Getty Images is suing me - and it is not my fault

Thats really lame on their part.
Does the image on your site have a "getty images" water mark? Because if not, then you could easily fight this. How can they prove that they're the original owners of the picture? Seems hard to do, specially with no watermark… If they're asking for a lot of cash, then I'd just try and fight it.

Then again, I could be wrong. I'll let another member chime in. Good luck!

There's a wealth of information available about this:

http://www.lmgtfy.com/?q=Getty+Images+Demand+Letter

I thought the next step is a cease and desist where you have a chance to remove it

Basically Getty Images have spiders that trawl the web looking for images that contain their hidden watermark. Then they go after you.

As the image didn't originate on your blog but was syndicated from another, try just removing the offending post. Then tell them what you've done and why. Hopefully they won't pursue it further.

As to the legal situation, Warriors can't advise for obvious reasons. But this should serve as a warning that copying images from Search Engine results without checking the originating copyright is asking for this sort if trouble.

I can't look it up right now, but there is some sort of law that says that a forum/blog owner isn't responsible for what is posted by its users if I recall correctly.

Not sure what the limitations are but I believe this is true. Of course I'm not a lawyer and not sure about any of this - just seems like I remember it. You may want to look it up or speak to your own lawyer about it.

Mark

I've heard of Getty Images from my old job and they're pretty ruthless.

They asked $700 per picture that my old job used for their blog and I don't think it really went anywhere.

Definitely look up more info online and consult a laywer if you need to. Right now, it looks like a scam according to what I've looked up in google, but you can never be too sure.

I am sure they need to request you to remove it first before they can demand money from you.

Ianal. This is just my layman's opinion.

First of all, they are not suing you, unless they have already filed a law suit. They are threatening to sue you.

(and yes they can sue, or threaten to sue, without first doing a cease and desist letter).

Secondly, you may find the following website helpful. There is a ton of information by people who have been through this experience - as well as some lawyer posts - check out the forum in particular - ExtortionLetterInfo: Fight Getty Images Settlement Demand Letters » Reporting on Getty Images Settlement Demand Letters

Thirdly, if you read that forum, most people think it's not a good idea talking to Getty until you have properly researched where you stand. You clearly haven't just by the title of this post. Getty will of course tend to tell you things that favour their position, and make you more likely to settle, rather than things that might apply in your defense. Likewise by talking to them without knowing what you are doing, you are potentially making admissions or volunteering information they can use against you, and potentially undermining your own defenses.

Once you have done some basic research, you can then get your own lawyer to handle the response (make sure you get a copyright lawyer), or there's even a lawyer on that forum who will do it for you and who is experienced in dealing with Getty. Or you can respond to getty knowing what you are talking about. Or you can decide to pay Getty. Whatever you decide, you will be doing it with some knowledge, rather thane blindly guessing as how to rpond.

While i can not verify it., According to that forum, fwiw, Getty have so far sued exactly once over a single image infringement, despite having sent many thousands (?) of demand letters. No doubt some of the recipients of such letters have paid Getty in full, but there are bound to be many many others who haven't and haven't been sued.

Finally, if you have already done so, you might think it is probably best to immediately remove the image (without immediately running to Getty and admitting liability). You might also consider putting some kind of system in place to stop potentially infringing images being uploaded to your site in future.

Good luck.

P.s.

Is the image even on your site?

A link to an image that is hosted elsewhere is not copyright infringement (ianal) as far as I know: see amazon vs perfect 10 (it's on Wikipedia, and is discussed on the forum linked above). See this us just one of many possible defences that might apply, depending on circumstances. Every case is different, that's why you need to research (and get professional advice if you can afford it) before responding.

You are responsible for what is on your site and in the case of social type sites and blogs etc where you are not directly responsible, once you are made aware the responsibilty falls solely on you and I would assume a cease and desist should be in order.

Basically a take down notice...

I would delete the image write them back and tell them that under the law you have done what you are obligated to do, apologise and basically word it nicely for them to bring it on in court if they are not happy. Last step, have a beer and stop worrying. Lol.

No company in their right mind will hire a lawyer and run something as small as this through the courts even if it is a small consumer court. In their opinion it doesn't hurt to try.

Basically take Eddie Murphy's impersonation of Richard Pryors advice "Well, tell Bill I said have a Coke and a smile and shut the f*ck up. ...."

Sunnil has give good advice, but for God sakes you don't need a lawyer for a small claim.

This happened to me I just deleted the image and told them so.
I did not hear from them anymore.

First of all removed the mage and delete the post then tell them what actually happened. I think it will solve your problem.

I hired an agency to build me a site and they used an unlicensed Getty image. I received the demand for $850.

I paid the Getty demand, but fortunately I recouped the cost from the agency.

You can either pay it or wait and see what they do. If it's one image, it's a small amount (relative to other lawsuits).

Keep in mind if you chance a lawsuit, the filings may be public documents. If you prefer not being named in a copyright infringement suit, you may just want to pay. For example, if you do web design, it wouldn't be cool for prospective clients to stumble on a court filing. It can't help your business.

Basically, this was the main reason I paid ... I didn't want to be named in a copyright infringement case ... and I knew I'd lose because it was a site I owned.

it sounds fishy, its almost as if they built the business just to earn from this method.

I would remove the image and that is about it.

My company received one of these letters about a month ago. The price is $1,220. Our web designer grabbed an image from a website that said "royalty free pictures". Apparently, that wasn't the case. Once we received the letter, our designer immediately DELETED the image from our server. At that time, we declined to reply to the letter.

We received a 2nd letter a few days ago. We promptly forwarded the letter to our company lawyer, which most likely, he will contact them and offer them a price of 30x of the actual cost of the image. From quick research the image is $1.99, so an honest amount of $59.70 will be offered. All future communication will be done through our lawyer, so I can update you on what the final result will be.

I have searched the federal and CA, WA, AZ, CO court filings and have only seen a single lawsuit from Getty Images. It doesn't really say what the outcome was. Our lawyer will get back to us Monday to see what she can find out. I would assume GettyImages would be extremely selective in lawsuits, as if they sued a few people and lost it would set a bad president for their future lawsuits.

BTW... our company lawyer has 20 years in IP and copyright cases; we feel good about it.

Like others who have commented here I am NOT a lawyer however because of an experience I had I would seriously investigate whether it's a scam of some sort since you have removed the picture from your site and they are still pursuing it. I had a "Think and grow rich" website and received a letter from the Napoleon Hill Foundation both by email and by airmail saying I was infringing their copyright for using the book title "Think And Grow Rich" even though it's a public domain book as they apparently have copyright over the title. They gave me a time limit to remove the web content which I did and they were happy with that as obviously they were a legitimate company so I do think that as you've taken it off you should be ok but please be careful and if in doubt consult a lawyer if it looks like they will go through with the legal proceedings.

GOOD LUCK!

Sandra

They are extortionists of the highest order.

Don't give them a red cent.

However, before you tell them to go scratch, make sure you have some knowledge of the laws and your rights so you sound like you're not one to extort.

Or just ignore them lol

I wonder why otherwise reasonable people that would want to protect their own stuff, can't stand for someone else to protect their stuff?

Mark

This thread is two months old.

Y'all realize that, right?

I got the same letter from Getty - about one image that I didn't even post - removed the image and ignored the letter. Got a second letter and ignored it, too. Never heard anything else.

As of a year ago, Getty hadn't actually sued anybody. There ARE some sites, though, that will sue you. The first you will know about it is when you get a notice to appear in court. So be really careful about using images. We're fanatics about images.

This site is great: ExtortionLetterInfo: Fight Getty Images Settlement Demand Letters » Reporting on Getty Images Settlement Demand Letters

Oscar recommends replying but I've talked with people who have replied and they're rude and arrogant. They have 3 years to actually sue you for copyright infringement.

So If I posted an illegal image on this forum who would be responsible?

Sounds like a scam to me OP. If it was a legitimate claim on their behalf they would give you ample time to remove the image and comply with their Terms of Use. However since they are demanding a cash settlement right off the bat it sounds like a scam. I wouldn't pay it no heed.

I ahd this due to logonerds stealing images and I contacted Copyright Infringement - Getty Extortion Letter - Getty Images demands - the law and image protection copyright

FOr £150 it alll went away :-)

From everything I've read, plenty of people have simply ignored them and they went away.

The amount of money that would be required to chase everyone that ignores them would be astronomical.

Just goes to show it's a good idea to always moderate comments on your blog and delete anything that looks suspicious.

We have been fighting both getty images and logonerds and we are winning :-)

You mean they don't submit a DMCA notice first? Sighs....

i got the letter about a year ago, i ignored....i got a 2nd letter about 2 months later and ignored again

been about 10 months and nothing since.

i did NOT acknowledge in anyway that I got the letter, I thought it may be viewed as an admission of guilt. I simply removed all images from my site that i didn't take.

I had googled images and simply linked from other sites thinking it was public domain....i suppose i was wrong.

If that was truly the case we could probably all get rich by suing facebook. Family friends ect have used my pic on there multiple times.

I would either call your attorney or if you don't have one or can't afford an attorney will be appointed to you. Well sort of, look up prepaid legal its about 30 bucks for the first month but you get a consultation in the area you want and either the attorney can make a phone call for you or draft a letter to get them off your back.

If they didn't send you a take down notice then I don't see a court agreeing with there side.

Wow!I had no idea that you can`t post pictures with copyright.I am glad I found out now before I made that mistake.

These people are known predators. I would immediately consult an attorney. I would absolutely NOT enter into any agreement of any kind with these snakes before consulting with an attorney.

There have been many cases where Getty themselves cannot even prove copyright over the photos they are trying to get settlements on.

Whatever you do don't listen to any advice from Getty as any action they tell you to take will undoubtedly be in their best interest and not yours.

Bottom line - Talk to a lawyer immediately.

Don't ignore it because I doubt it will go away. They can (and will) turn you over to a collection agency and then they will hound the crap out of you and worst case scenario they will file a lawsuit against you. I say again - consult an attorney who knows what they are talking about!

Ignore them.

I have a very large empowerment forum where some users (not even admin) screen shot several websites to raise some queries. Guess what? the screen shot included images on those third party sites.

Here comes Getty saying that I violated their copy rights. This notwithstanding BB code was utilized to simply embed the screen shots

As a lawyer, I told them up yours

I'm actually seeing a lot of getty images when I search for images on Google. Is it okay to just credit the image instead?

A couple years ago, I had a client who received this same letter from Getty. Her previous designer had apparently used a Getty image in an animation on her site. She was terrified by this letter. I took down the image from her site and she did not respond to the letter. She never heard anything back again after that.

Man, Getty Images sounds like quite the vampire.

This must be a substantial part of their business model now.

We received the same kind of threatening letter - twice. Like others have mentioned, we spent a lot of time at ExtortionLetterInfo: Fight Getty Images Settlement Demand Letters » Reporting on Getty Images Settlement Demand Letters. Oscar, the lawyer on the site, recommends contacting them - but we didn't. Everyone we talked to who contacted them said they were horribly rude and aggressive.

Like you, we only had one image on our site and we were positive they weren't going to sue us. They didn't. They went away.

"I can't look it up right now, but there is some sort of law that says that a forum/blog owner isn't responsible for what is posted by its users if I recall correctly."

This is NOT true in the US, although it's so in the EU. Our copyright laws are very out of date and drastically need an overhaul.

There is a lesson here, though. Although Getty has been threatening, rather than actually suing people, there are companies who actually follow through on lawsuits. We have been FANATICALLY careful about images ever since that happened. Everyone on the Warrior forum would be well advised to do the same.

I don't understand the indignant attitudes in this thread toward Getty. I mean, the photos belong to them. They are entitled to protect their assets just as anyone on this forum is entitled to protect his WSO from piracy. SMH.

I had received one of those letters close to 9 months ago. I spoke with them once, as the image was obtained through a website claiming it was free to use (with no limitations), but they said it didn't matter and they wanted $980. I told them I would not, and that they can go ahead and sue me. - They tried calling me once since then, and I told them where to go.

Have not been sued yet......and I am guessing I will not be, because it would cost them way more in money and time to do it, and they could potentially lose.

I have been told they send lots of these letters out, and I am sure it works in some cases, and they probably get a good amount of money from people and businesses.

I would not sweat it unless you have to (ie: if you ever get a legal document from their lawyer, not their threat letter).

This is why user generated content can be a messy deal. You might follow the law and buy your stock images legally but your users misuse without thinking.

Ultimately copyright is copyright.

Hopefully this clears up for you.

I would tell em shove it! Say you got the image from Facebook.. boom problem solved

Read this article that was posted yesterday..
The world's largest photo service just made its pictures free to use

Getty Images is betting their business on embeddable photos

You should probably add something to your Terms & Conditions that states something to the effect that "blog owner is not responsible for content or images posted in comments..."

I got one of these letters too about a year ago. I removed the image (which I got from a clip art site and did not have a visible getty images watermark) and told them I had done so. I still periodically get demand letters or emails from them and have ignored them. I think they initially billed me for around $850. Last demand letter I got maybe 6 months ago, they offered to settle for $400. I ignored it and haven't gotten one since.

I got one from them many years ago too - maybe 10 or so? Again I took the image down, told them I did and ignored every other communication from them. Nothing ever came of it either.

Getty is scrambling to to find a profitable business strategy. I have a feeling this new announcement from them is the beginning of the end for them. If they were smart they'd spend their time acquiring more images, networking with people like us and just selling accounts to people to access all their images for cheap.

seriously, if a huge image depository came on here and offered a warrior discount to access and use good quality, abundant images for a fixed, cheap monthly fee people would be jumping on it in droves.

just another example of how free markets should dictate business strategy, not the other way around.

I've been through this before.

They are all talk, no action. Unless you are a big fish displaying a lot of their images without permission, they will continue to hound you until they don't.

You don't need an attorney for this. Simply respond to their demand saying that the alleged offending image is not on your website (make sure that is true), and you wish them well.

They will send you many more demands, but they will not sue you. Furthermore, these demands do not meet the legal definition of a debt, so any debt collector making threats will be acting illegally.

Let them huff and puff, and eventually they'll lose interest in you and move on.

Outside of NOT intentionally using copyrighted images on our websites, is it possible to maybe write a 'disclaimer' of sort declaring - every effort has been made to keep the content on this website free from Copyright infringement laws, in the event an image or article found (herein - fancy lawyer speak, lol) is deemed to be copyright protected, the admin (your name) will immediately remove such items, but refuses to be held accountable outside of a 'cease and desist' removal notice?

Naturally, as you can see I am not a lawyer, but I would like to add something like this on my sites, if it could serve as a legal buffer?

Not as a way to just rum out stealing Google images or even Getty's (over-priced) images, but rather in defense of those who try to be honest, as the original poster seems sincere in his concerns.

So, can we as websites owners add a little bit to our FTC compliant pages that would protect us in the event a 3rd party or accidental use of copyright takes place?

Did you read this? They're giving up on the demand letter business model

http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...ed-photos.html

Delete it. Then how can they prove it was even really there? This sounds like some kind of extortion racket from the 50's.

You should also ask them under what law would you be liable as a flesh and blood human being and not a corporation.

If they point to any statutes then they only apply to a PERSON which is a corporation in legalese and not a human.

Although the courts are basically corrupt and will likely not accept that despite it being true.

if you get hit by a getty letter then contact these people Copyright Infringement - Getty Extortion Letter - Getty Images demands - the law and image protection copyright

They have got me out of hot water and are great legal team and they are not expensive at all :-)

Danny

PS I have nothing to do with the company just a company I use :-)

FYI, Getty is an authorized agent for its photographers and is bound by contract to pursue unauthorized use. And from the U.S. copyright office:

(emphasis added)

Source: U.S. Copyright Office - Can I Use Someone Else's Work? Can Someone Else Use Mine? (FAQ)

I don't know if this is mentioned, but, those that are defending Getty Images are missing one thing.

Even if it's not NECESSARY for them to watermark their images to own the copyright.. if they really don't want you using their images illegally, they should watermark the hell out of them.

A "hidden watermark" that they seek out with bots (if this is true), means that they've actually worked in "revenue from law suits" into the business model.

By all means, they have the right to protect their property, but make it known ahead of time!

That really stinks. I hate copy right issues, just ignore them

Just don't reply to them for settlement. They are just extorting money from you. I've been there before, getting two letters from them. One is that I need to pay more than $1,500, and the other one is just a follow up, and that was around 2-3 years ago, and never heard from them because I didn't reply. Just don't panic, leave it.

I`ve been in content removal business for a while and I know for a fact that DMCA clearly states that as long as someone after the request removes the content, they can no longer be taken into a lawsuit. Remove the image and move on with your life.

Getty Copyright Infringement Settlement Demand Scam

has some rather interesting takes on this, including:

"The website **** offers a lengthy article alleging that Getty Images sets up people as prey by allowing some sites to use their images without a license in hopes others will copy them. Getty also goes after the folks who use out-of-the-box templates with unlicensed images instead of going after the template creators themselves.

The scam is simple: by carefully targeting who to go after Getty Images and other image resellers can be assured of an ongoing source of income -- unwary copyright infringers.

The scam is self-perpetuating due to affiliate programs selling templates that violate copyright laws and even through websites that sell images that they do not have the right to sell. These sites are not targeted or shut down -- only the people who use them thinking they are getting a licensed product...."