Messages

811

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: An Experiment Against Getty

« on: January 29, 2013, 05:05:25 PM »

I heard back today from the Washington state Attorney General's office that my request for all complaints filed against Getty Images since Roberts request last year has been accepted.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/122848776/Response-from-WATG-for-Public-Records

I still have not heard back from the SEC as to my requests for their investigation into Jonathan Klein and Getty images for the backdating of stock options. If I do not hear from them by February 4 which is two months since they acknowledge receipt of my request I will query them as to the status.

812

P2P/BitTorrent Lawsuits Forum / Re: P2P Troll Keith Lipscomb Need Your Help Incriminating Yourself

« on: January 29, 2013, 12:40:01 PM »

Agreed, this would be on par with the police department mail you a letter saying that your car what is believed to have been speeding please inform us how many people drive your car how often makes bed and how many mph they went over the speed limit so we can send you the appropriate tickets,  thank you.

I wonder if anybody will be going bored enough to reply to his letters?

813

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Is there a definitive IP range for PICSCOUT - i want to kill the spider!

« on: January 28, 2013, 09:14:15 PM »

Wow, sounds like you really have your set up dialed in! 

Oddly-- I don't know much on updates because I block so many things at Cloudflare. So few things scrape my images in obvious ways, and now very few agent visit with "no referrer/no user agent" pairs (which was a symptom of Image Search).  I think you have to ban lots of stuff because I think image groups are now likely using accounts on many popular servers (Go Daddy, BlueHost and so forth.)

814

P2P/BitTorrent Lawsuits Forum / P2P Troll Keith Lipscomb Need Your Help Incriminating Yourself

« on: January 28, 2013, 08:48:19 PM »

I found this article over on www.dietrolldie.com where P2P attorney Keith Lipscomb apparently knows how weak is cases are so he is sending letters requesting potential extortion demand letter/lawsuit victims to basically supply the evidence he needs and incriminate themselves. He has a very nice letter questionnaire. The story may be found here:

http://dietrolldie.com/2013/01/28/lipscomb-fishing-co-or-exculpatory-evidence-request/

815

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Is there a definitive IP range for PICSCOUT - i want to kill the spider!

« on: January 28, 2013, 06:00:59 PM »

This is all information I found here and most came from Lucia, she would know about any updates or changes since the original posts.

816

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Class action suit filed against “Getty Images Master Delegate” in Israel.

« on: January 28, 2013, 05:50:48 PM »

That is awesome news Ian!  Thanks for the update, keep the good news coming!

817

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Is there a definitive IP range for PICSCOUT - i want to kill the spider!

« on: January 28, 2013, 05:47:29 PM »

Here is what I have currently on Pic-Scout and others.  I have not updated my file in a while so others may have additional info.  Lucia is who I would ask.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Robot.txt and IP blocks

80 legs

80 legs is a fast Internet crawler which crawls approximately 40,000,000 URLs a day. Unlike a lot of web crawlers 80 legs cannot be stopped by blocking IP addresses as it constantly rotates between thousands of IP addresses. The only way of effectively stopping 80 legs is with the robot.txt file. The following needs to be added to the robot.txt file to stop 80 legs:
User-agent: 008
   Disallow: /

Archive.org

Archive.org also known as the way back machine crawls the web taking screenshots of everything it finds to keep is an Internet archive. The problem with this is web crawlers like Pic-Scout go and others will crawl archive.org and find images on webpages that may no longer even be active or have been changed but Pic-Scout that will pass this information along to Getty. Getty will then take this information and pass along a demand letter saying you were infringing on one of our images back on this date. For this reason I believe archive.org should be blocked from crawling your site. Archive.org is blocked with a robot.txt file, the following should be added to the file:

User-agent: ia_archiver
   Disallow: /

Pic-Scout

Pic-Scout was developed to crawl the web searching for copyrighted images, it can identify copyrighted images even if they have been modified as long as 5% of the original still remains. Getty started using Pic-Scout and liked it so much that they bought the company so they can control it. Unlike the majority of web crawlers Pic-Scout will ignore requests from robot.txt not to crawl a site so Pic-Scout must be blocked by IP range. My current information shows that Pic-Scout 's IP range operates under:

IP range 72.26.192.0 - 72.26.223.255

Also on May 13th of 2012in what appears to be an attempt to hide their activity Pic-Scout purchased a new domain name called 411images.org this site activity was traced back to Pic-Scout’s IP addresses. It is interesting that one of the locations for these IP addresses is traced back to Israel were Getty has just been hit with a class-action lawsuit for $12 million for sending out demand letters and attempting to collect on images that they have no legal right to collect on. Below is the IP address information for

411images.org:
DNS01.411IMAGES.ORG
IP Address 72.26.211.146
Location   UNITED STATES
Managed By  VOXEL DOT NET INC.
Domains  1

DNS02.411IMAGES.ORG
IP Address  82.80.249.150
Location  ISRAEL
Managed By  BEZEQ INTERNATIONAL-LTD
Domains  1


Pic-Scout also has a nasty little brother called Image Exchange. Image Exchange is an add-on that will work with Firefox Chrome and Internet Explorer and is apparently designed to be run if you find it image that you like to determine if it is a copyrighted image. If Image Exchange recognizes the image as a copyrighted image it will then take you to where you can license the image. There are two drawbacks with Image Exchange the first being it does not have a complete database of copyrighted images so should not be trusted as to the definitive answer FA images copyrighted or not. When this add-on was taken to Getty's website and run on a page of Getty's images only a few images came back as copyrighted. The most important reason why image exchange should be blocked is that when it does find a copyrighted image it immediately tattles back to Pic-Scout so they can notify the owner of the image to check the registration and possibly send out a demand letter. I do not recommend the use of the image exchange add-on or app as it will not guarantee your images copyright free and may end up putting somebody else on the infringement roller coaster.



TinEye.com

You may also wish to exclude TinEye.com. TinEye is a program like pic Scout that crawls the web taking samples of images off of page webpages. It then stores these images and you can go to the website and upload an image and it will show you all other instances where it has found this image on the Internet. Getty has also been known to use TinEye as a quick and easy method of locating webpages in which to send demand letters to. TinEye.com may currently be blocked by use of the robot.txt file. To block TinEye add the following to your robot.txt file:
User-agent: TinEye
   Disallow: /
Note: since writing this it has come to my attention that TinEye may sometimes ignore the robot.txt file. Useragentstring.com has identified the following IP addresses as tracing back to TinEye and should be blocked as an added layer of security.

It lists IPs as
204.15.199.142 - 142-199-15-204-static.prioritycolo.com
41.68.22.0 - 41.68.22.0
66.230.232.19 - mail.macrobright.com
67.202.44.125 - ec2-67-202-44-125.compute-1.amazonaws.com
67.202.48.109 - 0
75.101.176.194 - ec2-75-101-176-194.compute-1.amazonaws.com
75.101.238.112 - ec2-75-101-238-112.compute-1.amazonaws.com

818

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: New for 2013 ~ The Copyright Troll Asshat of the Month Award...

« on: January 28, 2013, 12:16:28 PM »

I second that, please share if you can.

819

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Entrapment???

« on: January 27, 2013, 10:59:47 PM »

Thank you for the clarification, no I don't think that is happening as a result of Getty doing it. Getty has so many images and there are enough of them circulating out there that they are probably running at the full capacity their demand letter program can handle. In 2009 in an article Lisa Willmer admitted to the Los Angeles times that they find an average of 42,000 cases of infringement a year, with the increase in technology and computing power I'm sure the number is far higher. This is not to say that Getty does not as a company engage in unethical business practices because they do.

I believe it is pretty much a consensus among most of the regulars that there are a couple of photographer's that do "seed" their images to "Free Wallpaper" sites namely Vincent K Taylor and his son who deal mainly in landscape photographs of the Hawaiian Islands. A lot can be read about this on the forums as well.

HYPOTHETICAL SITUATION:  Getty sets up an off-shore fake e-commerce site that offers website templates.  I obtain a template in good faith with the images in question.  Getty knows that I obtained the template and eventually comes after me.

I obtained the template in 2005, but didn't use it until 2011.  I have been looking all over for the company that offered the templates, but can't find it.

820

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Entrapment???

« on: January 27, 2013, 10:01:31 PM »

Welcome to the forums, it would help if you can provide a little bit more information about your case so in the meantime my answers will be generic.

First be aware that to date Getty has not sued anyone in the states for just having one picture on a website, they will try to bully harass and scare you into paying.

I would contact the company were you got the template and see if they can provide you with the licensing information for the image in question. I don't know where you got the template from or how long ago but I remember a while back ago Template Monster got caught using Getty images without licenses and paid Getty retroactive licenses to make everything good for their users. I also know of a couple of cases where Getty tried to "double dip" by trying to collect from end-users on images that were settled previously by template monster.

Having said that if the company were you got your template cannot provide licensing information I would start by asking Getty for proof of claim meaning

1) To see verification that the image was filed with the U.S. Copyright Office

2) Verification that the copyright is either for the individual image or a group of images.

3) A copy of the signed contract, assignment or other documentation between Getty Imagesand the artist transferring copyright and giving you exclusive rights to the image as you havestated in your letter.

4) Sales history and records of this image and prices received for the image.

Getty will not provide any of this information to you as they most likely can't. You'll need to decide if you want ignore it which is not recommended by me, fight it on your own which is what I did, talk to Matthew using the Eli support call to get up to speed quickly and get a plan of action or retain Oscar using his defense letter program so you will not have to hear from Getty again.

Read the forums as there is pretty much everything you need to know to fight it yourself contained here and ask questions. Again welcome to the wonderful world of Getty extortion letters.

As far as your entrapment question I'm not really sure where you're going with that, could you please clarify?

I used a website template that I obtained online that has gotten me into this mess.  How can I possibly confirm that Getty isn't using some off-shore presence to entrap me.  I obviously can't prove it, but given their tactics it makes me wonder.

821

Legal Controversies Forum / Re: Now Illegal to Unlock Your Cell Phone

« on: January 26, 2013, 12:07:07 PM »

Good find Mulligan and a very interesting article. While I do consider this a step backwards, on the whole over the last year I think we have had more steps forward than back.

Chalk up another victory for lobbyists working for big corporations because now it's illegal to unlock your cell phone according to the story at...

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/now-illegal-unlock-cellphone/story?id=18319518

The way things are going, at some point it will be illegal to visit a restroom without first getting a retinal scan to identify you as well as a rectal search to make sure you're not trying to smuggle illegal substances into a public toilet.

And if you have a wide stance, you really better look out!

822

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Have Getty broken Copyright laws?

« on: January 25, 2013, 07:44:16 PM »

I asked the same question when I received my letter and was told no it is not.

823

Legal Controversies Forum / Re: Why Disney might want to 'Escape From Tomorrow'

« on: January 24, 2013, 09:05:54 PM »

This is a very interesting story, great find Robert. I am not sure what Disney is going to do but I had another thought while reading the article. Plus the faces of all the other park attendees, workers and actors (Snow White, Bella etc.) Walking around the park are blurred he might be asking for individual lawsuits if these people ever find out they are on film without permission.

I will definitely want to follow up with this story and see how it develops. Again, great find Robert.

824

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Received a Letter from Masterfile

« on: January 24, 2013, 02:19:37 PM »

Stay strong and hang in there.  Masterfile is a totally different animal than Getty and they are more aggressive but I agree to that you are “Judgment proof”. Keep reading the forums and asking questions and you should be fine.

825

Legal Controversies Forum / Re: 25 cents per pixel - for using thumb nail of a site I designed

« on: January 23, 2013, 11:59:06 PM »

I don't think you did mention that but no, it doesn't phase them. There was a letter recipient not too terribly long ago you had a Getty image on his website and was out of the country and his license lapsed for something like three days while he was away and Getty sent him a letter so this is nothing new for Getty.

Thanks to all!  Your advice and support is very helpful out here in this lonely e-world us web-heads live in.

By the way, did I mention that I am an actually Getty customer.  That's right, I have bought images from there and referred clients there for some rather expensive items.  They knew this too, and it basically didn't phase them. 

That's the funny thing here.  I am in a position to refer lots of clients their way, or now more specifically some other way.  So this move has cost them thousands of dollars of actual legitimate business long term.  Do you think anyone has crunched the math on those figures and determined it is better to scam then to earn? What an ugly practice this is.