Messages

1

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Copyright Troll Insurance ... from iStockphoto?

« on: June 30, 2012, 07:36:06 PM »

The image you're being harassed for is a Getty image, not an iStock image, right?

Yeah.. just saying since Getty owns Istockphoto then the whole thing has left a bad taste in my mouth, enough for me to avoid both of them.

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Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Should i settle???

« on: June 30, 2012, 05:51:56 AM »

Have there been any resolutions in any of the earliest cases?   Where do these cases stand? Is Getty pursuing them?   
Also, I am not sure of what is provided in the Oscar’s Defense Letter Program?   I have tried to  digest  "all" the info on the site.  Help

I'm hoping you haven't paid Getty yet as I would NOT settle. The only time I would settle would be if I was a web designer with a client that was on the hook - and then I would settle just so the client doesn't have to deal with the problems that Getty would cause. (unless you have a really good relationship with the client and they understand what will happen).
If it's just images used for your company site though, I would fight tooth and nail.
I would personally opt for Oscars letter defense program in your case.. since after reading his example letters I can see he puts a lot of work into defending your company and in the best case you might not have to pay anything as they might drop it, but in the worst case you will likely pay less than the 1k.
Obviously there is no guarantee but heck I would rather fight them even if it cost me a little more , and I think chances are good it will cost you less and then you don't have to feel cheated..
Another good thing, from what I understand with Oscars program is that they stop pestering you and have to deal with him directly.

I don't think there have been many cases in which Getty actually took a case to trial. There have been some cases of being submitted to collection agencies I guess, although it's not happening much now it seems.

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Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Copyright Troll Insurance ... from iStockphoto?

« on: June 30, 2012, 05:38:19 AM »

Basically Getty is saying: Buy our insurance, and when we do harass you over the legality of your photos, we will then settle for a measly $500 for your legal photos, instead of the normal $1000+ we normally extort.

Let's not forget that Getty Images owns iStockphoto.

I'm not forgetting that is for sure. I used to buy photos from istock. Now i'm not after being harassed by Getty. I guess that would be a problem for them if they were in the photo business instead of primarily the extortion business.

4

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Recieved a demand letter today.. What do you think of my response?

« on: June 30, 2012, 05:05:19 AM »

Also I thought I would add one note on this case:
I had a special script on my site that took my amazon affiliate astore and put it within my site header & footer. About a month ago I noticed extremely high load on the script, meaning it was using a huge percentage of my server load.
At that time I disabled the script.

In retrospect, i'm assuming it was the getty crawler that caused the high load.. and it's a really good thing I disabled the script when I did, since god knows how many getty images are inside the amazon store, and god knows how many silly claims I would have had to defend against had I left it online .
Because I disabled it when I did I only had to deal with this one image.
So if you see high server load and your serving affiliate content, be very wary...

It's interesting though.. Getty caused server load issues, forced me to disable a lawful script to recover my server, sent me a threatening letter & wasted my time on administrative claims.. all while being completely innocent.
If I am a representative of a large "class" of people I think someone could make a class action case since they are certainly damaging people. Yeah I understand they are trying to defend their copyrights, however I would think there would be legal limits to the damage they can do to bystanders in the process.
They can't break into your house in the middle of the night with a swat team, to search your house for images, right?
So why can they do that to my server, my life & my business at any cost?
 

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Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Recieved a demand letter today.. What do you think of my response?

« on: June 30, 2012, 04:38:21 AM »

Well I received a response today that Getty has decided to drop the matter, which I didn't expect based on your experiences. (Email posted below).
I was ready for the good fight but honestly i'm also happy to be able to focus back on real business.
Still, i'm keeping this message thread bookmarked should I ever have any photo troll entanglements in the future .
Thanks again everyone!

Thank you for your email. We appreciate the time you have taken to contact us.

After further review of this case we have determined that the image is being used
within an ad by a another party.
 (please see attached screen capture "SC1")

However, based on this use of our image being within a 3rd party ad, we wish to
notify you that you may disregard the settlement presented to your company. No
further action is required on your part. We will redirect our claim as appropriate.

Thank you for your time and attention in this matter.

6

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Hello and I just got a letter from Getty

« on: June 27, 2012, 10:58:07 PM »

Well after searching the forum I see that the idea of a class action suit is hardly new. It's hard for me to believe it would be considered legal to be basically harass people they know they have no legal claim against just to extort money, as this case pretty well is an example of, as well as mine - so I would think it would be possible to make a case for damages in those cases.
But I'm not a lawyer so i'm sure Oscar would know better.

7

Getty Images Letter Forum / Getty & Collection Agencies

« on: June 27, 2012, 10:43:09 PM »

I'm just curious to know how often Getty submits their claims to collection agencies?
I've seen it mentioned a few times. In my case i'm pretty obviously innocent but it sounds like it wouldn't matter.
I'm planning to fight no matter what but was just curious if they often submit smaller cases to collection or let them drop if you keep resisting.

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Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Recieved a demand letter today.. What do you think of my response?

« on: June 27, 2012, 10:40:20 PM »

Thanks again everyone.. I will totally keep you guys in the loop as things develop.

Lucia your responses are amazing.. i'm not sure I can write mine as well as yours but it is certainly inspiring .

9

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Hello and I just got a letter from Getty

« on: June 27, 2012, 10:37:34 PM »

I know if it were me I'd tell them to eff off. Seriously. You take a picture of your computer running MS software and they are coming after you for infringement? This is the problem with them relying on software like PicScout. It finds an image match and gets the ball rolling. I used to assume that a human being would actually verify the validity of the claim. But now I'm starting to think that this whole racket is an automated cash grabbing machine.

The way this company harasses people, for frivolous reasons - they seem to be ripe for a class action lawsuit. Does anyone know what would be involved in that? It certainly seems like we have enough "class members" in this forum alone.

10

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Recieved a demand letter today.. What do you think of my response?

« on: June 26, 2012, 01:19:40 PM »

Hi Everyone, Thanks for your input .

Hmm... I think I would need a little bit more information involving your case, but from the looks of it your good to go.

Well in my case I have certain pages on my site that are loading my header & footer from my server, but the content of the pages between the header and footer are loading direct from an affiliate such as amazon and others.
Getty didn't actually provide a url, and the "evidence" they provided of the photo in question did not show my header or footer. All it showed was was what appeared to be product affiliate content not loading from my server.

At that point, you will want to cite "Amazon v. Perfect 10" while simultaneously requesting they send you information like the actual url etc.
Matt has a copy of the 2nd letter I sent.   

Thanks for the citing tips Lucia. I haven't been able to find the letters yet but I will totally check yours out as soon as I do . Is the general consensus that I should keep responding to them every time they write? Or should I only keep my one response for my records and ignore them unless they provide more concrete evidence?

don't expect Getty to roll over on this matter, just as a matter of repercussion see if the image in question is licensed and move form there.

Yeah I have gotten the idea that they will bark up any tree they can find no matter how frivolous. I've seriously considered for a second sending them an invoice for administrative time spent looking into this frivolous claim, and then sending them to collections should they not pay, but so far i've managed to keep myself from going overboard on this .

11

Getty Images Letter Forum / Recieved a demand letter today.. What do you think of my response?

« on: June 26, 2012, 02:12:26 AM »

Well lucky me I got a letter from Getty demanding about 1k for 1 image.
As far as I can tell i'm innocent since it appears to be from data pulled from another affiliate network, either amazon or another one.
I responded the below BEFORE I found this forum.. so curious what you guys think of what I said and what they might respond.
It's good to know this community is here and some of the options going forward to fight this.

My letter:
I received a letter from your company claiming unauthorized use of an
image (Case xxxxxx).
Assuming the image was in fact viewed on my site, since you did not
provide a url - the only place that image could have appeared is inside an
iframe of a product page pulled from amazon.com (via an amazon affiliate
proxy feed).
Therefor the image was not hosted by my site in any way and you have no
legal claim against our company.

Unless you provide other evidence to the contrary I consider this matter
closed.