Some things might be fair use, such as the composition of a picture but if Getty does not actually have a legal copyright to an image then isn't claiming a copyright when none exists constitute fraud? Sending a letter via the USPS demanding money for images that they might not legally own the copyrights too does seem a bit on the edge with what is legal and what is not legal. The letters they send assume you are guilty. They even state that it doesn't matter where you obtained the images from, YOU don't have a license even if the web designer did have one. It seems that they have made a legal determination of guilt without any due process. How do we know what the terms of use were back in 2006 for Getty or MF? Perhaps they have changed or were too vague to enforce as stated by Pixelmill. See paragraph and link below. Can they now retroactively change their terms of use and claim copyright infringement? Can I now use the statement by Pixelmill to show that iStock was retroactively vague and we do not owe them any money.
Pixelmill had a problem with iStockPhoto regarding just this , and when they (Pixelmill) contacted iStock they ( iStock) agreed that their usage policy was a bit vague and they would not take action against those who have already used their images.Here is the link regarding this.
http://www.pixelmill.com/support/kb101435.htm PixelMill is a very popular site for web designers. Lots of templates with images.
I would personally not use any image that I did not create myself or a photo that I did not take myself at this point. Not with 2 lawsuits filed against Masterfile the latest being June 23-09
http://www.rfcexpress.com/lawsuit.asp?id=48167 This is not new though, this has been going on for years with these stock photo companies. But with new digital steganographic techniques it is making it much easier for these companies to find people and either sue them, or send settlement demands. They don't seem to be going after large companies though, just the smaller companies who are more likely to settle. I bet they didn't expect this ELI forum to blossom as it has. Kudos to you Matthew and Oscar!
Here is another problem though, Archive dot org is not the only site that archives your website.
Iterasi.net does as well as aboutus.org. Domaintools too. They unlike archive dot org refuse to remove old thumbnails no matter what. So I think these stock photo companies should hold these archives responsible for their images since they are the ones now hosting the images on their sites, even if you remove the images from your site. So how do we get them to remove the images? You do have some control over Aboutus but the others are looking for a letter from a lawyer to remove the images. I think we need to mention these sites since it affects all of us who do not like our sites being archived without permission. It should be illegal to do that without permission from the site owner or at least they should be required to follow the robots.txt or a request to remove the images and or thumbnails. The stock photo companies should not be able to use those archived images to claim copyright infringement. How do you know those dates or images on the thumbnails are correct? What if for one second you did a mock up using a Getty image and the archive site took a snapshot at just that moment in time. How long was that image up there for? 10 seconds, one hour or one year? Not sure if I like corporations acting like big brother on the internet.
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