Seems they've lowered the demand amount

[Thefoot]

Most of the demand letters seems to have a minimum amount of $1000 USD.   I just got one for $760.

I'm wondering if they'er tweaking things in the hopes of getting more settlements?

In my case, the image was on a third party site, and clearly labled 'free - no royalty'.  The image is different than the one they claim to own,  but it's either been cropped,  or is just a very similar image,  it's an image of a professional photographers camera, very common (Hasselbladt?).  Either way,  I'm in the business of insuring movies and television shows,  we sell E&O polices for production companies all day, every day,  and I'm well aware of copywrite issues.   I've paid for about 60% of the images on our site,  the rest I made sure were clearly identified and 'Free - NO royalty', or clearly in the public domain. 

I removed the image,  and other wise will ignore the Getty letters.  If it goes to collection, I indent to torment the collector,  might as well get some enjoyment out of this :>

Anybody else getting demand letters for LESS than $1000?

[Oscar Michelen]

Since we have begun our site, the settlement demands have come way down. I think it has a lot to do with the information we have been posting and is an attempt to get more people to pay something rather than reach out to us or ignore the issue entirely.

[Littlescoop]

I received a letter late June from Getty demanding over $ 2,000 for 3 pictures.  No C&D letter, though the images have since been removed by my company.  My question is, has Getty actually sued any one and, if so, have they received a judgment?  I'm doing a lot of research on this topic on the internet, but all I have come up with is a lot of people are receiving these demand letters.  Haven't come across anything further than people receiving demand letters.  What does this company do when their letters are ignored?  How far does this company go?  Does anyone have any first hand experience?  Any suggestions on what action to take, or not take, from past history with Getty and their attempts to terrify people into paying amounts far in excess of what Getty normally charges for use of their pictures? 

[Katerina]

http://www.extortionletterinfo.com/forum/index.php/topic,287.0.html
read this.
and welcome to this forum - this should help

[Littlescoop]

Hi Katerina!  Thanks so much for the link!  I actually discovered the link after I posted and I have since read it through in its entirety.  There were a couple of places where OM said he would be providing an update (in both the Liability and Damages sections), but I didn't see any updates provided and the original posting by OM was a few years back.  Not sure if any updates are listed on the home page perhaps? 

[DoctorC]

I did get an email back that basically saif that thank you for taking the picture down, but you still owe us and we would like to offer you $825.00 to settle.  This is because of the artistic benefit, we need to pay the artist, Etc.

The image in question is part of a collection and the "author" is listed as a woman who's name I looked up and she was (a former) editor at Getty.  So this is her editor's collection and the artist is not named.  I wrote back that I am not willing to pay and that I believe that I have the right to certain discovery fact if this goes to court, such as the filing of the copyright, a list of all people that have purchased the photo, the amounts paid to the artist and more.

I read the first and second letter again and I believe that Getty Images may have shot themselves in the foot on attorney's fees.  They claim that the amount ($965.00 or $825.00 or whatever) is to cover the costs of handling this matter, compensation for past use, paying the artist Etc.  So they are basically locking themselves into $965.00 from their letter.  I can see how attorney's fees could be awarded on filed work, but thhey seem to have worded their own letter where the interpretation could be that the fee includes their cost to collect.  Just my argument of course and maybe not a great one, but we have some wordn here.

The image in question... I have no idea where it came from.  I host the site, the URL is registered to my company, and I inherited the site from a now bankrupt company.  I am an innocent player here and I DO license artwork for other sites and other purposes.  I find their tactics to be disturbing and it is hard to believe they are legal.

What about the DMCA - Digital Millennium Copyright Act?  I thought that it had provisions for people like me that are hosting a site to take down unlawful images if the potentially infringing content is taken down the website will not be held liable.  So why are they harassing me.  Can I sue them for violsatng the MMCA laws?

I did find several intellectual property rights violations on the Getty Images sites.  I am saving that stuff just in case because the cost of Getty notifying all buyers of those images and the damages from the purchasing party needing to redo advertising, leterhead, marketing materials, Etc. would be huge.

I think that the advertising Banners for Getty Images (on Google cost them about $1.00 per click).  So please click often and tell your friends to do the same.
http://www.google.com/aclk?sa=l&ai=Ciw9yP1A5TqHvHcXatwfd1ISJCLq2zusBmtDU4h2FrqeVCBAFKAhQ9puLLmDJnomJiKSEEKAB8p6h-gPIAQGqBBlP0MzoRLzxylrGABx-g90Gr-S7Fc7jrlsg&num=8&sig=AOD64_2hhg_5S0huDXVkr8L6bIaTI20foQ&ved=0CAgQ0Qw&adurl=http://www.gettyimages.com/CreativeImages/RightsManaged%3Fesource%3DgoogUSA_Images%26language%3Den-us%26kw%3DUSA%2Brights_managed_photos%2Bexact%26lid%3D46227738%26pcrid%3D7900916802%26property%3DGI

Perhaps a few million clicks will make them happy?

[SoylentGreen]

In a nutshell, Getty hasn't sued many people at all.  Least of which for only one image.  It would be difficult for Getty to find any attorney to litigate for such a small amount as this.

These "bulk copyright" collections are very weak in the eyes of the courts.  It's a form of "phantom copyright"; strong enough to convince those not in the "know", but practically useless in court.

The DMCA wouldn't be useful here; it's intended to protect ISP's from the atctions of their subscribers, or Google images search, etc.

Getty will probably send more letters to you; they're just killing forests for the paper.  "Collections" doesn't mean anything because it's not an actual debt.

This is what we mean by "copyright trolling" on this forum.

S.G.

[DoctorC]

I have read the posts and I get the general concepts a bit better now.  I am well prepared for a collection letter or call. 

The image in question is the size of a postage stamp and of course it was removed quickly.  But they are trolling for people that know that a lawyer costs more than the settlement.  But I have not knowingly done anything intentionally wrong.  If they contact me I am taking the stance that I do not believe that they have a copyright on that image, but I will talk to them AFTER they provide me with evidence that they have copyrighs.  If they don't have copyrights, then they have nothing to gain from me and a trip to court would be 100% on them.  Not a good decision for anyone to make.  If they can prove that they have a valid copyright in their name, before their letter was written, I will settle to avoid a worst-case scenario.  Based on what is written on this site, I am guessing that they have no such copyright proof.

Thanks for your input.

[Oscar Michelen]

Retro in order to get DMCA protection you have to have a registered DMCA agent.  Here is a link to the Copyright Office's page on registering a designated DMCA agent.  http://www.copyright.gov/onlinesp/