Getty caught me
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- ladyboy
Just received a very threatening legal letter from getty. Their picscout bot located one of their images on my site. Now they want 7 grand for the image - that's a shakedown. It's been happening to others as well.
I never use copyrighted images and don't believe anyone knowingly should - especially designers.
In my case I made a comp that featured a getty image in it. Client never bought the concept and project died. I made no money. It was on my site in the portfolio section.
Anyone else get a getty letter?
- OSFA0
ouch. 7Grand?
- OeufOeuf0
Whoa, damn.
Isn't ok to be on your site since it's a portfolio piece and you made no money off it?
- Jaline0
How do they know that he didn't make money off of it though?
Really sucks.
- Nairn0
Facists.
Is an unpaid-for comp not fair use? Surely the only right they have at this stage is to ask you to take it offline?
Good luck & fuck 'em.
- OSFA0
Have you called them? explained the situation? That's what I would do...
- ladyboy0
Legally it's not OK. They don't know I didn't make money on it. But when I explained the whole oversight to Getty they didn't hear it. Told me they'd take 15% off if I payed in 14 days - then said they'd sue.
It's bullshit - no one goes to my site. The image itself was so small, and so obviosly a comp.
I've authorized the purchase of maybe 50 images from getty over the years. I'll never use them again. Bad business on their part. I would have given them $400 and called it a day.
- blaw0
your best bet is going to be hiring a lawyer to help you work through.
it can be argued that the image was not generating revenue/being used in a commercial way and you were not using the image as content, per se.
- jox0
While I seriously doubt they'd process against every single person who print-screened one of their images for a comp, that 7 grand is based off of what they believe you earned on it. How the hell did they even find it?
Surely you can work something out if you just get in touch with them. Just think about what you say should this ever go to court...
Sorry to hear about your situation.
- jox0
"Told me they'd take 15% off if I payed in 14 days - then said they'd sue."
LOL! What the fuck.
Tell them to go suck your ass. No self-respecting legal department would ever say something like that. Are you sure this isn't a scam??
- ladyboy0
Thanks for the support. I took the image piece down immediately of course.
I agree - fuck them.
legally I'm heavily outgunned but I've yet to hear of them actually taking a small-timer freelancer to court.
- BonSeff0
counter sue the picscout bot for trespassing!
- OSFA0
just make sure you change your screen name before going to court... ;)
- gramme0
ouch. hope you don't hear anymore now that the image is gone.
fascists is right.
- ladyboy0
I agree - totally sketchy. It's legit though - it's getty.
They just want money and are using all the scare tactics in the book. I bet a bunch of folks get scared and pay.
Has anyone heard of any actual legal action taken by Getty?
I think I'm just going to ignore them and do nothing
- ********0
stupid to get caught using a comp you never really worked with.
btw, robots.txt:
user-agent: *
disallow: /images
- ********0
counter sue the picscout bot for trespassing!
BonSeff
(Jul 25 07, 06:31)I'd be interested to see what it calls itself in your server logs.
You should find out and post it here ;)
- canuck0
wow. that blows. Just take your site offline...delete the evidence.
"what image, are you talking about getty, your picscout bot is on crack."
- Jaline0
Also make sure it isn't at the Internet Archive or anything ;)
- rafalski0
How the hell did they even find it?
jox
(Jul 25 07, 06:28)Image recognition/comparison algorithms have been out there for ages, and now are highly advanced. I'd say their bots crawl the web like googlebot does and count the feckin' pixels on the interweb.
And boy do they have the resources even to have an army of sweating pixelcounters with abacuses (err.. abaci) to do the job.
- ladyboy0
Thanks for this Witt - but apparantly no one can stop these isreali bots. Others are complaining about them as well. They work fuck'n well though