I have finally received the last of 9 CDs of complaints filed against Getty Images and McCormack IP Law from my public records request of the Washington State Attorney General’s office. As many of you know each year for the last three years there has been a request for these public records filed against these two businesses.
In the past I have just taken the complaints, removed the fluff (to see what I removed see below) then made the complaints available through my Scribd account doing nothing more than reporting on the number of complaints and commenting on one or two that stood out to me. This year I decided to combine all my data together making a master index of complaints so you can see at a glance when it was filed, who it was filed against and who filed it.
On June 18 of 2012 I launched an educational and letter writing campaign aimed at readers who like me, tried to negotiate with Getty but felt that they were being treated unfair, unreasonable and/or unethically by Getty Images and/or McCormack IP Law. It encouraged readers to take a stand and fight back by letting the Attorney General and other agencies know of predatory practices which I consider to be a form of legalized extortion. This campaign was acknowledged shortly thereafter by Getty Images when the following two paragraphs were added to their standard form letter response to complaints filed against them.
“The complainant characterizes our attempts to settle our copyright infringement claims as “extortion.” However, our communications with them do not in any way constitute “wrongful threats” within the meaning of extortion statutes. On the contrary, demand for payment and satisfaction of a legal claim is not wrongful conduct.
We understand that copyright law can be confusing; however, the campaign to file complaints against us is misguided and misdirected. We encourage review of the license compliance information provided on our website at: http://company.gettyimages.com/license-compliance/.”
While I agree with the statement that demand for payment and satisfaction of a legal claim is not wrongful conduct, I do strongly disagree with the practice of demanding more than an image is worth or they could expect to win in court, as well as the absolute refusal to provide documentation proving that Getty Images has the legal right to collect on behalf of the artist. Getty will tell letter recipients who make it clear they are willing to negotiate, but are requesting proof of claim, that said proof will only be provided when compelled by a court of law through discovery. In other words letter recipients are told that the information they are requesting will only be provided when they are sued by Getty. This statement is usually followed by another demand for payment with threat of escalation to their legal department if payment is not made. So I say that demanding payment, refusing to provide proof of claim and then threatening legal action qualifies as and meets the definition as a form of extortion.
It is this practice by Getty, McCormack IP Law, Masterfile, Corbis and others that has led me to start Copyright Anti-Bullying Act and attempt to change the current copyright law so it not only protects artist’s rights but closes loopholes and quashes predatory behavior from companies like these.
Breaking Down the NumbersIf you look at the index of complaints the dates that are listed in black represent the seven years yay-9865464prior to the education and letter writing campaign. The dates listed in green are eighteen months of complaints filed after the start of the education and letter writing campaign. You may also click on the headers below to see the complaints displayed graphically on year-at-a-glance calendars.
Getty Images:54 complaints in 7 years prior to campaign
117 complaints in 18 months after campaign
McCormack IP Law3 complaints in 7 years prior to campaign
30 complaints in 18 months after campaign
The list of complaints may be seen here:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/222235974/1-2-Index-of-CompaintsAt-A-Glance Calendar showing Getty Images complaints from 2005-2013
http://www.scribd.com/doc/222235973/1-3-Getty-Attorney-General-Complaint-HistoryAt-A-Glance Calendar showing McCormack IP Law complaints from 2005-2013
http://www.scribd.com/doc/222235972/1-4-McCormack-Attorney-General-Complaint-History
Topic: An Experiment Against Getty (Read 196780 times)