Getty Images Cracking Down!
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- Alpesh
Anyone else received letters from Getty asking for ridiculous amounts of money for images on sites that aren't even live anymore, they found them using wayback machine!!
- madirish0
the nerve of Getty using the internet to find such information!!!
- moamoa0
everybody who steals pics from getty, corbis or whatever deservs a chastisement
- Alpesh0
I agree if it were stealing, this is an image on a site that was used as a comp to show a client and hasn't been live for over 2 years.
- Alpesh0
no the watermark was cropped out, getty watermarks are on the top left and so you cant see it.
- not that i agree with them in this case, but they will have a decisively strong case in this one.. :(madirish
- Give me a break they should have sent you one a cease and desist and they go after you for " stealing " well where's the proof that the site was live if it wasn't actually live. Their are plenty of hidden sites on servers. They'd need the web stats to prove it was live.Iggyboo
- proof the site was live. wheres the webstats?Iggyboo
- _niko0
Fucking bullshit Getty Shakedown, nothing less than Extortion.
They give designers access to their images for comps and what not and inevitable a certain percentage will slip through the cracks and be inadvertently posted online. They use image bots to scour the internet looking for all unlicenced images whish is probably in the tens of thousands, then they pounce, using scare tactics to make you pay ridiculous sums.
Tell them to go and fuck themselves, Getty has never prosecuted anyone over copyright infringements because they know they don't have a case.
- Alpesh0
They want £3800 for the image, which is nuts for an image thats about 300x150 px, it only costs around £200 to buy it. I wouldn't mind if the client had chosen that route but they didn't.
- Jnr_Madison0
Moral of the story, don't rub another man's rhubarb.
- http://en.wikipedia.… ??heavyt
- I was thinking the sameAffluenza
- moamoa0
Alpesh:
3 clients from me als had that kind of problem in the past....
and THEY MUST pay it... if you got a good & fair lawyer he will give you the advice to pay... or it will be much more money..
- _niko0
HAHA ignore them, throw the letter away, They have no leg to stand on. they would get laughed out of any courtroom. You were not using the image to directly profit from it, like printing it on a t-shirt that you were selling.
How can Getty act as judge and jury in these cases?Besides you live in the UK, you're protected under it's copyright law.
- _niko0
--------from another forum--------------
I received letters from Getty Images so I researched the legal side of this in some depth including obtaining professional legal advice. Getty Images fails on a number of points, particularly with regard to the letters it sends to UK recipients.* Getty are issuing invoices headed with a US address, posted in London, with no VAT number but charging UK VAT. It is illegal to charge UK VAT without a UK VAT number on the invoice. HM Revenue and Customs takes a very dim view of this kind of malpractice.
* Getty claim it makes no difference that you didn't know the image was copyright, but they also cite the UK's Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988. Section 97 of the very act they are quoting negates Getty's claim. See http://www.opsi.gov.uk/ACTS/acts…
* If it ever went to court, most of these claims (under £5000) would be dealt with in the Small Claims track of the County Court, and Getty would therefore be unable to recover its legal costs. It would be cheap for the defendant but expensive for Getty.
* Getty would have to prove in court that they have actually suffered the damages that they are claiming. This would be very hard for them to do unless for example you had been selling the image on your site and Getty had lost sales of the image as a result. Less significantly, Getty would also have to prove that they own the copyright on the image.
* Getty's invoices state that you have used the image over a specific period (e.g. 6 months). If Getty objected to your unlicensed use of their image, then they should have sent you a "cease and desist" notice when they (or Picscout) first discovered your use of the image at the beginning of that period, rather than intentionally letting you continue to use the image for months in an attempt to make you accrue a large (disputed) invoice in their favour. This point alone demonstrates that Getty's objective is revenue generation rather than copyright protection. Furthermore, deliberately letting you continue to use the image for many months could be construed as consent, albeit consent for the sole purpose of pecuniary advantage.
On receipt of these letters, many people are tempted to contact Getty for the peace of mind of a quick resolution, but this is the worst thing you can do and it will certainly not get you peace of mind. The most effective course of action is to ignore all correspondence from Getty. As soon as you make contact with them, that's when they become even more intimidating as they then know you're taking them seriously. Getty's whole approach is based on intimidation and bending the truth of the law, in the knowledge that many people will cough up without a fight. If you ignore their letters, they may eventually send round debt collectors (probably Moreton Smith). However, as they would have no court order, they would have no power to enforce payment or to remove goods. If you refuse to pay and tell them the invoice is disputed, there's nothing the debt collectors can do. They will have no option but to go away and eventually forget about you.
Don't be intimidated by Getty - just ignore them!
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- Alpesh0
yeh its a bit odd, US copyright, Irish VAT on the invoice??
- mg330
Riddle me this then:
For a site I recently built for a friend, I found the primary image, an eps file, on istockphoto.com. I used the jpg version in my concepts after easily removing the watermark, did all the work I needed to in Photoshop, and he liked it. Ended up using that one as the final image so I did not have to go back and rework the actual purchased EPS file.
I did, then, actually buy the EPS since that was obviously the correct thing to do.
Have I done anything wrong here? As far as I see it, i did buy the image, I would think that using the original lightbox jpg would not be a problem.
- you bought it... i should think it mattered which version you used... plus can they really prove which one it is?7point34
- i shouldN'T think it mattered..7point34
- Yeah, beside when you buy an eps they include a jpeg version too, so yer grand.ian
- Riddle me this: do you usually assume you don't own something after purchasing it?Transit_Broadcast
- canuck0
tell getty to GFY
- Alpesh0
Irish VAT's 21% so they even pull your pants down on that!
- The_CCG0
mg33- I'm pretty sure, so long as you have proof of purchase, and the stock agency has such, you're in the clear even if they approached you on the issue.
_Niko- I think, quite frankly, you're way off base. If you use their images, and they make it onto the live site, then you are at fault for that mistake. You used that image for your own financial gain. Unless your work was pro bono, and your client is a philanthropic agency that feeds needy, abused, and legless children, entirely from donations and staffed by volunteers, they are also making a profit. Hence, money was made from the images.
- _niko0
I understand but they should first send a cease and desist order at which point you realize the error and promptly remove the image. The way they are going about it is totaly wrong. demanding £3800 for a 300x 150 image that an picbot found is insane and probably illegal, which is why they have yet to go to court over a single case.
- Alpesh0
Agree they should send a cease and desist first, I didn't even know that the files were still on my server they are over 2 years old
- sikma0
sending a cease and desist would do little to prevent people from ripping them off
- _niko0
Then don't make their images so accessible. Do what istock does and have watermarks all over the place. It's entrapment.
- with that logic, you could walk into a grocery store and just take whatever you want. there are no security tags on food.lvl_13
- but i'm just playing devils advocate. i think it's a very harsh way of dealing with a 2+year old image on a comp.lvl_13
- i think he is joking... ;)cramdesign