Getty did not pursue me.

[activist]

A few days ago I received an $875 settlement demand from Getty. After consulting my legal adviser, I sent the following to [email protected]

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I operate Quackwatch, which is a nonprofit site devoted to consumer protection. . . . The image you say you control occupies 12% of the area of an image that I received as an attachment to a spam e-mail several years ago. I posted the spammed image in an article advising consumers to avoid such products. I have the perfect right to do so under the doctrine of fair use and no court would rule otherwise. Nevertheless, since you claim to  license part of what I posted, I have redacted that part. You can check at
http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/hgh.html

If you do not believe this settles the matter, please send me copies of the original copyright registration and any subsequent transfers.
Stephen Barrett, MD
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Today I received this notice:

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Dear Dr. Barrett,

Thank you for your email.  We have reviewed the information that you have provided and Getty Images is no longer pursuing settlement for case number 1222364.    If you have any further questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Best Regards,

Janea Davis
Copyright Compliance Specialist
Getty Images, Inc.
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I don't know whether the quick ending was related to the minor nature of my case or to the fact that Getty is being pounded by people who complain on blogs or to the Better Business Bureau, the Ripoff Report and/or state attorneys general. But I believe that it would help if everyone who feels abused complains to all three.

People who are improperly threatened can also do things to influence search engine rankings. One is to link to the most prominent pages (including this site) that educate about the issues. Another is to describe the problems on the Wikipedia pages for Getty and its president Jonathan Klein. A third is to avoid linking to the Getty site because doing that will increase its visibility.

[Greg Troy (KeepFighting)]

Great job! Sometimes even Getty can see the writing on the wall. Unfortunately your letter is the exception rather than the norm. Thanks for sharing your story and I hope you will stick around and participate in the forums.

[Robert Krausankas (BuddhaPi)]

Agreed, sometimes they choose their battles, and this is a prime example of a losing proposition!

and I get to add another new name to the master list of copyright trolls!

[stinger]

Nice job Dr. Barrett!  And also, thank you for a great article about HGH.  I had asked my cardiologist about ads I'd seen for Cenegenics a few years back.  He said he had never heard of them, but would look into it.  He never got back to me.  But your article summed it up nicely.  Moral:  Too good to be true, usually is.

I echo Greg's statement, that I hope you continue to monitor and contribute to this board.

[Matthew Chan]

Activist,

Nicely done and a very good explanation.  This is an example of why I tell people that sharing the circumstances and your story doesn't automatically incriminate you.

Taking a sanitized approach of communication is appropriate in some circumstances but simply asking for the copyright registration, whether they had standing to sue, and the other things we talk about would have worked against Activist.

Obviously Activity was smart enough to assess the circumstances of his situation and took care of it.  I am quite surprised Getty notified him that they would no longer pursue this.  Very interesting.