You open your mailbox and find a letter threatening you’ll be sued for a $100,000 due to copyrights infringement.
Over 85% of photos used online aren’t licensed for their use. (Colin Anderson/Blend Images/Getty Images)
“Impossible! That will never happen to me!” you say?
Well, do yourself a big favor and read this post.
Recent statistics show that over 85% of the photos used online are subject of copyright infringement.
Are you sure you’re not a thief?
Shortly after I decided to start this blog, I had a talk with a friend – Mirelle.
Mirelle is the proud owner of a well-known Israeli blog, focusing fashion, makeup & accessories: The Falafel Fashion blog.
Mirelle shared some horror stories she heard from her colleagues. All stories sounded pretty much the same:
“One day, out of the blue, I got a warning letter from Gettty Images, ordering me to compensate some unheard-of photographer with tens of thousands of dollars.” The letter also said that if no action will be taken promptly, that blogger will be sued in court of law for copyright infringement!
Sounds familiar? Rings a bell? The blogosphere has been buzzing with alike stories for a quite a while.
Joe McCall from St. Louis, Missouri told his personal story on a forum message, titled “Getty Images Suing Me for $4,000!!!“:
“I received a letter from Getty Images today telling me to cease & desist using 4 images immediately… I have to send them $4,000 after I delete the images for copyright infringement. If I don’t pay them within 14 days, they are threatening to pursue damages.”
(Joe McCall, Flipping Homes forum)
Yikes! Another post, titled “Getty Images is after me“ tells a similar story:
“Several months ago somebody made me a website and used several images he claimed he got from a public domain site. Last month I got a letter from Getty Images demanding $1000 for the use of the picture”
SydneyJen (user at Site Point)
I have tens of similar stories in my “research” folder, and the internet is literally packed with tens of thousands (if not more) of these abysmal experiences. Try googling “Getty images letter”. You will find over 34,000 exact match results, and over 9.5 million (read aloud: nine-point five million) relevant results.
So, who are these poor, poor people who Getty is apparently after, and are you one of them?
Illustration: Even The Church got sued by Getty. (“Jesus” by tonystl. Shared under CC BY-ND license).
- Blog owners
- Site owners
- Forum users
- Forum owners
- Web designers
- Web developers
- Graphic designers
- Newspaper companies
- Plumbers
- Realtors
- Carpenters
- Charity organizations
- Environmental organizations
- Church reverend
- and the list goes on…
Yes, you read it right. Getty Images actually filed a lawsuit against a church from Lichfield, United Kingdom for £6,000, according to The Guardian. They seem to stop nowhere.
If you are reading this post, you probably fit one or more of these categories. You must be somewhat troubled by now: Are you the next one in line?
In order to understand why are the bad guys at ‘Getty Images’ suing and bullying what seems to be everyone, everywhere; and to learn how to avoid being sued yourself, we should first answer two important questions:
- Who the hell are Getty Images anyway?
- What to they want from me or your?
WHO ARE GETTY IMAGES?
Here is (some of) what Wikipedia tells us about Getty Images Inc.:
“Getty Images, Inc. is a stock photo agency, … It is a supplier of stock images for business and consumers with an archive of 80 million still images… In February 2008 it was…acquired by Hellman & Friedman in a transaction valued at an estimated US$2.4 billion”
(From Wikipedia: Getty Images)
So, there you go. Getty Images license usage rights for over 80 million still images.
If that doesn’t make them sound really, really big, then being previously purchased for an estimated $2,400,000,000 should do the job.
Getty Images are one of the biggest stock photo agencies on planet earth, if not the biggest one. Yes, they are aggressive sometimes, but so are all huge corporations.
Hell, I LOVE Apple, but I wouldn’t want to be in the shoes of those sued by them.
Still, there seem to be far more innocent bloggers being sued for (allegedly) no apparent reason by Getty Images, than by Apple, Google, Microsoft, IBM and any other business empire combined.
House of all huge corporations (Nasdaq). (“Nasdaq Take 3” by bfishadow. Shared under CC BY license)
Being raised on ‘Robin Hood’ fairy-tails, I decided to give Getty’s representatives a call, and ask them what are they up to. I was forwarded to their master delegate for my region: ‘Image Bank Israel‘.
A Coin Has Two Faces
I wrote an email to ‘Image Bank Israel’ that evening, pretty much in the lines of:
“I’m a newbie blogger writing a blog post on how to legally find and use photos on my blog without getting sued by you”.
The next morning (!), I got a phone call from Ms. Aviva Weinman, CEO and owner of ‘Image Bank Israel’ herself.
We met a few days later at her office in Tel Aviv. As I entered, I saw smiling faces everywhere. I didn’t even have to sit down and wait, I was buzzed right in. “They don’t seem half as bad as people bad mouth them”- I thought.
Image Bank Israel offices in Tel Aviv
The interview turned out to be a very friendly and open conversation. We discussed photography copyright infringement at start, but later we got talking about the moral state of the Israeli society in general, and more.
But do not worry: I’m only sharing the “photo rights stuff” with you! 
First, Aviva points out that ‘Image Bank Israel’ are merely Getty’s delegates in the region. This means she has no responsibility for Getty’s actions overseas, hence she can’t explain Getty’s actions, but only Image Bank’s. Nevertheless, the information she provides from an insider perspective is invaluable.
I told Aviva that I’ve decided to write this post because there are so many people obviously doing it wrong, so many people confused, and mainly so many people are scared, perhaps terrified by the name of you-know-who (Getty of course!)
“There really is no reason for confusion”, says Aviva. “The law is simple and the rules are very straight forward. Either you took a picture – and then it belongs to you, or you didn’t take the picture – and then you must obtain rights in order to use it.”
“If you use a photo that wasn’t taken by you, and you don’t bother with licensing it”, clarifies Aviva – “you are performing copyright infringement”. And that is all there is to it.
Copyright infringement is an offense
“Copyright infringement is an offense”, states Aviva. “Just like stealing a car or robbing a supermarket”.
“People don’t see it this way”, she explains, “because it’s so easy and ‘innocent’ to right-click a photo you found on Google and hit the ‘save as…’ button. But that photo was taken by someone, perhaps making his living from licensing his photos”.
PicScout’s CEO claimed that 85% of photo usage online in 2010 was done without appropriate licensing, I tell her. She doesn’t seem surprised.
“That’s why Getty Images, and their delegates overseas, are taking action. Some people don’t even understand that they are stealing something that belongs to someone else. Others just don’t care.”
Porsches aren’t that cheap!
OK, but let’s face it, I say. Buying licenses from Getty, iStockPhotos, or others can cost quite a lot of money. For an amateur blogger or a newbie writer, the price can be overwhelming.
Aviva has a great comeback (and marvelous analogy): “That’s true. But buying a Porsche isn’t cheap also. Still people know they cannot just take one that is parked at the parking lot. Even if the door is open and the key is in the ignition switch, most people will know better than taking the car for a spin!”
Ain’t so cheap either. “Porsche 911SC” by FotoSleuth. Shared under CC BY license.
To this interesting analogy, she adds: “Remember that even if you steal a car, and then return it a week later to the exact same spot, it still doesn’t correct your wrongful act. Gasoline was wasted, wear and tear occurred…That’s why sometimes we can not settle for a cease and decease act (when one removes and stops any usage of non licensed copyrighted material [MB])”.
Judgement: When to settle
Unlike the (justified or not) image of Getty (pun intended), at least at their Israeli delegate I hear some sound judgement as to deciding when to file a lawsuit vs. when to settle:
“We understand that not all are born equal. We don’t want to make anyone lose his home or leave his family with nothing. But people still need to take responsibility for their actions”.
“People need to understand that we only manage the rights of the photos for our photographers. We don’t own the photos themselves. So, if a photographer is reluctant to settle or no compromise can be reached, we sue for the whole worth.”
Sure, I say. But to be honest, some of the prices I’m hearing sound crazy! How does one reach such high figures??
“First, at least the Israeli law defines a ‘default’ penalty per picture that was used against terms. This is the same in most countries, and usually serves as the starting point. If we go to court, the photographer can sue for the entire value of the photo, determined by much money he could make of licensing it over a period of ten years.”
“And yes,”, she adds, “It can be a very high figure when dealing with professional photographers”.
Must apply some sound judgement. By Photodisc/Getty Images
“In case of severe infringement for commercial benefit, and after having our letters ignored again and again, we could sue. If someone makes as spend on lawyers, private investigators, requires the work of the Getty legal department and an entire team of people in Israel and around the world – they will pay the price.”
“But we try to settle as much as possible with smaller business owners/bloggers. Many times we end up with a simple act of cease and decease and an apology. Other times we settled for the blogger buying the license at market price. Hundreds of them become longtime returning customers afterwards.”
It’s worth pointing out that this is only the policy of ‘Image Bank Israel’, and doesn’t necessarily say anything about Getty Images behavior (which does seem to be more radical!). Nonetheless, play by the rules and they’ll have no claims either.
If you’re willing to settle, I ask Aviva, why are you demanding so much money in the initial warning letter, instead of offering alternative options?
“As sad as it may seem”, Aviva answers, “No one reads nice letters anymore. Only when we threaten, we get people to take action and talk to us”.
So, I say and pause. Hypothetically speaking, lets pretend I’m a blogger with a bunch of unlicensed photos on my blog. What should I do to avoid being sued due to my already committed offenses?
“At the very least,” she smiles, “you should license all of the photos appropriately, and pay the photographer his dues.”
The Mediterranean Sea outside of the Image Bank offices
Time Traveling for evidence
This raises a question, debated outside Image Bank Israel offices, by many bloggers and so-called experts:
Should you pay, or should you remove the unlicensed photos and call it a day?
Well, here come some bad news for you, folks: Maybe Albert Einstein proved time traveling to be impossible in the real world, but on the internet, time traveling has been around for years.
Time traveling can be done via time machines (well, duh…). Time machine websites let anyone go back in time and see past versions of your website, sometimes dating years and years back. That’s long before you removed the subject of infringement off your site!
And yes, you guessed it right. Getty Images and their automatic robots use such archives to find & prove infringements. (Wanna check out the most popular internet archive? Visit the Wayback Machine)
Now, you could contact the support teams of these websites, and kindly ask them to remove your website from their archives. Some of them even went public about their objection to Getty using their services (‘Wayback Machine’ for instance), and they will be happy to help you out.
But who knows what private archives are in use today, or will exist tomorrow? Could you ever be sure you have destroyed all evidence?
“evil murphy says NO to Copyright Violation” by stacey~. Shared under CC BY-ND license.
Back to Aviva’s office, she tells me: “We give heavy weight in handling the case to the behavior pattern we see. If someone acts like he has something to hide – if he starts hiding evidence, deleting pages and generally behaves like a thief that’s aware to the severity of his actions, then it is not an innocent mistake.”
“We understand that people can make innocent mistakes. Sometimes it’s the web designer’s fault, and he’s already out of the business by the time we reach the website owner. But sometimes it’s as clear as the sun that someone has been doing it knowingly for ages, and those people need to pay for their actions”.
So yes, you could try to destroy the evidences. It’s hard to estimate your chances of succeeding, and it might make the matter worse if you are caught. Take that into account, and perhaps consider avoiding copyrights infringement to begin with!
The risk
But there are so many photos and graphics in the free domain! I tell Aviva.
Sure, it’s Image Bank & Getty Images job to make as much ca$h possible for the photographers, but why shouldn’t I use photos from the public domain?
Aviva tells me a story. “One day, I open the weekend newspaper. One of the full-page ads caught my eye. It was by a professional photographer, offering his services for weddings, birthdays, etc. He had 4 samples of his photos at the bottom of the ad. I immediately recognized those photos – they came from my image bank! That photographer stole four photos of other photographers, and claimed on national newspaper that they are a sample of his own work”.
The lesson? If someone can publish an ad on national newspaper with stolen photos, someone can sure-as-hell upload stolen photos to his Flickr, Instagram or Facebook accounts, and even upload them to open “public domain” (AKA ‘free’) web galleries.
If you, or your designer, happen to download and use a photo from a public domain website, that was uploaded without the photographer’s knowledge – you are performing an infringement as if you stole the photo yourself.
Risk when using photos from public domain. (“Solar Casino Night (11)” by Ian Murphy. Shared under CC BY license).
So, that makes a compelling reason why you should use Getty, Image Bank, Dreamstime or any similar licensing agency (or even contact the photographer directly, if he doesn’t manage his rights through such agency). This way, you know for sure that you are doing everything right to a tee.
There are alternatives of course, but as stated above, they do come with some risk.
The main alternative is using photos licensed under ‘open licenses’, such as the Creative Commons (abbreviated as CC). Flickr has a library of over 210 million photos that can be used for free under the CC licenses.
My next post is going to be dedicated to show you how to find and legally use photos from Flickr on your blog. If you want to get an email notification when it’s out, why not subscribe to the mailing list?
tips and lessons
The most important lessons to learn from this blog post, in addition to the understanding of why you can’t just copy-paste any image you see online, are:
1. Make sure you attain rights before using the material
How can you obtain rights for photos you did not shoot yourself?
- If the photographer is employed by you, you get some rights – depending on your signed agreement. If you expect all rights and ownership of the photos to belong to you once you pay the photographer, you must put that in your written agreement. If you don’t sign a contract, it is generally considered that you have a one-time license to use the photos for the exact purpose described in the job order, and nothing more (this is not legal advice!).
- The same goes for website designs – they belong to the designer unless stated otherwise!
- If the photo is licensed under some “open” license, such as the Creative Commons (also referred to as CC), you may use it for free as long as you are keeping the usage to the exact license terms.
- If the license is managed be some agency, the process generally follows this path: A. You buy “credits”, averaging at $1.5 per credit point. B. You choose the required photo and choose appropriate license, image size, and allowed usage. This is usually handled by the purchase wizard at the agency website. The wizard will tell you how many credits are required to license your needs.
- Are you a student or part of an educational institution? Do you need the photo for private or educational use only? ‘Image Bank Israel’ and many other agencies will not only allow you to use photos for free, but will happily give you high-resolution versions of the photos upon request.
2. Protect yourself
Are you buying a design for your website or blog from some gallery or web designer? Is someone designing some brochures for you? Your order should include a contract forcing them to only use licensed works, and have them to take legal responsibility if they fail to do so.
Protect Yourself! (“Ambush-protected vehicle” by The U.S. Army. Shared under CC BY license).
This advice is common sense, but you should have a lawyer help you with a template agreement of such kind. When doing so, do make sure he specializes in copyright infringements and not transportation and car accidents!
One more point to remember: There is no such thing as a free lunch! Not all photos licensed under Creative Commons on Flickr actually belong to the user that uploaded them. Use common sense. If it looks too good to be true, it probably is.
3. License types
As already mentioned, ‘open licenses’ exist (like CC), allowing you to use a photo for no money down. Besides those, if you decide to pay for licensing you will generally find terms similar to the following:
- Royalty Free (RF) License
- Usually refers to a non-transferable, non-exclusive right to use a photo for specified needs.
- It is usually less restrictive in terms of allowed usage and limitations than more ‘complicated’ licenses, but it varies by the websites and agencies, so read their terms before purchasing.
- Many websites offer Basic RF and Extended RF licenses, so make sure you compare them before you buy.
- Don’t forget – RF license is non-exclusive, so there is a good chance someone else will be using the same photos.
- Normal limitations include: size, market, format (web, printed, etc), maximum allowed exposure, and more.
- At Getty Images, RF license price is based solely on the size of the purchased photo.
- Rights Managed (RM) License
- An exclusive right to use a photo.
- Usually is limited by time, region of the world (e.g. ‘China only’, ‘Latin America’ or even ‘Worldwide’), and usage (e.g. Editorial, software design, website design, printed materials, etc.).
- As it is an exclusive right to use the photo, it generally costs much more in comparison to RF or CC licensed photos.
- Editorial Rights
- This is a sub case of RM License, where the photo may only be used for editorial purposes (newspapers, news sites, blogs following current events, etc.) referencing information, news or noteworthy event.
- At almost all cases, the license is non-exclusive and for one-time use only.
- Preview License
- Intended for personal, educational and noncommercial use only. Some limitations may apply.
4. Finding Photos
As I mentioned, I’m in process of writing a blog post showing where to find photos for your blog and how to use them legally, including the process of purchase and download (both open licenses and RF websites).
Here is a small taste from the coming post, showing how to find photos under CC licenses on Flickr:
You can find photos under RF or RM licenses at:
- Getty Images (Obviously..). Curated by Getty editors.
- Corbis Images - Owned by Bill Gates. Over 100 million images. Never used them, but prices seem good, and they also accept local currency.
- Dreams Time – A cheap choice for stock photos.
- iStock Photo (Owned by Getty Images) – Same like Getty, but the photos are uploaded by the photographers themselves, and not by Getty. Cheapest RF photo I found there went for ~15 credits, which averages at $22.
- Shutter Stock (I Didn’t try it yet, but will during my next blog post writing).
I’m going to review all these websites and show you the exact purchase process on my next post. If you want to receive an email notification when it’s published, subscribe to my mailing list right now. You will receive blog posts only, and nothing else. You can un-subscribe at any time of course.
Until the next time,
Meron
No related posts.
Alex May 22, 2012 at 11:23 am
There are 2 problems here – one is the whole “Right Click” problem – by making it easy to download / steal images millions will do so.
Part of that is down to Google and part is down to browser design.
Then there’s deception. I know of one highly ethical Internet marketer who got one of these letters from Getty. Puzzled because he had a licence to use the image from the Designer who did some work for him he looked into the problem. Turns out that the images had been ripped off by the designer who had also faked the licence.
The designer, of course, could not be found and the cost…£1,000.
As for people uploading to Flickr images for which they do not have the right to do so….Ugh, scary, so now we can’t even trust creative commons?
And I honestly love iStockphoto but the prices are too high for me to use more than a handful.
The solution…use more of your own photos alongside the free images you can find online at sxc.hu amongst others.
Thanks for bringing this very important topic up – the level of awareness of these issues is low and this will be very helpful. And well done for doing the interview!
Alex
Meron May 22, 2012 at 3:30 pm
Hi Alex, thanks for the kind words!
You are spot-on about Google. I believe they should have added a “for private/educational use only” disclaimer (or something similar) to their image search results page years ago.
I think that a “save image as…-for private use only-” link in browsers (instead of the current text), would have served the purpose much better too, but wouldn’t have looked as nice
The designer story gave me a rush of blood to the head :rage:! Do you have any idea if he paid Getty at the end? Did he have any contract signed with that designer? This kind of stuff is what scares the hell out of me when I see the very cheap prices for such jobs on Elance or Fiverr.
I heard about sxc.hu but never used it – and have the same concerns like I have about photos from the Creative Commons collection (although I do rely on them). If you (or anyone else reading) could share your experience with sxc or any other site not mentioned – I’d love that! I’ve seen the site before, and it has some nice selection, but are there any guarantees for the origins of photos there?
By the way, I found Getty to be sometimes cheaper than iStockPhoto ($10 vs. $22-25).
Thanks again for commenting, and I agree with your lesson – Use as many photos of your own as you possibly can!
Take care
Meron
Mario Bruneau August 31, 2012 at 3:26 am
Getty owns BOTH sxc.hu and iStockPhoto
Aracy May 25, 2012 at 4:05 am
thanks for the article. it really helped me a lot.
Brenda May 26, 2012 at 5:44 am
Hey! Someone in my Facebook group shared this website with
us so I came to look it over. I’m definitely loving the information. I’m book-marking and will be tweeting this to my followers! Superb blog and terrific design.
Meron May 26, 2012 at 11:06 am
Thanks !
JohnW May 27, 2012 at 3:14 pm
Thanks for a great article.
Unfortunately, Getty Images is very aggressive and unbending. Even when there is a clear path of deceit, I have read they insist on charging people that have been misled into thinking they have bought rights.
I thought Getty was/is owned by Bill Gates? I know they merged with or bought Jupiter Images who bought Hemera (they were fantastic to deal with).
I always check for specific uses with the companies I deal with if the intended use is not specified in their Terms.
The companies, including Clipart.com (owned by Getty), seem to appreciate the checking.
But, I bet I don’t get credit for this if somehow I end up using an image which they watch for.
Meron May 27, 2012 at 11:53 pm
Hi John, thanks for joining the conversation (and on two posts!
)
Bill Gates owns Corbis Images, that manage rights of just about ~100 mil photos and 500,000 video clips (and I’m ashamed to point out that I forgot to link them on the post!)
I didn’t get to talk with anyone from Getty Images themselves (only their master delegate of my region), but I agree that there seem to be many, many people complaining about such aggressiveness, and if any Getty Images rep is reading this – I’d love to hear your side of the story, esp. in cases as described by you John!
Thanks again for commenting, hope to see you soon
Meron
Meron May 28, 2012 at 12:02 am
By the way, you mentioned that dealing with Hemera was fantastic.
Was it about clarifying license questions, or on cases of deceit like you mentioned?
John May 27, 2012 at 7:58 pm
Image Bank Israel seems to have what Getty Images is sincerely missing: common sense. From everything that I have seen about the “Getty Images (Extortion) Letter” is that Getty = greed. They do not accept any apology, never resort to a “of cease and desist and an apology”; they always send the very nasty, threatening letter and say “it’s YOUR problem”. I concur that unauthorized use in the “right-click any image on the webs” category is a major problem, and should be addressed, but Getty Images is making the bulk of their money with these threatening letters and it is not in their financial interest to be reasonable.
I know of a few examples where people did not know/could not have avoided the copyright infringement, but the “it is YOUR problem, give-me-my-money” approach of Getty Images (which also owns iStockphoto and scx.hu) was as flexible as a metal rod.
Another major problem is the fact that you need a legal degree to read the licensing agreement. For many uses it is very clear (or at least, you think so) but as life is made of millions shades of gray there is a very good chance that your particular situation isn’t spelled out in that agreement. If you realize that, you could ask their licensing department I guess, but the problem is that you often assume that certain a situation applies to your situation, but in reality they doesn’t. Ever watched a legal TV show? Legal lingo is never clear.
The legal system was developed to protect people; but the American system of “I hurt my toe, let’s see if I can sue someone for it to make a few bucks” has totally corrupted the system. And Getty’s approach is a result of “(ab)using the law to make (lots of) money” line of thought.
What Getty Images SHOULD do:
1. Have a clearer licensing agreement so people actually know what they need to do
2. A degree of “reasonable doubt”, which can lead to a of cease and desist and an apology. Some common sense!!!
If Getty would apply these, then maybe they would get my business back…
(yes, I received such a letter as well – in a situation which deserved a cease and desist letter rather than a hefty fine)
(yes, I stopped using istockphoto and scx.hu after this)
Meron May 28, 2012 at 12:19 am
Hey John, thanks for sharing your story and thoughts!
Wow, what a major issue have you have pointed out – The licensing agreement!
I totally agree that licenses (not only on Getty) can be very, very hard to understand. I myself gave up on several photos because I couldn’t understand if I can use the photo for my specific need or not, and wasn’t going to “take my chances”. The Creative Commons aim at fixing this, by creating a clear “human readable summary” of the legal code that is attached to each license. I agree with you that all agencies should do the same, the earlier the better! Same goes for common sense – on all aspects of life of course.
Would you be willing to share your story? What happened and how did it end?
Who do you use now for your business needs? Any recommendations to share?
Thanks again for commenting, waiting for your reply!
Meron
John May 29, 2012 at 8:43 pm
Hi Meron,
The situation was that we had to publish a picture by a third party. So I mentioned that, and asked them to chase that third party instead of me. Fat chance – “your problem”!
After going back and forth (and extending the deadline for payment) that third party did pay Getty Images a reduced fee. Yes, you can ask for a reduction and they will often oblige!
It may also be good to know that Getty Images does not seem to have legal grounds to actually sue you, but they will hand over their claim to a very aggressive collection agency who can harass you for months to come.
Big bullying tactics.
For my business needs I usually rely on Dreamstime now, as they allow you to assign pictures to clients’ projects. Weird enough only for their paid pictures; for free pictures you still need to open up another account in their name. This is one of the common sense areas: many, many pictures will be bought by developers on behalf of their clients. Yet, if the pictures were downloaded using the developer’s account then they are licensed to the developer – not the client. So: the client can still receive a threatening letter with mega claim from Getty as the license is not in their name. Talking about legal technicalities with major implications! Still: to me this all feels like intentional loopholes to make an incredible amount of money off of hardworking individuals (hence my plea for the cease and desist for honest offenders – I am not talking about those right-click-offenders here).
I don’t think that anybody paying for stockphotos should receive those letters just because of misinterpretation; if only Getty was that forgiving…
I am also looking into Public Domain pictures, both from Wikipedia/Government agencies and individual photographers.
Other promising candidates include rgbstock.com (apparently started by disgruntled former scx.hu people), morguefile.com and sunipix.com.
Meron May 30, 2012 at 3:04 pm
Hi John,
At least your 3rd party could be found and did pay at the end… :/
When ordering on Getty’s website today you are actually able to specify if you are licensing for yourself or to name a customer instead (the invoice will later show 1. who ordered and 2. who’s the client) – sounds much like what you described on Dreamstime (actually the first agency I ever used!)
If you find public domain photos useful, you might like the Flickr Commons collection (not Creative Commons, just Commons), which is a collection of photos with “no known copyright restrictions“, from libraries an institutes from all around the world. You can search the commons at http://www.flickr.com/commons/. I didn’t yet give it a real try.
Thanks again for recommending all these alternatives. morguefile seems to be down right now, but I’ll be sure to check it and RGBstock out before completing my review post – which I hope will be a useful guide/summary for readers.
By the way – if you have any specific parameters to offer for such comparison – please let me know. I want to make it as useful and effective as possible, and any ideas from existing frequent users will surely be very helpful.
Hope to hear from you soon, and thanks again for participating!
Meron
Steve May 29, 2012 at 4:13 pm
There is an image search engine called Tineye that allows you to do picture searches. It is free for non-commercial use up to 150 searches a week. Might be worth running your pictures through that if you are not sure where they came from.
Personally I find iStockPhoto to be on the expensive side. I use 123rf – mostly you can get the smallest size of picture (great for blogs) for around $1. The reality is there are many photographers around the world with a camera and an internet connection just trying to make a few extra dollars. With digital photography, once you have the camera, there are no extra costs for film etc, so they can supplement their income and we can get cheaper pictures – win/win.
Meron May 29, 2012 at 5:27 pm
Hi Steve, thanks for the tips!
I know professional photographers are also using TinEye to reverse search their images (for the unfamiliar – you give TinEye a photo and it shows you where it is used online). One word of caution for those using TinEye to try and verify where a photo came from: It ain’t even close to be a perfect search engine. I actually ran TinEye against one of the RF photos I own last week, and it found nothing. Not even where it came from (Getty Images themselves). So be aware of that
As to 123rf.com – never heard of them, so thanks for pointing them out. How long have you been using them? Any trouble to steer clear of?
I’ll add them to the next post. I see that photographers submitting to their library do go through some phase of copyrights validation, which is reassuring (also the fact they are owned by Inmagine, who also are absent in my post, is supposed to help).
Thanks for the tips Steve. I appreciate it & hope you have a nice day!
Meron
Julia Marshall May 29, 2012 at 4:20 pm
MANY MANY THANKS FOR THIS MOST HELPFUL POST!! I MADE THE MISTAKE OF DOWNLOADING WHAT I BELIEVED TO BE ROYALTY FREE PIC’S FROM DREAMSTIME…ONLY TO FIND OUT I HAD TO PAY IF I WANTED TO DOWNLOAD THESE AS THEY ARE “ROYALTY FREE” AND NOT FREE FROM CHARGE TO USE!
I HAD ILLUSTRATED A CHILDRENS BOOK WITH A LOT OF THESE AND CONSEQUENTLY, HAVE BEEN UNABLE TO PUBLISH, ALSO ALL OF THE PHOTO’S ON MY BLOGS NEED TO BE REMOVED AND CHANGED WITH SOMETHING LIKE THE FLICKER IMAGES.
I HAVE PURCHASED PLUGINS FOR DOWNLOADING FREE PIC’S, GOTTEN FLICKER KEYS, BUT NONE OF THEM EVER WORK!:)
Thanks to you research and consideration of this situation, I shall now do as you’ve done and access Flicker the slower way!:)
Look forward to the next post anxiously!:)
Thank you again so very much for your time and help with this. I’m sure many, many bloggers will be most appreciative!
Best,
Julia
Meron May 29, 2012 at 5:38 pm
Hi Julia!
Love your name
You are 100% welcome, I’m so happy you found the post right on time! It is a bit confusing, the term “Royalty Free“, isn’t it?
I tried one or two Wordpress plugin that where supposed to find me photos from Flickr for my blog. Once I got them working, I had two major problems:
I’m actually working on a system to help me with using photos from Flickr on my blog, including a Wordpress plugin and handling the licenses, so stay tuned – I plan to give it out free of charge – as I believe many many people need something similar for some peace of mind
Have a nice day!
Meron
Roy May 29, 2012 at 5:04 pm
Hi
Does this then mean that google images has the licensing for ALL the images they potray? very interesting post.
Meron May 29, 2012 at 5:39 pm
Hi Roy, I didn’t quite understand your question, could you rephrase it?
Thanks for the kind words, hope you have a nice day
Meron
Ian Henderson May 29, 2012 at 8:13 pm
Thank you for this thorough and detailed article. I keep warning my clients about this and will spread the word about your post on my social media profiles.
Meron May 30, 2012 at 3:06 pm
Thanks Ian, I appreciate it very much!
If you have anything to add to the discussion or to any future one – please feel free to do so!
Have a great day
Meron
source June 3, 2012 at 7:04 pm
Have you given any kind of consideration at all with translating your webpage into German? I know a couple of of translaters here that will would help you do it for free if you wanna get in touch with me personally.
Arenice June 8, 2012 at 9:42 pm
i finally decided to write a comment on your blog. i just wanted to say good job. i really enjoy reading your posts. thumb up.
Bradford Zbierski October 27, 2012 at 8:39 pm
very interesting information!
Brenna October 31, 2012 at 4:35 am
I absolutely love your site.. Pleasant colors & theme. Did you build this amazing
site yourself? Please reply back as I’m looking to create my own site and would like to know where you got this from or exactly what the theme is called. Thank you!
Meron October 31, 2012 at 6:14 pm
Thanks Brenna
It’s based on Thesis and I had it customised. I can give you the information of the Greek guy that set it up for me.
Enjoy your week
Meron
Brian Foster January 5, 2013 at 8:36 pm
I think the most important issue has been missed. The methods they use are nothing short of using sharp, unethical and unwarranted business practices. Why… simple. The letter my sister and her daughter received for the use of two absolutely non descript images in what that company in Israel said was a cease and desist (not decease) letter. Any ETHICAL business would write and say in plain English. “Hey you’re using two of our images without paying for a license. Take them down NOW. We will return to your website in 14 days and if they are still there we will give you a further 14 days to pay us the licence fee of £XXXX” that is a proper ethical cease and desist letter. But no they tell you to cease and desist AND demand payment of the full amount in that same letter. I totally disagree with that woman who says that sending nice letters don’t work. Why don’t they try sending a nice but firm clear letter FIRST and then a stronger worded demand threatening legal action later, that’s what the vast majority of honest and decent businesses would do?
Duncan January 24, 2013 at 1:12 pm
It’s good to see articles like this warning bloggers of possible copyright infringement. As a photographer, when one person innocently uses an image without paying, it is then seen by others who then also use it and so on and so on.
The result of this is it becomes unsaleable in the commercial market. In other words, it stops me from feeding my family. I noticed someone mentioning that once you buy the camera there are no other costs. This is an often used / misunderstanding. Studio time, models, travel expenses to visit the countries photographed etc along with actual many hours spent keywording images and uploading them to the agencies is very time consuming and expensive, even applying minimum wage hourly amounts.
Also, and most importantly for you, technology is jumping along and systems like Tineye are being replaced by systems that watermark and fingerprint your images and cannot be removed by manipulation, cropping or stripping meta data. I’m in the process of adding this system and it provides a report of where my images are being used and automates billing to copyright infringers and take down notices. Companies like LicenseStream & PicScout that are supported by Getty build and use the same systems and offer the photographer 50% of any monies gained through chasing people using images illegally. This is the future and will be big money for companies like Getty who can afford to take people to court. Eventually it will become impossible to take images without being caught so it is good to follow the advice here now rather than being caught out later, because it will happen.
On a positive note, these new systems will allow photographers like myself to move away from the larger agencies and offer their own subscription services like 123rf, lower price per image but higher volume of sales mean we can still afford to provide the content you want / require will paying our own way in the world. Would bloggers see an annual subscription of £65 p/annum allowing them to download any images throughout the year for a max of £0.50p per image along with other freebies? Pixel size would be max of 2000px.
Ironically, both Bloggers and Photographers are suffering at the hands of the large Corps like Getty etc. Photographers are often receiving between 15-30% of the money taken by agencies. I would like to think a better understanding between Bloggers and Photographers will result in a squeeze on the BIG middle men currently taking all the money!!
Play safe everyone and best of luck in what ever you enjoy doing.
Meron January 28, 2013 at 10:39 pm
Duncan, thanks for your reply!
I’m so happy to get a photographer into the conversation here. You are (sadly) 100% correct – people don’t realize (or choose to ignore) the fact that there is a hard working professional on the other side, trying to make a living. We (bloggers) often forget the amount of time and effort that is put into some photos, and it’s a tragedy.
It’s amazing to see how technology that not long ago was only available to giants like Getty is becoming a tool for the professionals themselves. May I ask though, how are you going to utilize it’s reports? I mean – I’m sure you didn’t plan to sit all day in courtrooms when you chose this profession? I suppose there is an evolving industry of legal services that accompanies these changes, and will “outsource” the management of these cases for you?
By the way, I wasn’t aware of 123rf until someone else pointed it out via comments. I’ll add it now to the list right now. Could you tell me more about them? How do they differ from Getty (in terms of benefits for the photographer)?
I’d love to see a world where bloggers and photographers unite, as each one NEEDS the other in this day and age. Thank you Duncan for making that effort to bridge the gap!
Duncan January 29, 2013 at 3:21 pm
Hi Meron….. your welcome. Once images are fingerprinted and traceable, you can receive reports on where the images are being used. Excel or text files that can be imported into programmes like SAS.
123rf is ok, not great for photographers necessarily as you have to sell a lot of 20 cents in order to pay your way
If volume of sales are there, a photographer really needs a min of $5 p/image or more.
At the moment, a lot of agencies will give you $2.25 when you pay $15… you can see who’s laughing all the way to the bank! Now if you use photographers directly they stand a chance of lowing the fee for you but taking away more. Or, as I mentioned before, offering subscriptions and freebies for loyal customers etc.
For me, I see myself providing / building different portfolios with different price levels. High end images will always be expensive due to unusual /remote locations or expenses incurred but I see no reason why cheaper imagery cannot be produced as well that could benefit bloggers out there…. maybe even a forum for requests likes etc…. just thinking aloud… sort of
Meron January 30, 2013 at 6:24 am
Hi Duncan,
But once you get the report, you still have all the burden or pursuing the infringing party – would you go through that trouble, or just give up? When I had customers that refused to pay for services they consumed in a previews business I’ve owned, I went through the bother of going to court, winning the case and STILL never actually got the money – as the collection services of court are incredibly ineffective here.
Regarding the payout – apparently Getty Images isn’t worth $4.3B for nothing, right?
I actually LOVE the idea of a request forum, where I could even post a post outline and get photographers to suggest photos the have in their portfolio that match the needs for that given post, pick up those who fit and automatically pay through the website. For the added service of having communication with photographers instead of spending time searching in all these stock photography websites, I’d probably be willing to pay 2-3x what I pay on Fotolia today, and the photographer will still be making more than he is today. That kind of a win win would be amazing for blogging community and for photographers!
Maybe someone will pick up on this idea!
Duncan January 30, 2013 at 6:50 am
It is very much worth a photographers efforts to chase. The UK & the US have both improved and stream lined systems to take infringement cases to court without even having to turn up. I think it is for smaller claims stuff of up to £5,000 or so. There was a blog from a photographer recently that stated he made £32k in a weekend just by chasing 12 infringement cases.
When someone is caught using an image, the price they pay is significantly higher, normally 10x full markup price plus all legal expenses. Most people don’t realise this. The courts and photographers never allow someone to pay the same amount as someone who obtained goods legally, there is always an element of punishment to deter people from doing it I guess otherwise everyone would take it and pay up later if they were caught. There is also the damage caused if an image goes viral and is rendered worthless.
In terms of effort required, there are a number of companies quite willing to take your list for a 50/50 split and you don’t have to do anything. It’s going to go the same way as the Accident Claims companies. As usual, the legal bods will make a lot of money but it is worthwhile to the photographer as it is revenue he isn’t getting at the moment. Getty have invested a lot into PicScout and see it as the future. Even though they annoy us at times, they do seem to know the image market as you say!
In terms of request forums…. I am working on a project with a web designer at the moment. Subscription / credit systems are being talked about and if the interest is there, I would add a forum. As you say, it works for all involved as we don’t have o guess what you want and you don’t have to search the entire net. If you want, I can keep you and your readers informed about it’s progress and ask for input from you on ideas being discussed?!?
Meron January 30, 2013 at 7:15 am
Wow. Fellow bloggers, read this comment by Duncan ^^^
It’s not going to be just the big “evil” companies like people believe. Please, read this post and understand where the law stands, it’s quite simple. Otherwise it can be a big big problem for your blog (and you as its owner) down the road.
Duncan – I’d love to help with any input I could provide! Please do keep me and my readers informed – I think it can become a great tool and a very interesting project. I just dropped you an email too
Denny January 30, 2013 at 11:41 am
Meron,
I am amazed at the way this infringement is handled. I had my computer guy set my website up and was quite amazed at Getty coming after me and started checking the web for answers. I have no idea where the couple of pics came from he installed on my site. The first letter I recieved I called him and asked him to remove the pics because pictures are so easy to come by that I was amazed that someone would need to pay for a general picture of something, construction work, etc.. The new age group and artist that look for this type of scam amazes the general public im sure because I am the general public and am for sure amazed at this. Of course the scams or business’s that are overseas and running this operation are the typical soles that email us daily on money they have in other countries that belongs to me and how bad they need to get my information to give it to me.
There in another country right, they hire an attorney in US, ok. Im in FL ok and what state are they going to take me to court in and to get the images it has no where that you might be breaking a law or there might be a charge for using the image. Good luck with that in a court of law and having a little common sense. Do you know of any cases and in what state they were seen? A pic is a pic, takes a second to take and 2 seconds to put on the internet! Who cares, use mine where ever you want its not worth anything and any body could take the same exact picture ussually of any object unless it changes, really don’t see the big issue and seems like a big computer scam. We do not need photographers as stated above, we have our own camers and can see free pics any where you want on the enternet, but do need the bloggers. If your in a business and need pictures go take some of the business your in some where its free, not breaking the law by doing that, ask the media.
Meron Bareket February 4, 2013 at 1:36 am
Denny, as promised – I tried to address all of your questions both on the blog and via email:
Denny January 30, 2013 at 12:06 pm
The Getty attorneys McCormack in Seattle are the ones after my business to pay some unreal amount of money and they do not no who there after in any case. Are the people there after in business, are they broke and wish Getty good luck? When Getty sues as I asked before what state does the case go to. It would have to be represented in the state where the crime was committed I would think. Please if anyone knows how its worth coming from Seattle to FL and present a case you are after for $1,400.00. This is what Getty believes I owe them and remember I new nothing of where my computer guy got these images and did not really think that him being a computer guy he would download or get images from where ever he got them and it would be illegal. They did not state any where that these images used cost money or could be breaking the infringrement rights. Must prove this in court I would imagine! And also note that this is a paralegal doing this work so there probably got him for free from college and using his free time to produce and respond to the Getty image thing. Really from overseas and sueing people in the US, WOW what is the world coming to! What a big scam even if you think not!
Duncan January 30, 2013 at 2:37 pm
Hi Denny, unfortunately it is not a scam. It is a company looking for payment for one of it’s products.
First up, speak to your computer guy again and ask him for copies of the all the licences he has for the images he used on your website. If he does not have any, get rid of the rest quickly otherwise multiple that £1,400 penalty by the number of images you have. That is the first thing you need to do. Second, check your records and see if you have any evidence that you have paid this web designer for your website including the images. Next, get a lawyer because you will need one. Hand over what ever info you have. The likelihood is you will have to sue the web Designer to get the money back but it is very important to seek legal advice now.
From what I understand, if you don’t pay the first fee they send out within the timescale it goes up very quickly!
Now, take your theory of it being a scam and bin it, it’s false and gets in the way of logical thinking. It looks like you may have been scammed but not by Getty, by your web designer. He has taken your money to build a website and furnished it with stolen goods. If you did that with your house you know what would happen. It’s stolen property, end of! It’s damage limitation time.
Don’t start getting angry with them and telling them the image is worthless and it should be free… that will only go against you. They will see you as intentionally stealing images rather than it be an accident (web site guy caused it). As it happens, a Construction Work image is likely to be expensive to take, model releases, property releases, staging and time. Trust me, they are expensive! And, as already mentioned, they are someone else’s property that they licence to people so they can feed their family. Just like your business, they need to make money to live and I’m sure you don’t offer your service for free to everyone.
With the mention of business, it brings me to the last point. They do know who you are! We all leave footprints all over the internet. Your website will lead them straight to you. Don’t bury you head thinking they will go away…. this is Getty, they don’t go, ah well, never mind!
Remember, in the eyes of the law, ignorance is no excuse, it won’t work. They will say it was your responsibility (and is) to ensure you had paid for everything you were getting and that you knew where it was coming from. The lesson here is, always ask your web designers for licences for all images they have used.
This way you are protected or, find out straight away they are stolen. By the way, £1,400 for copyright infringement is fairly low, it could have been a lot more than that and will be if you don’t deal with it promptly. Hope it all works out for you
Mario Bruneau January 30, 2013 at 3:13 pm
Come on Duncan.
I’m about to believe you are part of Getty images and paid by them to spill such crap in here!
The way Getty image is doing business is by far the worst way of doing legitimate business. They sue you without warning! What a bunch of …
@David, just ignore them!
WE ARE NOT CRIMINALS!
I took of THE image I got a letter from Getty right away and they even sent me another letter saying that this was NOT sufficient! What a piece of crap! Never heard from them after that second letter. They just “try” and some fish bites some (like me) dont and they make a lot of money with it. Do you think this money goes to the artists involved? NO! They keep it for them to grow even BIGGER!!!
Duncan, stop scarring people here and get real!
I’m out of here
Mario Bruneau
Duncan January 30, 2013 at 5:21 pm
Actually Mario, yes they are. In the eyes of the law if you steal someones itelectural property you are committing a criminal offence.
Work for getty, having a laugh. I don’t even submit my work to them due to the low commission rates!
Rather than scaring you, I’m trying to warn you of what can (as you can see) and will happen.
This is just one legal company – https://www.imagerights.com
Read PicScout and what can be done – http://www.picscout.com
or how about about th help group that helps reduce the fines…. believe them?
http://www.extortionletterinfo.com/forum/getty-images-letter-forum/
You’ll see plenty of messages from people who ignored the letters and months later get the heavy handed one!
What I’m saying is they will take you for what they can but remember, if you don’t steal images they will never come after you!
Meron Bareket February 4, 2013 at 1:35 am
Exactly. The lesson to be learned is that using ONLY photos that your either own or are licensed to use, will save you from all of this trouble.
Meron Bareket February 4, 2013 at 1:43 am
Mario – using photos without being licensed to do so IS a civil offense at the very least, and may be considered a criminal one too.
For some people ignoring Getty works. For others it makes things a lot worse. But please at least try to understand that wether Getty Images are being over aggressive or not — if they find unlicensed photos on your site that belong to their photographers they have the right and obligation to sue in the name of their photographers.
It’s a lot better to make sure you use only licensed photos or photos you took yourself, than blaming the copyrights owners when they claim what’s theirs.
You can get more info in this video reply I made for Denny
Felice Nord February 19, 2013 at 7:57 pm
I received a letter from Getty Images for 2 photos at the cost of $1800. I thought it was an advertisement so didn’t open it for over 2 weeks because of traveling, so was beyond the 2 week period they threatened. My website was built by a friend of a friends for a favor, so I had nothing to do with what photos were put up. I made arrangements to have the site shut down until this can be resolved. I again went away, received another followup letter. I called the number in the letter and asked if I can pay an nominal amount because what they’re asking me for is my average gross monthly income basically and can’t afford this kind of cost. They said they’d come down to $1400. I said this is still way above what I can afford. They wouldn’t budge and I have to say I felt like I was talking to a brick wall with no concern about my situation. I have been reaching out for help with this and so far it seems that there are so many others out there that have this same problem and Getty Images could be making claims about photos that may or may not even be theirs. I’m not sure what next step to take because I don’t want to have to pay any amount over $1000, but I also don’t want this to go to a level of costing me more than what has been already charged. I have someone who is trying to track down the photographers to see if we can pay them and ask them to get Getty off my back. Is this a hopeless direction? Can I send say $400.00 and ask them to go away? Will that only hurt my case?
Meron March 1, 2013 at 6:54 am
Hey Felice,
So sorry it took me so long to reply to your comment. I appreciate you commenting here and hope you’ll see this reply.
Unfortunately, in the eyes of the law, it doesn’t matter if the website was build as a favor or as payed work. As it is your website (as you state it is), you are in charge to all material that’s there, including the photos. As I mention in this video, http://youtu.be/Z_LcdE7JEs0 – just removing the website will often won’t make the problem go away.
It’s not easy to have to resume responsibility for mistakes made by other people, so I salute you for not “running away” and blaming Getty Images, but actually facing this.
Yes, the web is filled by horror stories of people that claim Getty sued them for no apparent reason. I believe that in most cases that is not entirely true. Still, and this is to my best knowledge and is not legal advice – I would look for two things: 1) The registration no. of the photo in the Copyrights Office. 2) The Getty Photo ID, which can then be searched on their website (http://www.gettyimages.com/) to actually verify that it’s the same photo like was on your site. As I mention in the video I attached, in some cases it’s not possible to file a lawsuit if the photo is not registered at the US Copyrights Office. This depends on the origin of the copyrights owner (the photographer) and many other parameters, which leads me to my most important tip: Call a lawyer that specializes in Copyright Infringement cases. Ask him some questions over the phone – many of them will give you a direction free of charge.
From what I’m hearing, trying to talk to them on the phone is EXACTLY like hitting a brick wall… If you could track by any means the copyrights owner (i.e. the photographer) you might be able to sweeten the deal, since at the end of the day Getty Images manage his rights on his behalf, and need to act as he says.
But even if you will be settling directly with the photographer, I’d ask for a lawyer’s input on this — just so you don’t end up paying the photographer while STILL being sued by Getty. I’m just not sure how that process works.
Duncan – if you are reading this comment – maybe you could shed some light on such process?
There was a reader who send me a link to a website built by a lawyer that offered very detailed information on the process and documents that Getty needs to show in order to take you to court. I’m still looking for it in my archive, and I hope I can find it for you.
Did anything change since you posted here?
Thank you so much, again, for commenting.
Meron
Jill Addy Wright March 5, 2013 at 4:05 pm
As a supplier of copyrighted photo & illustration content, I want to join in to thank you for talking about this issue in such great detail. My company has traditionally worked with the media & one key point of doing business with us was that we make sure the content they use to build ads for local retailers is protected. It has become more of a challenge with the ability to easily obtain images in channels that were not meant for commercial use. We have worked for decades to offer a copyright-protected solution for anyone who uses our content & it’s nice to see people discuss the importance of using copyrighted material.
Vanessa April 3, 2013 at 4:10 am
Thank you for sharing this. It has been very helpful.
Chris May 9, 2013 at 4:53 pm
I got a letter today demanding £1,500 for an image in a blog post.
Shocking
Meron May 9, 2013 at 8:42 pm
Where you in fact using a Getty Images photo on your blog?
Splendid1000 May 13, 2013 at 6:31 pm
LoL, then technically we are stealing images everytime we simply view an image off Google. The picture/thumb is loaded into the local, even if you haven’t actually manually saved it yourself.
Meron May 17, 2013 at 3:38 am
I wouldn’t go that far..