Getty Threatens The Wrong IP Law Firm In Its Copyright Trolling Efforts
from the this-won't-end-well dept
Image licensing giant Getty Images has quite a reputation for being something of a copyright maximalist and occasional copyright troll. The company has been known to blast out threat letters and lawsuits not unlike some more notorious copyright trolls. And that’s true even as the company just recently lost a copyright infringement suit in which Getty helped in the infringement. A few months ago, we had told you about Getty starting a new program in which it was making many of its images free to embed, saying that it was “better to compete” that way on the internet, rather than trying to license everything. We actually just tried embedding some Getty images ourselves recently.
However, it appears that this new program has not dampened the company’s enthusiasm for copyright trolling. Nor has the recent lawsuit loss convinced Getty to be any more careful in how it goes about that trolling. The company may soon regret sending a troll letter to Florida-based intellectual property law firm Schneider Rothman, claiming that the company had engaged in copyright infringement by posting images to its site and demanding $380 (while threatening a lawsuit). The lawyers at Schneider Rothman know better than to make use of infringing images, so they scoured their site to figure out what the issue was. And they quickly figured out the problem — and it appears to be with the sloppy way in which Getty sends out these demand letters:
There was a problem, however. We never copied or displayed the Getty image referred to in Getty?s letter.
We looked more closely at what Getty was doing and were shocked to discover what was really going on.
You see, Getty is apparently using an image recognition system to generate its letters to accused infringers. Getty?s system identified a thumbnail image on our website here. Getty matched the thumbnail to an image more than six times the size on Getty?s site.
We are not responsible for the thumbnail. The thumbnail is displayed on our website because we use the Zemanta plug-in for WordPress. Zemanta put it there, something that should have been obvious to Getty.
But Getty did not bother to look. If it had, Getty would have seen that we are simply employing web-feed syndication, a common and generally accepted Internet publishing and search engine optimization practice.
So, instead, the law firm has gone to court, filing for a declaratory judgment that it does not infringe. It’s interesting to note that the lawyers didn’t just include Getty as a defendant here, but Zemanta as well (seeking, at the very least, indemnification, on the off chance that Zemanta did not actually license the image). They note that Zemanta appears to have properly licensed the image, and to then try to shake down their law firm for using Zemanta’s properly licensed use of the image is quite problematic. Plus, since the use is just a thumbnail and (thank you Perfect 10!) the use of thumbnails is fair use, Getty should have quite obviously known that its threat letter and demands for payment were bogus.
The lawyers at Schneider Rothman don’t mince words:
Getty?s unfair and deceptive practice has caused actual damages to SRIPLAW by requiring SRIPLAW to expend time and money to bring an action to obtain a declaratory judgment that SRIPLAW did not infringe Getty?s copyright.
Getty?s unfair and deceptive practice has damaged other individuals and businesses similarly situated to SRIPLAW who received letters from Getty that falsely claimed copyright violations and, because these other individuals and businesses lack the technical or legal knowledge and/or funds necessary to defend themselves from Getty false claims, have instead paid extortion money to Getty that Getty was not entitled to.
Unless enjoined, Getty?s unfair and deceptive practice will damage other individuals and businesses who receive letters from Getty that falsely claim copyright violations and demand settlement payments to resolve such false claims.
While it’s fun to watch the lawsuits with the small-time copyright trolls like Prenda, it will be interesting to see what happens here, though my guess is that Getty will look to quickly settle this matter…
Filed Under: copyright, copyright trolls, images, shakedown, threats, thumbnails, trolling
Companies: getty, getty images, schneider rothman
Comments on “Getty Threatens The Wrong IP Law Firm In Its Copyright Trolling Efforts”
Requiring?
Am I the only one who sees shades of “why are you making me hit you?” in that?
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I think the it is required to make sure that Getty can’t weasel themselves out of this mess.
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Not really, since a declaratory judgement is usually faster and cheaper than defending all the way through a trial (and they’d have had a harder time getting fees, especially if they represented themselves). The only other option would have been to cough up, so their claim there seems reasonable to me.
I think it is required in order to make Getty actually expend the additional $400 in expenses they claim in the demand letter.
I would love to see the back and forth between Getty and Thomas Reuters over image licensing.
In some closet somewhere, a low-level Getty employee is getting his ass kicked over this.
One can only hope a physical law can be revoked and we be granted the rare vision of shit rolling uphill.
Mike Masnick just hates it when copyright law is enforced.
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AC just loves it when copyright law is abused.
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You mad, Prenda fanboy?
“Plus, since the use is just a thumbnail and (thank you Perfect 10!) the use of thumbnails is fair use, Getty should have quite obviously known that its threat letter and demands for payment were bogus.”
Please feel free to correct me if I am mistaken, but to my knowledge there is no case that has held that thumbnails are, per se, fair use (a conclusion I draw from your article that I have quoted). In some cases their use has been deemed fair, but I seem to recall at least one instance where the opposite result was reached after analysis of the fair use factors.
Oh I hope Getty doesn’t get to walk away.
It would be nice for the court to decide to look at their practices and see how many times they made demands they had no right to make & were paid.
Gotta love when they go for preys that are too big for their mouthes. Here’s hoping more good comes out from this!
Thunbnails
“thank you Perfect 10!) the use of thumbnails is fair use”!
Really? That’s pretty sloppy thinking.
Wouldn’t it be more accurate to say that under the Perfect Ten case, use of thumbnails in a search engine that searches for images on the Internet can be a fair use? I’m not saying that the appearance of the thumbnail on the law firm’s website cannot be a fair use, but you haven’t begun to make the cas that it is.
Getty's library is chock-a-block with copy fraud already
Even superficial browsing of Getty’s image library reveals many, MANY official U.S. DOD and NASA photos, which by law are in the public domain, with Getty copyright statements plastered all over them.
Re: Getty's library is chock-a-block with copy fraud already
Wouldn’t Getty claiming copyright over items they do not own on that kind of scale constitute criminal copyright fraud?
Or is it only criminal copyright fraud when the *AAs say it is?