The website template we use have illegal tree image.

[magicalclick]

Hello,

I friend got sued by Getty Images over his gardening website. I help setup the site on the hosting service he paid. The site provided several templates and we choose the one for landscaping. And now, we are getting sued over an imaged used in the template. We took out the image right away, and they still demand 1800 dollar in return. 1800 dollars is a very big amount for my friend. I just feel like we are being bullied. The site barely has any visitors, I don't even know how they managed to find our site. And we don't know the template is having illegal images. Not only that, there is no way for normal human to know a corner of a random tree is copyrighted. On the template, it is a 170x170 tree with no leaf. The branch turns to green to match the template green color scheme. The actual image is a color photo of a tree in a desert looking area. We thought the template provider took the image themselves. I mean, it is just a tree (no lower trunk and no desert background). It looks just like a normal tree in the winter time. It is very hard to recognize that is a copyright material.

Now my friend feels like he should be bullied because Getty Images is a big company. They are smarter, more money, more time, more people, more everything. How can he, the little guy, defend from the big guys? But, it just feels wrong to be bullied like this. Can we do anything to defend ourselves?

The web hosting company took out the image right away and my friend told Getty Images that he didn't know and it is from a template from the hosting site. And Getty Images insist that he is responsible and demand 1800 USD.

What should he do?
Thank you.

 

[army judge]

Hello,

I friend got sued by Getty Images over his gardening website. I help setup the site on the hosting service he paid. The site provided several templates and we choose the one for landscaping. And now, we are getting sued over an imaged used in the template. We took out the image right away, and they still demand 1800 dollar in return. 1800 dollars is a very big amount for my friend. I just feel like we are being bullied. The site barely has any visitors, I don't even know how they managed to find our site. And we don't know the template is having illegal images. Not only that, there is no way for normal human to know a corner of a random tree is copyrighted. On the template, it is a 170x170 tree with no leaf. The branch turns to green to match the template green color scheme. The actual image is a color photo of a tree in a desert looking area. We thought the template provider took the image themselves. I mean, it is just a tree (no lower trunk and no desert background). It looks just like a normal tree in the winter time. It is very hard to recognize that is a copyright material.

Now my friend feels like he should be bullied because Getty Images is a big company. They are smarter, more money, more time, more people, more everything. How can he, the little guy, defend from the big guys? But, it just feels wrong to be bullied like this. Can we do anything to defend ourselves?

The web hosting company took out the image right away and my friend told Getty Images that he didn't know and it is from a template from the hosting site. And Getty Images insist that he is responsible and demand 1800 USD.

What should he do?
Thank you.

We have many people that complain about this same problem.

If I were you, I'd stop communicating with these people.

You are somewhat correct, they are bullies.

But, they are also scammers and thieves.

Do not answer their letters.

Do not return their calls.

They just want easy money.

That means they won't sue.

They want to scare the loot out of your pocket into theirs.

They are a filthy form of extortionist, ignore them like you would a filthy horsefly.

They'll eventually leave you alone.

 

[magicalclick]

Thank you for answering. I am a bit scared because Getty Images seems to be super big and most news sites uses their images. Is it really safe to ignore such big company? Thank you.

 

[army judge]

Thank you for answering. I am a bit scared because Getty Images seems to be super big and most news sites uses their images. Is it really safe to ignore such big company? Thank you.

Is anything safe?

I wouldn't give them $1,800.

Why?

Because, then you'll be an even easier target.

They are con-artists.

I'd ignore them.

You can give them $1,800, if you want.

It is, a free country, or so some have said.

 

[magicalclick]

I fear the same about being an easier target. Bullies do that a lot. thank you for the advice,

 

[Michael Wechsler]

Most important question to answer: Is it a demand letter or a summons and complaint? Is your friend actually getting sued?

Regarding Getty Images, they have been taking advantage of our government's failure to properly address copyright law. I'm not talking about SOPA, I'm talking about their failure to deal with copyright liability being a "strict liability" offense where knowledge is not a requirement. Hence if you hire a designer in good faith who hires some designer in India who decides to use a Getty Image he's pulled off of their website (and perhaps not even aware of some of their "limited license" terms) and it ends up on your website, they will charge you their "rental" fees. I give this example because I can't tell you how often this happens and some innocent, honest citizen is sent a letter that feels like a hold-up at gunpoint. Unfortunately our government believes that this will somehow clean up online piracy and copyright infringement by holding people to the impossible task of tracing every image they are sold by what appear to be licensed professionals who are the ones who are never sent demand letters (and should be.)

What's interesting about this whole setup is that I've noticed they have outrageously high "rental" rates where you can pay $450 per month to use a "stellar" image of a coin. Does anyone actually pay this price? It's their quoted price and what is on their demand letter.

Will they ever take you to court? Difficult to say. I haven't heard of such a case thus far. What would a judge think of the practice above? Much of this is going into the collections business where you call up people and demand big money because you're from a big company and hopefully you'll find enough people who are sufficiently intimidated into settling.

I'm not telling you what to do and this is just what I've heard. In most images once the image was taken down, the only response typically was more demand letters being sent. Best of luck.

 

[magicalclick]

That's what happened, they send a demand letter asking for that so-called rental fee. Thank you for the feedback. I don't know what my friend will do. It is his decision if he wants to get taken advantage. I will let him know about your opinions. That's the best I can do.

 

[Michael Wechsler]

That's what happened, they send a demand letter asking for that so-called rental fee. Thank you for the feedback. I don't know what my friend will do. It is his decision if he wants to get taken advantage. I will let him know about your opinions. That's the best I can do.

So it seems that nothing has changed. I can share with you general details about one client which happens regularly. They had a designer who uploaded a group of images that never actually appeared on the website and had mistakenly placed that image in the images folder. The "offending image" was not part of any page on the website. Apparently Getty was using a search spider (probably the one that was part of their acquisition of a technology company that created it) to deep search into the client's websites for these images. Getty demanded a significant amount of money for an unused photo that could have been purchased with an "appropriate" license for use for less than the amount of the money demanded. The client ignored 2 demand letters and never heard from them again.

I'm not going to say that I'm not sympathetic to the piracy problem. At the same time, I'm not going to say that I'm not sympathetic to many who had no desire to cause a problem and then find a demand for payment that seems patently unreasonable.

The choice is your friends. Best of luck.

 

[magicalclick]

Thanks a really good story, thank you so much.