Firstly, let me just say how thankful I am to have found this site! I received my letter not more than six hours ago and my mind has been reeling and my fingers fast searching the web for anything that might help; that's when I landed here.
Secondly, I have read all the letter correspondence, most of the posts in the forum, but I still have several questions I hope someone might be able to answer here.
My first question is probably an obvious one; should I contact my own lawyer in this matter? The obvious answer for anyone would be yes, of course, however with reading some of the things here (written by Mr. Michelen), I am doubting if I should involve him at all with the suspicion that he may not have the required knowledge for dealing with "legal extortion" (as he mostly practices real estate law). I do have plans to call him ASAP, but am wondering if the delay in returning correspondence could prove detrimental to my company's issue?
Second question being, I am the owner of a single member owned and operated company, which is also an LLC, I do not wish to have this affect me personally and am curious if anyone could give me helpful hints as to keep this from happening? As it is, my business and myself, do not make very much money and cannot afford to even begin to fathom the thought of paying this "bill" ($600 USD; one image). The image was taken off my website immediately following receipt of the letter (and had been there for nearly a year prior without any notice of infringement). Another quick question, shouldn't I have received an order to Cease and Desist Use? What if I did not receive one?
Third question, according to the letter I received, there is a routing and account number made readily available (for the poor legally blind folks who DO actually remit payment). What self-respecting company does this? Potentially, wouldn't this allow for THEM to be taken "advantage" of? (Not that I really am concerned for them, but is raises yet another question of this company's accountability.) I know I wouldn't give out MY company's banking numbers out anywhere.
Fourthly, I have found the photographer whose work is in question. I do not wish to bother the man with silly things, however I feel that maybe if I write him a short explanation, he may be able to help in some way? Would you recommend that I do or do NOT do this? Like I said, I do not wish to bother such a busy man with something like this, but I also feel it couldn't hurt.
Fifth question is simply this, I found my image on Google images, Google has an infringement policy, so why is it that if people like us are getting these letters that Google either has not or has chosen to leave said images on their search engine? HOW does it become the smaller parties problem before the larger one? Or is that just another case of "money, money for hush, hush?"
In conclusion, and this is not a question, but merely a statement, if the letter you have received says the exact same thing (more or less) mine does, wouldn't it make you think more that this is indeed a scam to extort hard earned money from what I should suspect is decent, hard working people? I mean, had any one of us known that which ever image(s) we used, whether we knowingly put it there or a third party put it there, were copyrighted, I'm sure that we would not have used the image(s) in the first place. Just always better to just not use ANYTHING you find on the web. Period. However, now, we're all in the same boat: owing a company we never really knew existed before exorbitant amounts of money and basically having each and every one of our companies "black marked" because of it. And let me not leave out the fact that we are ALWAYS going to be found to be guilty by Getty Images and it seems (from reading their pre-formed letters to others) we have little to no chance of succeeding in civil, non-legal, non-monetary settlements. I do hope to hear from someone soon on any/all questions above and thank you in advance.
Andrea
Topic: Surprise! I got a letter today... (Read 7233 times)