Webmaster in Florida

[adupont65]

I just received my own letter today!! (identical to the one posted on this site)

I am a web master in Florida and have had two of my clients getting "The" famous letter. I must say that I am surprised to say that the amount they are asking me is significantly smaller than the one to my clients.

-Client #1 received their letter about one year ago (Client in Florida) asking for $5,000 for five images
-Client #2 received their letter about 6 months ago (Client in Europe - France) asking for a whopping $10,000 for ten images.
-Mine, is just asking $1,000 for just one image!!

Based on what I had read on the internet, via various blogs & forum, I told both clients to simply ignore the letter. That their intent, is to collect a settlement, nothing more. Of course both clients were rather upset, and very understandably so.  I reassured them that those letter were nothing more than a bogus attempt to force them to pay up quickly and hoping they would be ignorant enough to pay. As of today, neither has paid or even responded to them, and after several phone calls from Getty Images alleged legal department and follow up letters.....nothing....they just went away.

I must admit that these letters are very well drafted, very official looking and designed to scare & intimidate. I must point out than mine is just for $1,000 and I suspect there is a reason for that. I can image that someone might be willing to seek legal counsel or even be willing to fight for $5,000 to $10,000, but on the other hand, one might decide to make it go away for such a small amount like $1,000. Settle for $800 and make it disappear.

In any case, I find the Getty Images scare tactics appalling. It's Corporate Bullying at its best.

Thank you for creating this site, it will be very helpful for any potential victims out there.

Thank you.

[Oscar Michelen]

Dear Webmaster:

Thank you for your post. I would not count on ignoring the letter as Getty will not ignore it and will likely follow up.  I of course agree that Getty asking for these amounts of damages for images that can be licensed for $49.00 is over-the-top. In the course of my involvement in this mattter,I have not seen Getty actually prove that they exclusively own either the images or the licenses to the images. It is very possible that the photographers that sold/licensed the rights to Getty put them on other web pages that were accessed by webmasters.  While we are all watching this issue very closely as it has great potential impact on the internet community, at this site we are trying to take a more proactive position so that our clients are ready inthe event Getty takes the next step.