Show Posts
1
Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Copytrack extortion letter
« on: October 13, 2018, 07:30:47 PM »
I know this is an old thread, but I just wanted to chime in as a photographer, who is not making a ton of money but a lot of my photos routinely get stolen and used allover the internet with zero compensation to me. I use Copytrack to help me track those websites and go after them for payment.
So I actually think it's horrible the way you guys are talking about it because, honestly, it doesn't matter if you're a small company or a blog or not profitable or whatever, you are using someone else's work for free and trying to get away with it by providing "credit", which frankly doesn't pay my bills. Photography is not free, even if you can find it on google images with a quick search and save it on your computer, it doesn't mean you can just put it up on your website for free. Content creation costs money.
So even though Copytrack starts out by asking pretty high amounts of money (which is typically our normal rate + damages because the photographer has the right to decide what kind of website can use their work), you should at the very least try to negotiate it down to something you can afford and pay it. At the end of the day if you can't afford to pay for the images then you should be using royalty free images or not have a website at all. "I don't make enough money so I should be able to use other people's work for free because they can't stop me" is a terrible argument, sorry!
I know some of you got into this situation thinking what you were doing is ok but please educate yourself on this and pay the poor photographer!! Even if it's not the full amount they're asking, anything is better than nothing and you benefited from their work so it's the right thing to do.
So I actually think it's horrible the way you guys are talking about it because, honestly, it doesn't matter if you're a small company or a blog or not profitable or whatever, you are using someone else's work for free and trying to get away with it by providing "credit", which frankly doesn't pay my bills. Photography is not free, even if you can find it on google images with a quick search and save it on your computer, it doesn't mean you can just put it up on your website for free. Content creation costs money.
So even though Copytrack starts out by asking pretty high amounts of money (which is typically our normal rate + damages because the photographer has the right to decide what kind of website can use their work), you should at the very least try to negotiate it down to something you can afford and pay it. At the end of the day if you can't afford to pay for the images then you should be using royalty free images or not have a website at all. "I don't make enough money so I should be able to use other people's work for free because they can't stop me" is a terrible argument, sorry!
I know some of you got into this situation thinking what you were doing is ok but please educate yourself on this and pay the poor photographer!! Even if it's not the full amount they're asking, anything is better than nothing and you benefited from their work so it's the right thing to do.