Watch out for Getty Images

I'm not 100% positive that this is the proper forum for posting the following blog, but I'm going to do it because I believe that I have been wronged and I May be able to prevent someone else from also being wronged. And I firmly believe that the people who read this will appreciate the effort from that standpoint. Then I promise that I will get back to focusing on my products and services and what I'm doing for my customers.

I have a website- www.myswimplatform.com, that was designed and is maintained by a friend. She is not a professional web designer but did a great job. She copied a “thumbnail” image from Google when she first created the website because I did not have a whole lot of finished product pictures to send her for use on the website.

I received a letter from a company called Getty Images about a month ago telling me that I had published a copyrighted photo and that I owed them $1,225.00 and that I either paid or they would take me to court where the damages could be much higher and I would be responsible for their attorney’s fees as well.

The web maintainer, Jamie, immediately removed the picture and wrote and apologized and explained that she did not know that the photo was copyrighted. She also explained that the photo was the size of a stamp and posted on a very back page which was visited only a handful of times. Getty’s response was Thanks for removing the picture and sorry about your bad luck, but you still owe the money. They also informed me that even though a second party designed the website, that the law allowed them to go after me, the owner of the website. And apparently the copyright laws have changed so that copyrighted material does not have to be identified as copyrighted like it used to be. It is now up to the person looking to copy the picture, video or text to determine if the material is copyrighted.

So I contacted several attorneys and was told the same thing. They have all dealt with Getty on similar basis’ and informed me that this is Getty’s business model. They do this because there are so many business’ that pay Internet companies to create their website. Often, these companies sub the jobs to other countries. They copy thumbnails off of the Internet which makes it easy for Getty to search (using software) for these copyright infringements and shake down the owners of the websites.

The attorneys all told me to pay the $1,225.00. They all said that if I did not, that getty would sue me and win and that I would be on the hook for a Minimum of $125,000.00! And they told me that they could take my case, but that I would then be on the hook for their $400.00 per hour fee in addition to the $1,225.00!

I have since researched this a bit and found that there are several class action lawsuits to stop Getty Images from being able to do this. All agree that it is legal but also agree that it is unethical, ruthless and despicable! Please check out the following website- http://extortionletterinfo.com/

My hope is that if you do read this, and have a website, that it may get you (web site owners) to investigate their websites and determine if there is any potential for illegal, copyrighted infringement. It may save them the grief and expense that I have incurred. And it may expose Getty Images for what they are- skumbags.

I understand the idea behind copyrighting and respect an artist’s value in his work. This scenario however presents a Very different case. If someone purposefully uses a person’s copyrighted work to gain in any manner from it, then they should pay amends. If it is done unknowingly and without intent to gain from it, then address it Very differently.

Thanks for letting me vent. Please let me know if this helped you. And of course, please let me know if I can build you a custom Safe Step Swim Platform!