!

Tell them to pound sand, the image was never stored or "copied" on your server, it came in through a feed. Tell them you will be invoicing them every single time you have to address this, mail it to them signed/certified mail, in the letter state you expect a reply that they are releasing this claim within 10days, if no reply is recieved, then you assume they agree to YOUR terms, and you can then send an invoice!

446

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Sued by Cartoon Stock for One Image On Website - but variation of theirs

« on: January 23, 2015, 10:51:35 AM »

Yeah I highly doubt they will spend 395.00 to file siut over 87.00 bucks.. You could publicly shame them on the interwebs, it would be a nice "ding" to their reputation..."grumpy man tries to shake down church over cartoon image"..I/m sure being a "church lady" you'd be above that tho.. ; )

447

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Received a Complaint from BWP Media USA

« on: January 23, 2015, 10:46:31 AM »

being "unservable" is always a good thing IMHO

448

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Received a Complaint from BWP Media USA

« on: January 21, 2015, 10:52:16 AM »

There is plenty of info in the forums regarding how you should move forward, it is solely your decision, get educated first, and go from there. You'll have 3 yrs to deal with this, and it's hard to say what they might or might not do.

449

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Received Letter From DeBoer IP

« on: December 29, 2014, 08:14:32 AM »

We just waited out the first letter and then the offer price dropped in half. I would suggest either ignoring the letters entirely or getting a friendly (an inexpensive) attorney to write a reply. They clearly don't want to go to court with this, so putting an attorney on this will help resolve quickly.

It should be noted, if you're going to hire " friendly" lawyer (inexpensive), this lawyer should be well versed in copyright law, we've seen it dozens of times, where someone hires a friend of a friend who is an injury attorney, or business attorney and it doesn't usually go very well.. The defense letter offered from Oscar Michelen, is not priced to be an affordable solution, but Oscar is a highly regarded and experienced IP attorney, not many of these trolls want to go up against him.

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Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: The Sony Pictures Hacking Crisis as it relates to ELI

« on: December 23, 2014, 10:21:28 AM »

nothing lke adding fuel to the fire.. wonder how many followers he had before all of this, something tells me it was not 19.5k!