Messages

571

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

« on: January 13, 2012, 04:33:20 PM »

Sorry about the block.  You were blocked by referrer. I was blocking everything with "getty" in the referrer.  Normally that's ok, but clearly, it's likely to be a problem for anything coming from ELI since "getty-images-...." contains getty.  I've made the string longer to block "gettyimages" and "gettywan".

I know I'll still block somethings I don't want to block. Right now I'm monitoring 403's daily to tweak what I block. 

572

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

« on: January 13, 2012, 04:18:53 PM »

Budhappi--
I guess I don't understand exactly how filing an DMAC agent would protect me from copyright trolls. It protects me if my commenters blog post, but it doesn't seem to protect me if I post something copyrighted. Am I missing something here?

Also, it only protects if I do take stuff down after a takedown notice.  What if I disagree with the person requesting the take down so I refuse? Then I'm not protected, correct? 

I think it might be cheap if it works-- but if it has huge holes, I'm  not sure it's worth it. Am I misinterpreting something about how it protects? 

573

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

« on: January 13, 2012, 02:20:49 PM »

mcfilms--
So far, we have mikedrag and me getting letters for hotlinks.  I suspect we aren't the only ones.  Now if we could find a few more people including some who paid, that might be useful.

574

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Resolution of Getty v. Advernet (A blow to Getty & Stock photo companies)

« on: January 13, 2012, 02:18:27 PM »

scraggy--
It may be that there are no legal rulings on online copyright contract granting exclusive rights to license.  Oscar might know. Oddly, if he doesn't chime in, I might ask my sister. She's a legal librarian at Kirkland and Ellis.  That means she's the one lawyers ask to do the searches for precedents and other stuff.  She does copyright often enough that she sometimes actually remembers and if she doesn't know, she can tell me how to do the search through public records.

575

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

« on: January 13, 2012, 02:10:01 PM »

mcfilms

So they know the image is not hosted at the site, yet they send the letter anyway? Presumably they are aware that the site hosting the RSS feed is not responsible for this. Is this not fraud? Don't Lucia and Dieselfish have some recourse?

If they had inspected the html when taking the screen shot which they should do, they would have known.  After I told them it was not hosted on my server, they should have known.  If they understand Perfect 10 says including <img src="http:not_my_domain.com/the_image.jpg"> makes the image visible to a visitor but is not considerd "displaying a copy" under US copyright law and they agree that case would hold up in other circuits,  then I consider what they are doing to be fraud.  I don't know if a judge would agree.   

If it were possible to take them to court over this, it's possible their defense would be to observe the 9th circuit is not the Supreme Court and state their belief that if they were to pursue this to the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court would rule otherwise.  Who knows?

dieslefish
@mcfilms In my case they generated a screenshot of the page containing the image.  The screenshot they sent in the initial letter shows the URL of the page - not the URL of the image.

In my case, they provided scaled down screenshot of a portion of the page and the url of the homepage of my site.  Their text did not provide a url of the actual page involved in the dispute.  Had the screenshot not been shrunken down, I might have been able to read the uri in the screenshot, but shrinking the screenshot made it impossible to read the uri.

From server stats, I can see when they generated the screenshot (a ping from Toronto)
Interesting. I'm getting lots of attempts to rapidly load all images at my blog from various places in Toronto. These include servers claiming to be from the Canadian government, and prisons in Canada.   We may need to share IPs.

I'm not sure what to look for to see when the software went through

In principle, the user agent might tell you.  In practice, this can be spoofed and I have reason to believe it is.  But I am seeing odd useragents.  I'd say more but dreamhost is down so I can't check to give examples.

Also, even if you know the useragent, that doesn't necessarily tell you what image they used. I suppose they could look at a page in a browser and then have some other image analysis software might fetch the image from the browser cache. The server wouldn't detect the image analysis software footprint.

576

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Resolution of Getty v. Advernet (A blow to Getty & Stock photo companies)

« on: January 13, 2012, 12:57:05 PM »

scraggy,
I'm not a lawyer, but my impression was that the judge found other fatal flaws in the documents relating to each image.  Once that happens, judges will quite often decide it's not worth the time to look into a thorny question about the legality of getty's method of obtaining exclusive licenses since the answer to that question would have made no difference to his final decision.

577

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

« on: January 13, 2012, 10:44:41 AM »

buddahapi-
The url was blurry on the screen capture they sent me also. The reason is that the screencapture reproduced in the demand letter is not 100% to scale.  Because I write a blog whose topic is not birds, and I was able to do a google search on "cardinals". I found page, took out the hotlink and wrote a letter.

I do regret I wrote as quickly as I did.  I should have waited. If so, I would have asked them to tell me the exact URI because now I'm curious about how much information picscout bothers to save!  For all we know, when they write the letter, Getty only has a blurry image, doesn't know the uri of the page where they allege the infraction occurred, doens't have html saved etc. Or they may have it. I'm curious now.

But since they send out letters with such vague detail, if I knew then what I know now, my first letter would have been brief stating that no such image appears on the URI they actually mention. Moreover, it never could have because they have a screenshot of a comments thread and those don't ever appear on the page they mention. Could they please clarify and state the precise URI where they thought the image appeared so I could better understand their concern? Also, could they provide the uri of the image so I could determine whether a copy exists on my server?

Since mikedrag is actually in no danger of Getty being able to prevail, he might want to take this approach. Whether or not he does depends on his personality.

578

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Client Received Getty Letter

« on: January 13, 2012, 10:23:52 AM »

They follow up with a reply saying, basically, yes but you are still responsible. From what I have seen on this site you can play that game a few times. But eventually they will send it to a collection agency.

They will do this even if they are clearly wrong about infringement.

What types of success has there been with the $195 letter? Do they lower their demand? Make it go away? I know this was addressed once before, but I need some type of answer for this. I don't like blindly going into anything.

I didn't use the $195 letter program. However, one of the advantages to the having a lawyer write a letter is that afterwards, the stock company must talk to the lawyer.  Unfortunately, if you write the letter for your client, that doesn't prohibit them from also discussing the issue with your client.  The now just have two parties they can potentially claim were involved in the violation: You who they previously didn't know about and your client who hosted the material and who they already identified.

If a lawyer writes the letter, they will a) be required to discuss the issue through a lawyer, b) know they are talking to a lawyer and c) know the lawyer is not a potentially liable partie and so is less emotional.  In contrast, if they judge it likely you don't know law and you are in a position to get scared, they are more likely to judge they can buffalo you.   Oscar happens to be very familiar with the issues, and had dealt with Getty which is a big advantage.   But whether or not your issue "goes away" will depend on factors  that may be unrelated to Oscar. For example: you say this is over 1 image. Evidently Getty has never sued over  1 image.

But also: If your friend's site is commercial and you did host and display the image, you likely should make some sort of settlement offer but offer a much lower amount. When making the offer, do not admit infringement. You could base that amount of your offer by considering the market value and also looking at the lowest amount that a judge might award if he decided you did unintentionally infringe. (I think that's $200.)   Maybe they will accept. In the event that Getty wouldn't have had proof of exclusive license or registration and so on, some might see the settlement as having paid Getty when they would have lost in court. This notion sticks in many of our craws that Getty can sometimes make money when they don't have a right to a particular photo.  But the alternative is paying lawyers or spending your own time diverting you from more productive activities. And settling will make the issue go away.

On the other hand, Getty  probably won't accept a reasonable offer.   But in the unlikely event that they sue, your lawyer would be able to show that you made an offer but Getty declined.  This fact will be relevant when the judge considers how much to award Getty.  It seems Oscar is suggesting offering a settlement-- and I suspect his letters often make an offer. 

579

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

« on: January 12, 2012, 11:11:55 PM »

buddhapi--
How much does it cost? 

My blog rarely displays images that are remotely likely to catch Getty's attention.  This was a fluke-- and even so, the image was hotlinked not hosted at my blog!   Images actually hosted on my server are ... graphs of global surface temperature generated by me, graphs of temperature generated by my co-bloggers, photos I took myself etc. Typical posts are like this one http://rankexploits.com/musings/2012/december-uah-anomaly-up-a-whisker/. Does that look like something Getty might even remotely consider making a stock image? I think not. If I thought they'd use it, maybe I'd sign up as one of their artists and make money on it!

580

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

« on: January 12, 2012, 08:27:19 PM »

Maybe give us some details especially tells us the  name of the image so we can find it at Getty. It's amazing what people here can find that might suggest there are flaws in their case. 

To the extent that something is a gotcha, don't post in a way that provides evidence here. Getty can read it here just as much as anywhere else. But if it wasn't on your server-- saying "no. It wasn't" would help us advise you. If you have Matt's email, maybe you can send him the image and some of the rest of us can look?

Also: breath. Think about the fact that while you need to get information, you also need to not reveal things that are to your disadvantage in public. This forum is public.

Was the image saved on your server? Getty has sent letters where the image is hotlinked-- they would lose in court because it's hotlinked.  (If the image was on the server, take a breathe.... don't  write "yes it was". Getty may not know yet, and revealing here. Not smart. But go find out so you know!  )

Do you know if the image is registered?  Individually? As a collection? At some point, revealing what the image is, who the author is etc. might help us try to trace it. These things can affect Getty's potential case-- if they ever file a suit.

581

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

« on: January 12, 2012, 07:03:23 PM »

Ahh! I stand corrected. But the dog grooming site was for a business, right?

I'm not trying to suggest that either HAN or Getty are the greater or lesser of the two evils. I'm just trying to wrap my head around whether their operations differ slightly.  Someone ran a video where a HAN representative indicated they avoid going after hobby bloggers and focus on businesses. The examples we read about here seem to be small businesses and evidently not-for profit businesses,  but still what at least appear to be businesses.

In my case, and mikedrag on another thread, Getty sent letters to a hobby blogger (me) and someone who runs an aggregator (mikedrag).   So the two may have slightly different 'business models' dictating who they send letters to.

If they send stuff to hobby bloggers, they are eventually going to get jammed up.  Some hobby bloggers are going to roll over. But others won't. And hobby bloggers with medium to large audiences can make their own publicity.

582

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

« on: January 12, 2012, 06:16:49 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. 

583

Getty Images Letter Forum / RSS Demand: Perfect 10 & Google.

« on: January 12, 2012, 05:50:49 PM »

In his first post at ELI, mikedrag, and even newer newbie than I am wrote

I have a site where I legally (with permission) take RSS news feed from another site and displays it. Images from RSS feed are pooled from source site (never copied to my servers). I have recently received Getty Images letter demanding settlement for 3 images they found on my site.
RSS news feed is updated automatically. I don't have any way to check every single news article.(it would be worthless as time consuming)
Do I break any copyright rules doing it this way?
On the other hand at the time when Getty images sent the letter my site was shot down already for a month due to other technical issues.
Do they really have a case against me?

Two of use responded, citing http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-9th-circuit/1327768.html
(For details see: http://www.extortionletterinfo.com/forum/getty-images-letter-forum/images-from-rss-getty-images-letter/)

It occurred to me that I might want to explain why if Getty drags mikedrag to court, with only a little publicity, Google might very well turn up with an amicus brief. 

Let's look at who other than mikedrag "displays" images picked up from RSS feeds. See this:

If you examine the address bar, you can see that's a snapshot of the page that is displayed by Google.  Does Google own the copyright to the image of that cute kitty? Nope.  Does Google host that entirely full sized image of the adorable sleeping cat on its server? Nope.

Google is doing precisely what mikedrag does.

They are running the feed from a blog that publishes an RSS feed.  The person who publishes that blog and also the feed  could refuse to publish that feed. That person could publish a partial feed. They could block display of images.  Do you know how I know for a fact google is hotlinking -- not hosting on their server-- and that the person running that blog could block display of the images. Here's why:


Because I just blocked them. 

Now I need to see what havoc I wrecked. I happen to be blocking at the cloud. I could equally well block using .htaccess. But everyone can always block images. It just so happens I'd rather let people see these at google, so I'm going to go undo that.  (Or try to undo it while still banning certain particular people from viewing images. )

584

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

« on: January 12, 2012, 05:18:04 PM »

mcfilms--
I suspect that Getty will be loath go after anyone with a license who permits hotlinking. If they did so, their paying customers would dry up because all fall in one of two categories:
1) Publishers who know that some people prefer to read RSS feeds. These publishers know they will lose readers if the readers can't see images in the RSS feeds. If Getty does not permit them to hotlink, they will buy from another agency.
2) Publishers who might be willing to block hotlinking but who live in fear they that a technical glitch will screw up their .htaccess file, hotlinking will occurs and they Getty will send them a demand letter. These people might decide it's more prudent to buy from an agency who does not go after paying customers who fail to block hotlinking.

I suspect that to some extent the reason the district court and 9th circuit did not view hotlinking as "displaying a copy" under US copyright law is that they understand all the things that would suddenly become "displaying a copy" if they interpreted otherwise.  It's also quite clear that in the case where a display is in a RSS feed, interpreting displaying that as copying is ridiculous. 

I'm going to see if I can insert and image (I took the photo) and if I can, I'm going to explain why it would be in Google's interest to spring to the defense of mikedrag if Getty comes after him!

(That's my cat by the way. I have not registered the copyright!)

585

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

« on: January 12, 2012, 04:30:31 PM »

It occurs to me that in your response to Getty Images you could suggest that since hotlinking is deemed to not violate the copyrights of copyright owners, if they are concerned that people will hotlink their images they should insist those who bought licenses and display the getty images adjust their servers to prevent hotlinking of getty images.  This is entirely possible technically-- it's very easy.

Preventing hotlinking would mean that when someone like you picks up the feed, the images would not display to people viewing your site.  To see the images, people would have to go to the underlying site (e.g. Chicago Tribune or whoever bought the license.)   

Then, if the person who bought the license fails to prevent hotlinking, Getty could go after them for breech of license.  Getty would also save themselves the wasted effort of having Getty staff spend time writing letters and reading response from people who did not violate copyright. 

Also, Getty might want to reprogram Picscout to figure out when they are seeing a hotlinked image. Then they'll know which server actuall hosts the image and they won't waste as much time.

Of course, these suggestions assume Getty wants to send letters to the people who actually displayed copies.