| SAVE MONEY. Receive free and confidential notification of sales in your area by email. Completely confidential. No personal information is collected. Visit www.its-a-sale.com LINKS Links are reviewed at the time of posting and judged to be legitimate at the time. Please contact us about inappropriate links. ripoffs.org assumes no responsibility for the content of organizations that we link to, and will remove inappropriate links. | Complaints About the Getty Images Lawsuit
Historically, copyright owners have first given notice to alleged infringers that they must cease and desist and been satisfied when they did. There are millions of copyright holders in the world whose work is infringed. Getty seems unique in their willingness to threaten lawsuits against thousands of alleged copyright violators in order to supposedly protect photographers. Getty Images seems to have been less concerned about the value of their artists' work when they were responsible for payment, resulting in a class action lawsuit against them by photographers. Apparently they feel that higher standards apply to those who are less likely to be informed of copyright laws than they Getty should be. While it may be true that ignorance of the sources of art is not a defense, that Getty Images is on a rampage against small businesses, non-profits and individuals who do may not have the resources available to research the source of art used on their websites. For Getty to aggressively pursue independent artists and others who may be challenged to pay their bills everyday seems unnecessary and egregious to us. We live in a world full of graphics, designers, web developers, and suppliers of art. There is pressure for the small business to cost effectively launch a website without a background in copyright law or art. Whether or not Getty has the right to pursue these cases, we consider it a morally bankrupt position for them to send invoices for $1,000 or more to people who probably did not benefit financially from the use of this art. Perhaps Getty should stick with more normal fund raising techniques. We believe that small businesses and designers should consider Getty's approach to this situation before buying Getty stock images. Pursuing those who intentionally use copyrighted material of others to profit is certainly worthy of pursuit, but to threaten those who inadvertently used it in their art after it is promptly removed is beyond reason. One of our businesses allegedly used a Getty Images photograph as part of a collage. Upon notice the alleged photo was immediately replace with a similar one that I took within a few minutes in my back yard and, frankly, it is better. Since we are not reselling the art, there is no evidence that we benefited financially by using their photograph, rather than ours. In fact, business is up since it was replaced. Getty Images can pursue people who cannot afford to pay their fees or afford an attorney. We do, however, believe it is perfectly appropriate to present the stories of those they are pursuing on our website. If you have received a notice from Getty, we suggest that you post information and videos all over the Internet, including YouTube, Twiter, et al. Provide links to us to post here so that there is a central clearing house. Tell your story in person on video. Let those who patronize Getty see the faces of those being ruthlessly pursued. Click here to submit information. Please visit www.ripoffs.org/submit to submit a story about a rip-off. Please visit www.ripoffs.org/complaint for information about filing a complaint in order to receive assistance. To respond to a complaint about your organization, please visit www.ripoffs.org/response Avoid the latest scams by subscribing to our newsletter at www.ripoffs.org/alerts To provide a link for consideration (individuals, non-profits or government agencies only), send an visit ripoffs.org/links
|
|
| to e-mail us, visit ripoffs.org/mail |
