Re: Getty Images are at it again!
I have got to weigh in on this one! I'm a photographer...
I sell my photography on my own website. To help promote the site, I put up a number of my photos as free computer desktop wallpaper. I have a posted license agreement for the free wallpapers that is very specific about what the images can and cannot be used for.
I recently found two sites that were using images that were derivatives of some of the roses wallpapers I put up on my site.
I contacted both sites. I was polite, I let them know I assumed they were unaware they were infringing on my copyright. I asked that either they pay for the usage or take the images down.
The response from the first site arrived early the following business day. They were equally polite, and apologized. They also had already gotten their webmaster to remove the images. I believe this company was the victim of an unethical, unscrupulous designer/company.
The second site was a lot slower in their response. They said "To the best of our knowledge, all of the images we are using have come from public sites, so if we have gotten any of your images, we have gotten them second hand through another website without any knowledge your copyright restrictions or where the photo originally came from. Please feel certain that we have not downloaded and cropped out any of your photos ourselves directly." Then they follow with "We would be glad to remove those images and replace those with new ones if we need to" in spite of the fact I had made it clear they would have to either take down the images or pay for them. This puts me in the role of bad guy as I now have to write back and say "Yes, you need to take them down if you are unwilling to pay for the license."
Most of what I'm hearing in this thread is what to do when you get caught, with a few dissenting voices saying you shouldn't do it in the first place. So I want to put in my two cents worth:
My photography is my product. If your use of my image(s) is in violation of the appropriate licensing agreement, you are stealing my product. If you steal my product, you are a thief.
Harsh words, I know. But they need to be said.
The internet is freely accessible, but just because you can see an image, or read the text, doesn't mean it isn't copyrighted. In fact, all of the content you can access online is copyrighted, whether or not there is a copyright notice.
Image, text or source code, if it doesn't specifically say it is in the public domain, or covered by one of several public licenses (GNU General Public License, for example,) then using it anyway constitutes stealing.
If you caught people shoplifting your products from your physical store, would you be so gracious as to offer them the opportunity to give back or pay for what they stole with no further legal action? Or would you have them arrested and prosecuted to the full extent of the law?
Yet you don't think twice about coming into my "store" and "shoplifting" my product.
You don't think twice about it, because you don't think of it as stealing. Well, it is. And it's long past time the entire internet community recognizes that fact.
With that said, I also don't necessarily agree with the draconian tactics used by Getty Images.
However, if you take the extra steps required to insure that all the content you use is legally obtained, you should never find yourself in this kind of predicament.
And if your client isn't willing to purchase the proper licensing for the content, you're probably better off in the long run without them for a client.
Good luck. I truly hope this gets resolved with a minimum of "blood loss".
-ACross
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