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Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Hi guys, Stock company is demanding I pay them $3800. Need some advice

« on: March 01, 2013, 06:48:24 PM »

Hi Greg,

Thank you for the response. I was doing many google searches and became quite puzzled because I couldn't access any old issues other users have had. Glad that it will be back up.

I completely agree with you. I want to have just one phone conversation with him and ask him if he will back off willingly because there no intention to make money off that pictures and it was a simple short lived place holder (too low resolution to accomplish it's purpose anyway). If he declines I will immediately end the call by telling him we'll carry the rest of our conversation through mail.

Would this be okay to do?

Thank you!

2

Getty Images Letter Forum / Hi guys, Stock company is demanding I pay them $3800. Need some advice

« on: March 01, 2013, 01:03:47 PM »

Hey!

So I've ran in to an issue. A colleague and I just started a business and had someone who we don't know (anonymous) make a quick placeholder picture for us.

I put this picture on the website while we were in just planning and development stage, aka there were no hits to the website and still isn't according to google analytics. We received an email from a company named Master File giving us 5 days to pay up or they will take us to court for $25,000. They did send mail telling us to remove the image and contact them but we never got to opening the letter because we thought it was just spam mail. Either way we still kept the letter in a basket and I opened it today after reading the email, luckily for us the image on the website was just a temporary placeholder and we had removed it before we even received that letter in the mail, or very close to it. Their letter in the mail also showed screenshots of the website and the picture in use.

Now I don't really know how to approach this. I tried to call their contact and discuss terms of cancelling this but he was away until Monday.

We certainly don't have any cash flow (or even a bank account) and we didn't even have the business registered yet while using this placeholder image. It was simply for making a concept of the way the website might look.
Where do I go from here? Should I be scared about their threat for litigation?

On the flip side it's outstanding how mediocre the picture is and that they're trying to charge that much to license it out in the first place.

Thank you so much for any suggestions!