Messages

16

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Masterfile - in need of urgent advice

« on: August 11, 2011, 11:15:19 PM »

You need to get yourself freed of the paranoia and ignore everything. Dont respond to anymore Masterfile letters and you will be just fine. Trust me. Don't listen to anoyne else here, that you need to reply, give an offer etc... just forget it. never reply, never pay. Thats it. Problem solved.

17

Getty Images Letter Forum / Masterfile registrations should be invalidated by the US Copyright office

« on: August 11, 2011, 11:13:36 PM »

Masterfile did not pay the correct fee to register each image separately. They evaded the US Copyright Office by using a loophole in the application to avoid payment of a proper fee for the copyright registration depriving US Copyright Office of their deserved revenues. They now utilize another loophole to abuse the US Copyright Law in order to generate most if not all of their revenue from the extortions.

Unless someone infringes all of the images at once from the CD compilation as registered and appropriately paid for, there should technically be no infringement if only few images from the compilation are infringed. Well...it makes no sense, therefore the entire registration should be invalidated. They should be forced to re-register all of their images and pay the appropriate fee for it instead of trying to cut corners by registering them all at once in a compilation

Evading payment of the correct registration fee should give a strong reason to invalidate their registrations.

18

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Many of Masterfile CD's with images at US Library of Congress are corrupted

« on: August 11, 2011, 10:59:19 PM »

I will swear that my infringement was innocent as well. If they were so careless not to send prints, or send the images on a good CD to US Library of Congress, that is their own fault. The judge in court will say: You are welcomed to re-register and pay registration fees again. This time make sure your pictures are correctly saved on the CDs or submit prints. If it went to a jury, Masterfile can swear on their grandmas grave and nobody will side with them. Jury will never side with corporate crooks. They lose the case and people that settled before will start checking if their image was at the US Library of Congress. Big class lawsuit will happen.

19

Getty Images Letter Forum / Masterfile, Getty and others act like a dumb farmer. US courts too dumb to see.

« on: August 11, 2011, 10:49:59 PM »

Let me give you an analogy.

You go to a restaurant. You order an a nice meal and pay for it. As you are leaving a farmer comes up to you and says “You ate my tomatoes!” “You owe me $1000 for eating my tomato.”

As you are looking puzzled, the farmer explains that the tomato in your salad that you just ate and paid for is his and it was not paid for by the restaurant. You explain that you just sat down at the table, ordered, ate and paid the restaurant.

“No matter” says the farmer. “It was my tomato and you should pay penalties far beyond the cost of the tomato normally.” “It is your responsibility since you ate it.”

No one questions the right of photographers to make a living. The issue here is that people bought templates or hired professionals to create sites and images were used which the purchaser of the web site design assumed were properly used. there is so much free or very cheap imagery that there is not REASON to steal it.

So for Masterfile or Getty to pull this ruse is absurd. If they sent a note out and said, Hey, pay us the $49 each for those 3 images…people would pay, not problem. It is billing people $3K for 3 images which were mistakenly used that is the issue. It is similiar to forms of extortion.

20

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Masterfile trying to extort $4000 for a thumbnail image. What a scam!

« on: August 11, 2011, 10:35:56 PM »

Katerina, thank you for your response. I hope that you are not getting paranoid about Masterfile and their threats.

Here is what I did:
Print all emails, letters, evidence of their extortions etc. and put them into a folder, then put that folder away and forget about it. Here is the strategy:

You get a letter from Masterfile --> delete images; ignore all payment requests

you get any more letters form Masterfile --> ignore
you get a letter/email from collection agency --> ignore
you get a call from collection agency --> get an answering machine and ignore

Ignore, ignore, ignore. never pay.

I have beter things to worry about than some croocks sending me some treats and responding to that crap. Masterfile sends 7000 letters per year! Remeber that. If you calculate the probablity of getting sued it will be similar to getting audited by the IRS or less.

Yes there are naive and paranoid people that pay them. That pays for their food to sit and send more letters. It also looks like their days are numbered. There have been several lawsuits lost by some of these crooks recently. They should now be more afraid to go after small people. Judges are about to start throwing this out of court. The climate is changing for this abuse.

The key is not getting paranoid and ignore, ignore and never pay. Some of the people here such as Helpi may even work for Masterfile or Getty and come here to scare people. Just ignore them. Oscar will tell you otherwise, but think about this. Most people ignore and never pay.

Ignore Masterfile. They will move on to the next paranoid victim. Just stop reading their letters and it will no longer affect you.

Ignore, ignore, ignore, never pay! LOL

21

Getty Images Letter Forum / Ken MacDonald of Masterfile trying to extort $4000 for a small image. BIG SCAM!

« on: August 11, 2011, 12:07:31 AM »

Here is the letter Ken MacDonald of Masterfile sent:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/58637854/Image-License-Demand

$4000 for an unspectacular image! What a scam!

UNBELIVABLE!!!

22

Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Masterfile people responsible for your miseries

« on: August 10, 2011, 11:56:50 PM »

There is another one:

Ken MacDonald
Copyright Compliance Officer

http://www.scribd.com/doc/58637854/Image-License-Demand


He is extorting 4000 for a small meaningless image.

23

Getty Images Letter Forum / Where to complain about Masterfile's Extortion and Abuse of US Copyright Law

« on: August 10, 2011, 11:51:16 PM »

Directory of Attorney General's offices by state:
http://www.consumerfraudreporting.org/stateattorneygenerallist.php
http://workathomemoms.about.com/od/workathomescams/a/State-Attorney-General.htm


Directory of Senators by state:
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

Directory of House Representatives by state:
http://www.house.gov/representatives/


Below are major TV networks that expose various scams:

CNBC American Greed:
http://www.cnbc.com/id/41235608/

NBC Dateline:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032600/
[email protected]

ABC News 20/20:
http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=123566&page=1

The Nightly News"

There are many more news agencies. Find them and email your letter to all of them. The journalists only wait to get their hands on a brand new topic.

If you know other great links, please post them. Also, if you have a great idea how and where to complain, or if you can write a good complaint letter that others can use and send it everywhere, please post it as well.

You can complain anonymously! But, make a brand new email contact just in case someone would want additional information.
Allways provide link to this website to back up your letter.

Also see:
http://www.consumersheldhostage.org/issues/legal/copyright-trolling

If you know a good link to a video or other media describing their practice, please post it here too.