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Messages - Jerry Witt (mcfilms)

Pages: 1 [2] 3 4 ... 42
16
Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: First Sale rights question
« on: December 17, 2016, 02:21:35 PM »
It could be argued that photos taken by a photojournalist have MORE value than artistic shots. The photographer had to be in the right place at the right time to capture a moment.

But in your hypothetical case, fair use seems to be the only hopeful excuse for not licensing the photograph. If the site it was published on was truly for educational purposes and had no advertisement or other income, it may be seen as fair use.

17
The irony is that iStockPhoto is owned by Getty Images, a company that is so notorious for sending demand letters that they have the biggest section of the Extortion Letter Info site. My suggestion would be to insist that iStock / Getty images intercede on your behalf in the case of all the images you licensed from them.

As far as Joel's claim of "defamatory, damaging and unnecessary" statements, it's pretty hard to respond to them if he didn't specify what they were.

18
When people try to prevent someone from reporting on copyright trolling, that's a big "nope" for me.

I got your back too, Robert.

19
Here is my suggestion to the person that was referenced in Matthews link above:

_____

Hi Liz,

I would suggest that you prepare an invoice for the amount of time you spent researching and confirming your ownership of the image. I would submit this invoice and a letter to the company that wrongly accused you, that you require payment for the time you spent researching their error. Also maybe mention that your terms require payment within 30 days or the invoice will accrue late penalties and interest. Now you get to turn the tables and hound them! How fun.

______

When people start costing the image troll companies time or money or both, they will become much more careful about the claims they are making.

20
exactly, but they are trying to pass the buck as it were, saying alamy was their ( LCS) customer. I think she's on pretty solid ground, and Getty wioll offer to settle if they haven't already.. If they do settle chances are good we'll never see the amount or terms, which would be unfortunate..

^^^^ THIS  ^^^^

What Robert said is exactly what I predict will happen. I wonder if it would be worth it to track down Ms Highsmith, brief her on what Getty has been doing and ask her if she would be willing to make NOT signing a non-disclosure agreement part of any settlement offer. After all, it so often happens that Getty settles and we never hear any more about it. It would be great for people that get ripped off by Getty to know that they can fight and win.

21
Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: June 20, 2016 is ELI's 8th Birthday!
« on: June 21, 2016, 06:49:26 PM »
Happy Birthday extortionletterinfo.com!

22
Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: LCS letters
« on: January 24, 2016, 03:45:24 PM »
Also, you mentioned that you have replied to them in several emails. If you have already admitted that you used the images and "found" them on the Internet (or something like that), it may make you a more likely target. Not knowing what was said and what they want, it's really hard to offer advice.

I'd hate to see you "feed the trolls". If you do decide to pay them, I would make it clear that this is not admitting any guilt and make it contingent on seeing the copyright documentation and the contract with the photographer. When they tell you that they don't do that until they file suit, which will be for much more money, you can tell them that it is highly unlikely that any judge would award more than what they originally asked for. You are simply doing due dillagence and asking they provide evidence of what they are asking for.

23
I would like to add the following to the ongoing list of public domain stock image sites:

http://www.nypl.org/blog/2016/01/05/share-public-domain-collections

24
Nice of the web developer to refer you here. Now they need to educate themselves about copyright law and stop grabbing images from the Internet and displaying them on the sites they develop. They could have easily licensed these photos for a few bucks. You need to go through your site and determine where the other photos came from.

In the very highly unlikely event that Stock Food takes you to court and is awarded a judgement, you will have a cause against the web developer. But the bottom line is that the odds are that if you ignore the emails and threats, they'll probably leave you alone.

By the way, you can find other sites that use the same image by doing a reverse image lookup with tineye.com.

25
Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: StockPhotoSecrets.com 99Club
« on: October 03, 2015, 11:04:09 PM »
It's hard to tell WHO they are. The domain is registered to Idenio GmbH. They don't seem to be associated with any current image trolling companies. But they are located in Germany. Are they able to grant you the rights to use the images worldwide? I don't know.

On the other hand, fotolia.com is registered to Adobe Systems Incorporated, a US company. This is probably part of their stock photo acquisition. They are trying to tie image acquisition and management of rights with their creative cloud service.

26
Great news! Note that if this applies to DMCA takedowns could ALSO be applied to copyright extortion schemes.

From a recent 9th Circuit decision:

"To be clear, if a copyright holder ignores or neglects our unequivocal holding that it must consider fair use before sending a takedown notification, it is liable for damages under § 512(f),"

The judge also adds that copyright owners need to do more than pay "lip service" to fair use, and further, that the "willful blindness doctrine" can be applicable to these type of disputes if a copyright owner deliberately avoids learning of fair use despite high probabilities.

So the next time a site is using an image for purely educational purposes and not for profit and one of the stock companies tries to squeeze them, they can sue for damages.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/appeals-court-copyright-owners-consider-822954

27
Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Getty's Change in Tactics
« on: July 18, 2015, 05:07:52 PM »
If you have any occasion to mail them again, be sure to notify them that you will be tracking your time for dealing with this, and you will submit a bill for your time once it is found they are in error. And let them know you charge a lot.

28
Is this an image of a superhero in yellow and blue holding a needle? If so, I wouldn't waste time on it.

However if things ever did escalate, you could point out that the image clearly uses a recognizable character, namely Wolverine from the X-men. Point them to this artwork:
http://cdn.movieweb.com/img.news/NEf8gSeCamCFij_1_1.jpg
Ask them if they have cleared the use of Wolverine's trademarked image with Disney. In fact, since Disney is notoriously protective of their intellectual property, they may be interested to hear someone is using one of their characters to shake down web developers.

29
Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: The best defense ...
« on: June 05, 2015, 12:43:23 AM »
If they DO contact you again Sara, I hope you will head the advice I give other letter recipients. I suggest writing back and telling them that you have stated your position on the matter very clearly and you consider the matter closed. Say that, starting immediately, you will be calculating your time spent answering any further correspondence on this matter and you will remit an invoice for your time.  Tell them you bill in quarter hour increments at $300 an hour.

You may not be able to collect on this invoice. But it makes it clear to the person hassling you that he is going to have to explain to accounting (and probably his superiors) why they got an invoice.

And one other thing, I know you don't wan't to be a "hater," but I think you should give yourself permission to at least be a "Getty-strongly-disliker." It's not just a software algorithm and a few office drones that are caught up in this. This is a systematic scheme that is engineered and calculated to extract as much money as possible regardless of the consequences. In my five years here I have heard of letter recipients sharing how this has caused strain to their marriage, caused a veteran's non-profit to close down. One person even contemplated suicide.

Getty Images has never had the integrity to come out of the shadows and have a reasonable conversation about their tactics. So, as a person who likes to belive they love everybody, I can proudly say I am a Getty Hater.

30
Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: The best defense ...
« on: June 03, 2015, 11:51:50 AM »
SaraZ, your strategy is spot on. It's always refreshing to see a person do the necessary research and push back on this scheme. They may well continue to pester you with letters for a while. But, if the image in question only appeared on the site and not in the book, I'd say you are in the clear.

If you do a search for "class action suit" on this site, you will find the idea has been floated multiple times. Unfortunately it is a tremendous time suck and very, very costly. No attorney has been willing to take this on. Yet.

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