ExtortionLetterInfo Forums

Retired Forums => UK Getty Images Letter Forum => Topic started by: smed on November 19, 2012, 07:00:51 AM

Title: BBC News image
Post by: smed on November 19, 2012, 07:00:51 AM
Hello,
We received a letter this morning from getty images requesting that we pay £750 for an image used on our website so i want to have a look on our site we have a blog that pulls news from the BBC News Technology RSS feed. so i found the post here it is:
http://promediauk.co.uk/?p=2430

As you may notice that the image is'nt hosted on our servers its still on the bbc servers so where do we go from here will we have to pay them the money?
Title: Re: BBC News image
Post by: Greg Troy (KeepFighting) on November 19, 2012, 08:30:15 AM
Not sure in the UK but in the US if the image is linked and not on the servers it is not copyright infringement.
Title: Re: BBC News image
Post by: Couch_Potato on November 19, 2012, 10:47:26 AM
This isn't relevant to Getty but have you checked out that you comply with the BBC terms of use for businesses? http://www.bbc.co.uk/terms/business.shtml

I am unsure how affiliated your blog is to your business but the website seems to be commercial in nature.

With regards to Getty the decision on how you proceed will all be down to how you personally prefer to handle things. Broadly speaking you have 3 options.

1) Decide you don't feel their claim is valid and refuse it.
2) Seek legal advice (This is costly and probably more than they are asking for as you'll need to seek the opinion of a barrister).
3) Pay them.

I personally would not pay them, certainly not £750, but the ultimate choice has to be yours.

Even though this website is predominately US based the copyright laws of both countries are similar so anything information you learn here will be useful. Read through the information provided in the main site and on some of the threads in the forum and decide how you want to handle it.

If you want short term peace of mind send a reply to Getty and tell them you have investigated their claim and can confirm the image never resided on your server so you deny their claim for copyright infringement. Do not tell them how it came to be displayed on your site as that is really none of their business at this stage.

If nothing else it will buy you time to get educated. This is not a criminal matter, this is a civil matter so don't worry about their threats of court action which is not an option at this time. Civil matters must usually be mediated before court proceedings.
Title: Re: BBC News image
Post by: rapidbi on November 25, 2012, 01:40:23 PM
I'm currently have the same issue with an image a company used as their logo on my site - but the people representing getty are just ignoring requests for clarity

Its a crazy situation