Invoiced from Getty Images for Unlawful Use of Images?

[danners02]

A WARNING FOR ALL WEBMASTERS!!

A client of mine has received a letter and invoice from Getty Images for unlawful use of images on his old website. We took over this website from a previous freelance designer 4 months ago and previous images from the old website were the cause EVEN THOUGH they no longer existed on the new site pages or server. Whether they sweeped the site a while back or took the data from www.archive.org we don't know.

The invoice was for over USD$1000 PER IMAGE and the total amounted to nearly USD$6000. Naturally, my client was panicked - the terms of the letter from Getty Images are very strongly worded and he nearly paid up until I did some investigating.

While I won't go into all the issues suffice to say if any other people are getting these letters and demands for payment from Getty for unlawful use of images please visit the following thread:
Unauthorised Use of Getty Images at www.sitepoint.com/forums/

Essentially, Getty Images are sweeping the net using PicScout bots to find any unauthorised use of images - fair enough - they have to protect their intellectual property.

Instead of complying with the DMCA and issuing a takedown order (cease and desist) they send an invoice to the domain owner demanding payment - even if the owner removes the images.

So - if you are unsure of the legal position of any images I would replace them with images from http://www.sxc.hu/ (I would say www.istockphoto.com but Getty own them now!). Even this may not protect you, as they may access historical data. You might want to exclude the archive.org bot from your site or images folder - see http://www.archive.org/about/exclude.php
More info on the Picscout bot

So far there is no evidence of Getty taking anyone to court over this - they seem to be bullying mom and pop and small business sites.

[texxs]

Like Bill Gates doesn't have enough money already.

I heard him on the news talking about his plan for getty images - to buy every image in the world basicly. Sort like what he did with windows.

Someones got stop people like that.

[bj]

Sheesh, that's stupid. They're as bad as the RIAA thinking they can put the cork back in that bottle after the genie is out.

[texxs]

So, please tell us how you got out of paying?

[danners02]

advised client send letter disputing invoice validity as they did not know where images came from, also did not profit in any way from them - and quoting DMCA 1998 Section 512 plus:

The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (c. 48)
"97.—(1) Where in an action for infringement of copyright it is shown that at the time of the infringement the defendant did not know, and had no reason to believe, that copyright subsisted in the work to which the action relates, the plaintiff is not entitled to damages against him, but without prejudice to any other remedy."

"It is an offence under Section 40 of the Administration of Justice Act 1970 and Section 1 of the Malicious Communications Act 1988 to harass of debtors with a view to obtaining payment including the issue of letters which convey a threat or false information with intent to cause distress or anxiety."

told them to ignore them! Will wait and see.

[texxs]

Good job, you rock. It's a great example of how it pays to do your research instead of blindly accepting what a corp or govt tells you.

[Paulie_A]

Danners.
Sorry to drag up old times, but did you get a resolution to this? I similarly have a letter from Getty from an image i had no idea was copyrighted and now they are demanding huge sums of money i simply dont have...

[danners02]

Hi Paul

Client has not heard from them, but its only been 4 weeks since they replied to the original demand - I advised them to ignore any further letters and if they get any phone calls to simply state that they strongly dispute the invoice.

Since then I have also received a letter for my own website! I designed a website for a different client and we bought the license to an image - once the project was complete I featured it in my portfolio section and reproduced a screen shot of the homepage of my clients site plus a detailed section which included the image. The image is licensed to my clients domain, not mine hence the letter. Anyway - I am sending the same letter my first client did and ignoring any further correspondence.

If you read the thread (link in my initial post) on sitepoint you will see that they are not taking anyone to court - just sending out as many of these demands as possible with a very strongly worded legal sounding letter, with the hook that if you settle quickly you get a discount (which should tell you something!) and of course many people panic and pay up.

If its under £5k in the UK they can only go the small claims court and generally having a legal advisor at these things is frowned on by the judge and certainly you cant claim any legal fees other than the court costs (minimal). This wont happen in any case.

If you are in the UK, private message me your email and I will send you text of letter.

[johngroup]

I had a client with a similar issue. The matter was settled with a deep discounted offer (less than 8%).

[dbramley]

If the site was designed by another website designer - should it not be them who are taken to court rather than the owner of the domain?

If you hire a designer how are you to know if they have used copyright images on your site?