[pgo]

Originally Posted by Cloudbase

Getty Images are employing bullying and immoral tactics in claimed copyright infringement. They are pure bounty hunters for the following reasons:

1. They never contact the person using the pictures to ask them to desist. This is not the normal way to operate.

2. They impose an unrealistic penalty for usage that way exceeds the rate of normal picture usage - often for a 95 x95 pixel thumbnail pic.

3. They charge VAT when the charges are coming from the USA but they hide behind Getty UK address and are unable to supply a valid UK VAT receipt.

4.They use intimidating letters often on innocent third parties.

The fact is that they use software to trawl the web looking for their pictures and get heavy handed at once they find them.

Whilst I dont condone picture theft these guys are behaving like sharks.

In other words, use free stock images, buy your pictures legitimately, or take your own.

[Dusteh]

Hes got a point though. Fair enough a graphic designer stealing images for commercial work - but they go for amateur sites built by people who don't even realise who Getty are.

Ignorance isn't an excuse, true. But on the other hand, the punishment should fit the crime. And Getty are far too harsh.

[starspain]

Originally Posted by ilostmypassword

Pay it and move on. And oh.. don't steal other peoples work

I am a legal ignorant, but is it stealing if one takes a purse that he finds on the street that somebody else has lost? And what if somebody leaves something of value at some place accesible for everybody, with the implicit intention to make peaple act against the law so he can afterwards coerce them? Don't you see an actus reus of solicitation?

"In the United States, solicitation is a crime; it is an inchoate offense that consists of a person (Getti Images) offering money or something else of value (photographs) in order to incite or induce another to commit a crime (infringement of intellectual property laws)."

[pgo]

I agree, Dusteh, that going after amateurs is a bit of an asshole move.

"In the United States, solicitation is a crime; it is an inchoate offense that consists of a person (Getti Images) offering money or something else of value (photographs) in order to incite or induce another to commit a crime (infringement of intellectual property laws)."

Getty is not offering images to entice people to steal them...people take them from sites that have purchased them and use them on their sites.

Your analogy and logic is poor.

I am a legal ignorant, but is it stealing if one takes a purse that he finds on the street that somebody else has lost?

Besides your analogy being completely incoherent, yes, it is stealing to take something that doesn't belong to you. Any lawyer or police officer will tell you that you're supposed to take the item and turn it in to police or try to find the rightful owner. If, after a certain time, (30 days, I think) no one claims it, then they usually let you keep it.

Not that this has any relevance to the Getty issue.

[apple]

Originally Posted by spiderman

I too would be interested in a followup post from Kingdoz. I received three letters from Getty Images and they are really stressing me out. I designed two web sites for my children and got photos from the web. Now Getty want £15,000 from me.

I know that some posts here are not at all concerned with how people feel but this is very distressing.

Any update on what to do would be appreciated.

shit dude i think you just got fucked up. 15K now thats insane.. i would move countries, shit.

[tofallinlove]

remove any images that are theirs and ignore them they wont do shit they will just disapear, dont contact them explaining anything either just let it ride.

happend to clients i know many times.

[joshuaguff]

Originally Posted by tofallinlove

remove any images that are theirs and ignore them they wont do shit they will just disapear, dont contact them explaining anything either just let it ride.

happend to clients i know many times.

Are you sure? Today I found a letter from NCS Recovery corp on my desk, they say that Ghetty has turned it over to their collection agency to collect the money, they are making phone calls and the letter is threating legal action if we don't pay. $1,200 for each image is a little much don't you think? But on the other hand, if they choose sue us for five times that amount if we don't pay - we don't have much of a choice.

It was wrong for us to steal the images, but is Ghetty serious, or are they just trying to make money off our fear.

[Cooper]

Originally Posted by joshuaguff

Are you sure? Today I found a letter from NCS Recovery corp on my desk, they say that Ghetty has turned it over to their collection agency to collect the money, they are making phone calls and the letter is threating legal action if we don't pay. $1,200 for each image is a little much don't you think? But on the other hand, if they choose sue us for five times that amount if we don't pay - we don't have much of a choice.

It was wrong for us to steal the images, but is Ghetty serious, or are they just trying to make money off our fear.

You need to get a lawyer ASAP. Personally, I'd say there's a valid argument that $1,200 per image is an excessive penalty and there might be a case to fight it down to something more realistic, in the same fashion that UK banks are getting their wrists slapped for excessive charges. Basically there's a law that prevents companies from applying penalties that do not correspond to the companies expenses. They can charge whatever they like for general work - in the case of Ghetty, they can put whatever price tag they like on photographs - but specifically for penalties they aren't allowed to charge more than the associated expenses and costs that they incur, even if those extortionate charges are written into a contract.

I'm certainly not condoning the action of IP theft, but the punishment should match the crime. $1,200 might be a reasonable penalty charge, but it'd certainly be worth checking the opinion of an actual lawyer.

[Brown]

Originally Posted by Cooper

You need to get a lawyer ASAP.

excellent advice, 2 years too late.

[Cooper]

Err. Oops! In my defence, someone else necroed it first.

[brdee]

Guys,

I am also have problems with Getty trying to charge my small company £1700 for 1 months usage of what we thought at the time was a free low res image which later we learn costs £39.00!

After 6 months of silence Getty have handed the case over to a Debt collector, so now we have passed this to out Lawyers who are very interested in the case!

The Lawyers are thinking of a campaign, and therefore if you are experiencing similar issues, please do contact me because we want to collect as many co-sufferers as possible and our lawyer are willing to represent us collectively to create a concerted action against them. Whats to lose?

Keith

[bara]

hope you have professional incompetence insurance

[brdee]

OK..

So it has started...

We are getting enquiries from other sufferers and these are being given a legal intro.

This legal stuff is unfortunately (on the legal front anyway) only available for UK jurisdiction right now I am afraid. However as soon as I locate a good lawyer for other jurisdictions I will let you know!

Please contact me if you want to Join... the more the better!

...and please spread the word!!!

Cheers

[BSM]

Ok, I’ve been dealing with this for over a year now. They sent us 2 letters without a sending us a take-down notice sent first for two small images of hands shaking we got from a hosting companies website we were reselling for back in the day. When we received the first letter we removed the two images and contacted them saying the following:

Hi,
I received a letter demanding payment for 2 photos we had on our website which we got off the net. We were not aware they were copyrighted and we made no profit from the use of these 2 images. We are also a small home based business which even if we wanted to pay the amount we could not. We have now removed the images in question, with our apologies. Why was a take-down notice was not issued as per DMCA? I also don’t recognize your invoice as valid or legal. As to this issue we have removed them from our website and will no longer use them. We consider this issue closed.

Please Read:

The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (c. 48)
“97.—(1) Where in an action for infringement of copyright it is shown that at the time of the infringement the defendant did not know, and had no reason to believe, that copyright subsisted in the work to which the action relates, the plaintiff is not entitled to damages against him, but without prejudice to any other remedy.”

“It is an offence under Section 40 of the Administration of Justice Act 1970 and Section 1 of the Malicious Communications Act 1988 to harass of debtors with a view to obtaining payment including the issue of letters which convey a threat or false information with intent to cause distress or anxiety.”

The response we got from Getty was this:

Thank you for your attention to this matter, we are in receipt of your
letter dated January 08, 2008. Getty Images understands you are a small home based business and may have been unaware of copyright law. We are willing to work with your company in order to come to a fair and amicable resolution.

Unfortunately, that fact that your company made no profit from our
images is irrelevant, Getty Images only provides imagery but does not
take responsibility for how many hits your website receives or how much
profit your company makes. We are in the business of licensing
photography and we are looking out for our photographers well being.
A cease and desist notice was included with the settlement demand,
because of our contracts with our photographers, we must also come to a settlement agreement as well as have you remove the images in question.

The Patents Act of 1988 I irrelevant as Getty Images is not seeking
statutory damages, at this time Getty Images is only seeking to come to
an amicable settlement in order to pay back the photographer for his
work, and our third party for policing our imagery. We are in no way
seeking statutory damages.

Getty Images appreciates the removal of its represented images from your company’s website. However, removal of the images in question solves only part the issue, as Getty Images will continue to require full
payment of the invoice to settle the matter and avoid further
escalation.

Please be in touch with our department so we may come to a quick and
amicable resolution.

As a result we were called by a company called NCS Recovery which is a collection agency. When the woman told us of Getty demanding payment for this we told them it is against the law what they are doing and she said how is that possible? When I told her:

The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (c. 48)
“97.—(1) Where in an action for infringement of copyright it is shown that at the time of the infringement the defendant did not know, and had no reason to believe, that copyright subsisted in the work to which the action relates, the plaintiff is not entitled to damages against him, but without prejudice to any other remedy.”

“It is an offence under Section 40 of the Administration of Justice Act 1970 and Section 1 of the Malicious Communications Act 1988 to harass of debtors with a view to obtaining payment including the issue of letters which convey a threat or false information with intent to cause distress or anxiety.”

Her reply was this is not a depth collection that they are calling to just settle this matter with Getty. We told them the matter was settled when we removed the 2 images in question and we are not paying a dime. She replied ok thank you for your time.

My advise to you is read the (C) law, they are required by law to send a removal letter first, by not doing this puts them in violation of the (C) Act.

Want to see more on this topic go here: (will not let me post url)

As long as you take down any (c) photo right away they have no legal grounds. Specially proof to take you to court over it because any document showing photos on a website can be doctored. It would have to still be up when they file anything with courts which the notification of take down would be issued legally not how they did it with a bill. Only way they can get you legally is if you did something like the man just arrested for posting Guns N Roses music before it was released, the FBI themselves seen the site, got a court order and took it down with arresting the guy. Getty on the other hand is sending invoices with screen shots of photos. Once you take any (c) photo down there is nothing for them to do to you except hound you with invoices and non-certified legal ones I may ad. Its all scare tactics. Lucky for me I dealt with this type of stuff when I worked for huge media companies in the past. When a company is hurting financially they will do will do anything to save their asses. They just try to scare people and some people fall for it cause they do not know the (c) law. When I personally confronted them on the phone, email and their stupid collections attempt I told them all where to go. Some of them seemed surprised. But like what you think I would fall for this illegal scam? I may be a small biz but I'm not stupid, I know the games, I've seen the games, and I will not deal with the games being pushed on me. I will laugh my ass off when a class action hits the scene for illegal bullying. Then lets see them save their asses.

[BSM]

www dot extortionletterinfo dot com

[dvdvns]

My client recieved a Gett letter last week and is understandably worried about the £1,200 fee being asked. As measure of responsibility I have advised that I will deal with this for him. I did not know the image was from Getty and am an individual freelancer (and this is occasional as I hold a full time job too). The above url has a link to a UK blog which is very helpful (I cannot post this yet).

[Pugsley]

This is a strange thread. Full of one post wonders.

[Herr Kurm]

drameh continues