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1

Getty Images Letter Forum / Settlement demand letter from Getty Image. What to do? Reply

« on: June 30, 2010, 11:04:55 AM »

Sorry you are dealing with this issue.  Please realize a few things:  

1)  A demand letter is not a legal binding contract between you and any instituation or business.  It is a "quick" way to attempt to engage you in a binding agreement.  If you choose to agree to enter a binding agreement for whatever cost is being requested or negotiated, then the binding agreement can be upheld directly through legal action without the image supplier establishing an illegal use of their service, product, image, royality, or royalty management for an amount you agree to settle.

2)  The cost to establish litigation against an entity from any instituation to an individual, business, corporation or other is quite expensive.  Even if the litigation were to lean towards the favor of a stock photography company; the corporation would have to prove that the image could have no other possible avenue for distribution except through their institution (i.e. being mutually exclusive).  If you did in fact get the image from a Royalty-Free service from an organization, you might be liable for damages, but unless a court can show proof, the case has little bearing.

3)  Use good judgement.  An organization should establish business with the public and private business in good faith.  Most all companies are explicit by establishing images with logo, and (c) protention overlays directly on the image.  It does not appear that GettImages has attempted to protect their images in a way that provides an established visual breach; and has not attempted to incorporate one since these letters began surfacing several years ago.  


4) Even should a judge rule in the favor of GettyImages, the court has the opportunity to establish the actual "street" value of any said image, or images which may be the value of an established professional photographers work in taking a "like-image."

5) Bottom line, GettyImages is making money by persuing damages against any good faith form of business.  If a settlement can formed without moving through a formal legal process, they immediatly win.  If you decide to let them pursue legal action, they have an extremely small chance of taking away a settlement from a court, and the cost of the legal process has lead their company to eventually give up after a few letters are sent out, so they can "pray" on someone else.  

Piece.

2

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: settlement demand letter from Getty Image. What to do?

« on: June 30, 2010, 11:02:56 AM »

Sorry you are dealing with this issue.  Please realize a few things:  

1)  A demand letter is not a legal binding contract between you and any instituation or business.  It is a "quick" way to attempt to engage you in a binding agreement.  If you choose to agree to enter a binding agreement for whatever cost is being requested or negotiated, then the binding agreement can be upheld directly through legal action without the image supplier establishing an illegal use of their service, product, image, royality, or royalty management for an amount you agree to settle.

2)  The cost to establish litigation against an entity from any instituation to an individual, business, corporation or other is quite expensive.  Even if the litigation were to lean towards the favor of a stock photography company; the corporation would have to prove that the image could have no other possible avenue for distribution except through their institution (i.e. being mutually exclusive).  If you did in fact get the image from a Royalty-Free service from an organization, you might be liable for damages, but unless a court can show proof, the case has little bearing.

3)  Use good judgement.  An organization should establish business with the public and private business in good faith.  Most all companies are explicit by establishing images with logo, and (c) protention overlays directly on the image.  It does not appear that GettImages has attempted to protect their images in a way that provides an established visual breach; and has not attempted to incorporate one since these letters began surfacing several years ago.  


4) Even should a judge rule in the favor of GettyImages, the court has the opportunity to establish the actual "street" value of any said image, or images which may be the value of an established professional photographers work in taking a "like-image."

5) Bottom line, GettyImages is making money by persuing damages against any good faith form of business.  If a settlement can formed without moving through a formal legal process, they immediatly win.  If you decide to let them pursue legal action, they have an extremely small chance of taking away a settlement from a court, and the cost of the legal process has lead their company to eventually give up after a few letters are sent out, so they can "pray" on someone else.  

Piece.

3

Getty Images Letter Forum / Need Direction Please. We got the letter, and have responded.

« on: June 06, 2009, 06:43:03 AM »

Oscar,

I received a "demand" letter dated May 14, 2009 distributed by GettyImages from a client of mine for $1,000 ($900 if paid within a few weeks). I took the images off the page, contacted GettyImages (with many calls to get Chloe live) and eventually talked to a Enjoy Santos.

Approximately nine (9) years ago, a good friend and client of a transportation company asked our small company to design a web page. I had contacted several stock photography companies, and asked for prices. The costs for the images I wanted to use were in the $500 area per/image per year. My client rejected all images in that price range or an annual cost of renewal, and we instead used Royalty-Free Images from purchased CD's, and/or companies that I had contacted directly and asked the cost for a "postage stamp" size of an image for a web page. I do not remember all the 'stock photography' businesses I contacted, but was given the "ok" to use a very small image from the section called "Royalty-Free." The images were used to create a small banner at the top of the page, and remained unchanged for the past 9 years.

I read through the demand letter, tried calling the number many times (phone went straight to voice mail with a 2 day delay for a response on the machine). I finally got through to Chloe and tranfered to Mr. Enjay Santos.  I was unaware that this was a scheme, and talked him. He wrote a reply and stated GettyOne was a collection of companies at the time we were given access to use the images (I still do not know if they came from GettyOne or not).

I replied that since their were a unknown number of stock photography businesses, a "error proof" method could not be established that the images came from GettyImages/GettyOne or the terms in which an image could have been distributed through different stock photography vendors. In fact, Mr. Santos did not know that GettyOne was the former name of the company, and mentioned he had not been with the company very long.  I also stated that the letter was a "demand" where no offer/acceptance took place between GettyOne that established any photos from their company were mutually exclusive, and the images were used by permission from the source of origin at the time the sight was designed.

He wrote back and basically said, he did not care where the images came from, and would not address that the images based on his own admission were distributed by multiple vendors, GettyImages would continue to "demand" payment as long as we were unable to produce licence for the image directly from them.  The president of the transportation company said he had considered paying the $900 (reduced from a $1,000 from the first letter - just as you describe) than go through litigation.  I found your site, and talked with him immedatly, and forwarded your URL.  

The letter has strained our 21 year company relationship with our client. We created the web site/brand for about $800.00 nine years ago. If they pay the bill, they said I might be financially responsible for pursue me for damages.

The letter has caused a great deal of tension. We were to meet on a new web project with the same company next week.

What should we do?

TJ