Messages

511

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: New Picscout IP range to block.

« on: February 13, 2012, 06:12:07 PM »

I've implemented a strategy to watch for IP's related to the toolbar. The script and method will be available publicly soon.  People will be able to implement it a couple of different ways. (The most effective is using Cloudflare. That's good for bloggers but I'm not sure it's good for others.)

See.... I told someone (Soylent?) he shouldn't be so sure the various bots are corrected just because he banned bezeq.   I am so p*ssed at getty that I am being thorough.

512

Getty Images Letter Forum / New Picscout IP range to block.

« on: February 13, 2012, 03:38:26 PM »

I discussed blocking image bots at my blog. DukeC a commenter asked me if my script blocked the picscout add-on which they are marketing as a way for people to identify images for sale.  Of course, the add-on also detects  images and reports back to picscout.   That visitor installed the add on, and hit a post containing images telling me his IP and user agent.  Four seconds after he hit with his IP and with the addon installed  short order, my logs showed a visit from IP 72.26.211.129. My script autobanned IP 72.26.211.129 which I suspected was an IP reporting back to picscout.

I then repeated this at a domain I control that does not run my protective script and so was not blocking IP 72.26.211.129. In my experiment, I saw a hit from 72.26.211.130 4 seconds after I loaded an image with the picscout add on installed.  I am pretty convinced these are reporting back to picscout.

I recommend those who want to prevent visitors from reporting back to picscout to
a) block the IP range 72.26.192.0 - 72.26.223.255 and
b) periodically use the image ad on to load an innocent image at their blog so as to monitor hit that follows.  Repeat this a few times to learn the current range of the picscout IPs used by the image addon.

For now, block
United States New York Voxel Dot Net Inc  IP range
NetRange:       72.26.192.0 - 72.26.223.255

I'm going to cloudflare to block this right now.

513

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Getty's may have a solution but probably not interested in using it.

« on: February 08, 2012, 12:26:29 PM »

Bekka--
That may be. Also, if I remember the ads correctly, Picscouts business plan is to distribute the browser add-ons for free. But they charge stock photo companies to include their images in the pool the browser add-on will list.  So, we would end up with this situation:

* Company A takes out a contract with picscout. They pay picscout $$. You install the add-on, browse around looking for images. You find it at "free wallpapers.com".  You discover company A sells the license to theimage image. You still like it-- so you pay for a license. Company A makes money; you are ok on the copyright issue.

* Company B does not take out a contract  with picscout. They pay picscout 0.  You install the add-on,you install the add-on, browse around looking for images. You find it at "free wallpapers.com".Now, even though you look at the tool, you do not discover company B sells the license. You do...what? Anyway, company B does not make money on the license. Maybe you use the image-- maybe you don't.

But generally, unless one has a gripe with company A, buying a license and paying for it could be a very wise course of action. If you don't like company A, look around and find someone who sells a license for a reasonable fee.  Then keep evidence of your license.

I think in the longer term  licenses for these things are going to be had rather inexpensively. Very few images are sufficiently distinctive to induce people to pay $800 / year for a rights managed image. Lots of people want nice $20 images  to use in blog templates, storefronts etc.. 

514

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Getty's may have a solution but probably not interested in using it.

« on: February 08, 2012, 10:59:25 AM »

Sorry if I don't share your view of Getty's

Make no mistake: I do not have a favorable view of Getty's letters. I just don't think it's fair to

Which is why I won't use the software they provide for fear that they would use this against you in a "gotcha" scheme.

As you recall, when I first told you about the software, I told you I had uninstalled because I'm concerned it might report back to Getty and help them find people to whom they will send letters. 

Sorry if I can't give them the benefit of the doubt.

I'm not giving them the benefit of the doubt. I'm merely pointing out that Picscout has created software that could facilitate discovering an images you want to use is contained in a stock-photo companies licensed collection. You could use it that way. I imagine some web theme designers will use it that way. 

Heck, I may eventually install the thing to make sure images aren't in the getty collection should I ever be in a position where I want increase the likelyhood that getty even claims to have a license.  But I don't expect Picscout to write paragraphs explaining how you can use their tool to determine the image is for sale so as to avoid images that are for sale!   You can do this-- bloggers can explain it.  It will be explained!

515

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Getty's may have a solution but probably not interested in using it.

« on: February 07, 2012, 09:24:09 PM »

Of course they are going to suggest you use it to buy images. They are a business after all; trying to get people to buy their product is fair enough.

You could also use the tools to discover they are for sale at Getty not buy it and look elsewhere.  I'm sure that's not what Getty prefers and you really can't expect them to print ads suggesting you do this. But you could.
 

516

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Getty's may have a solution but probably not interested in using it.

« on: February 07, 2012, 08:40:23 PM »

It's feasible. Tineye already lets you insert a link or upload and image and it tell you what matches at the web.  A fairly similar program could be set up at getty to let people find matches in the getty images collection.   

I don't think it's fair to assume Getty is not interested in this. Picscout, owned by Getty has  created a browser extension that helps those browsing the web find who might own the license to an image. I installed it just to see if it changed the useragent when I browsed (it doesn't). Then I uninstalled because I figure there a good chance it's sort of spyware created to help getty find even more violations!   I haven't fully tested it but you can find it here:
http://www.picscout.com/imageexchange/

517

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: First Certified Letter

« on: February 07, 2012, 02:27:01 PM »

I agree with Matt on laying low.  The best you can do is make it slightly more expensive for Getty/Han/Corbis etc. to find you.   But if they have information that from their POV makes them think it's worth actually filing a suit against you, they have three years to do it in. Given this amount of time, the cost of finding almost anyone who owns or operates a web site and getting them served is just not that great. 

518

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Invalidate response

« on: February 06, 2012, 11:31:11 PM »

If they wrote a letter telling me they had dropped the matter, I would not ask for additional information. I'd be disappointed if I hadn't gotten it-- but once they drop it I don't think I have much basis for demanding how they go around deciding to demand $875 for a small blurry thumbnail of an image that can be downloaded for free from the photographers commercial site.

519

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Image on Getty is no longer available

« on: February 06, 2012, 07:07:25 PM »

I'd be cautious about thinking they are not showing images merely because they sent a letter. The image they wrote me about is still listed.   There are many possibilities. Some I can think of:

1) If it's rights managed, someone might have purchased a license to display and that customer wants to be the only one with the right to use it during the licensing period. Companies do that.

2) The photographer may have severed their relationship with Getty for whatever reason.

Be sure to look for your image at google. Look on photoshelter. Google the photographers name and see if they have their own site. Etc.   What you find may provide information to guess whether (1) or (2) are more likely. Or maybe it's something else entirely.

520

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Gettys short email response. Plus interesting picscout url

« on: February 06, 2012, 04:55:19 PM »

Did you see this as a referrer? Inside your .htaccess file, include these things:

====

Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteEngine on
# methods
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_METHOD} ^PROPFIND$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_METHOD} ^OPTIONS$ [NC,OR]
# referrers
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} (gettywan|gettyimages\.com|getty\.com|picscout\.com|\.aspx) [NC,or]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER}  (imagesearch) [NC,or]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER}  (C:\\) [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]

The
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]

But blocks anything in the long "or" list from being served anything.

The
"RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} (gettywan|gettyimages\.com|getty\.com|picscout\.com|\.aspx) [NC,or]" bit will block any referers that contain either 'gettyimages.com', 'getty.com', 'picsout.com' or '\.aspx' .   

For a while I had a simpler line blocking anything containing getty, but that blocks "getty-images-letter-forums" which was inconvenient!  I'm adding \.aspx because it looks like they could just install the login.aspx file on other domains. People are rarely going to be surfing over from pages ending with .aspx!

For information on gettywan.com see

http://www.extortionletterinfo.com/forum/getty-images-letter-forum/too-all-webmasters-do-you-recall-this-getty-traffic-source/msg4057/#msg4057

521

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Invalidate response

« on: February 06, 2012, 04:40:32 PM »

Matt--

You regard this as an experiment except that the experiment is flawed and already stacked in your favor to begin with by virtue of the hot-linking issue.

Meaning you think Getty should give up more easily? I absolutely agree. By running the experiment we'll see if they do. If I end up with a huge number of exchanges, you can use the comparison in your book to show that certified letters do seem to make them go away faster.  Because really, it would make no sense for them to keep after me longer than they kept after you.

Unfortunately, this is a situation where we can't really just do experiments in comparable cases. 

Also, you have (intentionally or not) benefited from the leverage of "coming out" and being so active on ELI.

I think this is true.  Mind you, I would have been discussing this on my blog otherwise. GETTY wouldn't have liked that either.  But I think it's better to have people find discussions here where they can also find Oscar, you, McFilms, Buddhappi etc. I don't want my climate blog to become a blog about discussing copyright trolls. 

You may want to take these other factors into consideration in evaluating your experiment.

Of course!!  I think when you get together with your book, you'll have a number of anecdotes. I'm sure you'll have a section on hotlinking.   

522

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Invalidate response

« on: February 06, 2012, 04:18:08 PM »

Matt-
I'm not under the illusion that I will have a constructive argument! I suspect Getty will never write 'sorry, you're right. We are wrong. We've decided not to pursue this." Instead, at some point, Getty will just go silent just as they did in your case. 

I'm very glad to have your forum where I can report communications as we exchange them.  I plan to live forever, but one never knows. I know that by reporting as the case progresses, future trollees can have access to information describing Getty's current M.O.

523

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Invalidate response

« on: February 06, 2012, 03:12:33 PM »

S.G.

Anyway, while most wouldn't say "ignore them", what's the point of engaging these people (Getty) after making them an offer?

I haven't made them an offer.   In my first email I communicated my position which is I did not infringe at all. I cited the Perfect 10 v Amazon case.   They disagreed, assigned the case to Sam Brown who  wrote back some nonsense including telling me that unlike Amazon or Google I was not covered by DMAC. I wrote back and quoted the parts of the ruling that noted DMAC was irrelevant to the ruling in favor of Amazon and Google because hotlinking is not copying under the US copyright act.   I have  had no official response to that-- but I got a snail mail 'escalation' letter.  I emailed Sam and their compliance department pointing out that there was an ongoing discussion with Sam Brown and requesting the compliance department as Sam for the previous communications. I told them I would like them I was eager to discuss the issue with them but I would like them to read my previous communications first so as not to waste my time and theirs.

Within 10 minutes of sending that email I got an apology from Sam Brown who told me my case was still pending review. 

From my POV I benefited from this exchange in a number of ways.

524

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Invalidate response

« on: February 06, 2012, 01:55:51 PM »

SoylentGreen,
There is also plausible deniability when you snail-mail dead tree versions too.  I've had people "never get" important-to-me- things <i>I've snail-mailed</i> and I have no idea how Getty could prove a trollee received the demand letters they sent.  (I know for a fact person who "never got" the important-to-me thinkg I knew for sure he'd gotten it because he'd passed it along to someone I chatted with who willingly told me he'd read it!)

Certified letters prevent plausible deniability with snail-mail.  My plan forward is to ask Getty staff to send a brief confirmation they received my email. Right now I'll look to see if there are any tracing systems for email. Maybe there are now.

525

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Invalidate response

« on: February 06, 2012, 12:24:17 PM »

I could. I could also cc you guys when I email them.  That would bring a 3rd party into the loop which I think would be to my advantage.  One reason I would like that is I noticed this in the footer from the reply from Sam Brown:

©2012 Getty Images, Inc.
PRIVILEGED AND CONFIDENTIAL
This message may contain privileged or confidential information and is intended only for the individual named. If you are not the named addressee or an employee or agent responsible for delivering this message to the intended recipient you should not disseminate, distribute or copy this e-mail or any attachments hereto. Please notify the sender immediately by e-mail if you have received this e-mail by mistake and delete this e-mail and any attachments from your system without copying or disclosing the contents. E-mail transmission cannot be guaranteed to be secure or error-free as information could be intercepted, corrupted, lost, destroyed, arrive late or incomplete, or contain viruses. The sender therefore does not accept liability for any errors or omissions in the contents of this message, which arise as a result of e-mail transmission. If verification is required please request a hard-copy version. Getty Images, 605 5th Ave South, Suite 400, USA, www.gettyimages.com. PLEASE NOTE that all incoming e-mails will be automatically scanned by us and by an external service provider to eliminate unsolicited promotional e-mails ("spam"). This could result in deletion of a legitimate e-mail before it is read by its intended recipient at our firm. Please tell us if you have concerns about this automatic filtering

So, in my next email response to Getty, I was planning to write something to communicate that:
1) I have chosen email because their letters request that mode of communication. Specifically they write "For questions or to settle the matter, please contact [email protected] or call 1-800-972-4170"
2) Responses from Sam Brown now warn me that Getty may lose incoming email.

As their preferred method of communication is email but they are aware that their system sometimes loses email, I am concerned my always timely communications to them might be lost.  To allay my concerns, I would like them to promptly affirm they have received my email.   If it's ok to copy the forum I would happy to tell Getty that I am doing so to have an independent witness to the fact that I replied.