Another Getty/Beijing portal rip off

Sigh.  Opened July statements to find that Getty's Beijing portal had "topped up" the license in May of my rights managed image on cell/mobile phone casings by the gigantic amount of $2.38.  The original license was $1.19 (of which I will receive 36 cents) and now totals $3.57 for use in China only.  Yeah, right.  I wonder when I will see these phones on sale in Australia (outside the territory).  The fact that Getty admitted that they have no control over third party pricing does not bode well for photographers whose work gets snapped up by this Beijing company and licensed for next to nothing.  This is probably worse than microstock pricing.    Of course, this will be renewed next year, again for next to nothing, even though my contract had expired but Getty can renew the license one more time within a year of the contract cancellation.  

Dropping Getty

After two years or more as a Getty contributor (via Flickr), I have cancelled my contract with Getty Images.  While they licensed several of my images early on for reasonable fees, there seemed to be a definite downward trend in fees for my work.  Of course, I am not alone as lowball pricing is endemic in the stock image industry.  I guess the last straw was when Getty licensed one of my rights managed images via their Beijing portal for use on mobile phone covers for the princely sum of $1.19, of which I received 36 cents.  This was a renewal of a license fee for usage last year ($4.19) and which I questioned Getty about before the renewal.  Of course, I received no response.   My most recent sale via Getty was also a renewal but at 50% of the original license fee.  At this rate, photographers will soon be paying buyers to license their work!  Due to their exclusivity, it was just not economic for me to license work for 36 cents.  What the most astounding comment from Getty when they eventually (after a month or so of nagging) commented on the license by the Beijing portal was that they had no control of third party pricing.  Astonishing to say the least.  If that is true, then someone in Getty's legal department stuffed up big time if this was written into the three year contract with the Chinese company.

I was never entirely happy having Getty license my work.  Their appalling commission (they keep 70-80% of fees, depending on RM or RF), the exclusivity which means that I cannot license my work which appears on Getty anywhere else (even directly to clients) and the inability to choose the license (RM or RF).  All that said, my RPI (revenue per image) was very good with Getty but it was probably their attitude of "lump it or like it" bothered me.  Getty is now uploading photographers images to Fine Art America print site, competing directly with photographers who have had their images on FAA for years.  They are undercutting them to such an extent that its not worthwhile to keep images on this site.  Thankfully, none of my images are being uploaded by Getty and they won't now because Getty removed my images from their own site within days of me cancelling my contract.  What a lot of Getty photographers don't realise,especially those on Flickr, is that RF images can be downloaded by clients for a low amount and then the images can be on-sold as prints by the client without reference or any further payment to the photographer.  When this was brought up on the Getty/Flickr forum, it was never answered or acknowledged by Getty.

I have 19th October 2012 circled on my calendar as the "free of Getty" day!

Blogger's regret

An "mea culpa" post from a writer/blogger on not using images "found on Google" Roni Loren's blog

An interesting post from "the other side"!

Canon 5DIII

I replaced my Canon 5DII with the new beaut 5DIII and am still trying to get my head around the auto focussing aspects.  I did manage to take a nice snap of Mudda Mudda, my favourite aboriginal busker (street performer) with my Canon 135 f/2 L and heavily cropped it (which is what one can do with 23 MP cameras.

List of excuses by infringers

Carolyn Wright, who represents me in the US, has a very interesting post on her blog Excuses, Excuses on the many excuses by those who infringe the copyright of photographers and how they stand up upon close and legal examination.  I would recommend a read by photographers who read my blog and infringers who, out of curiosity, read my blog!  And here is Part 2 of Excuses, Excuses and Part 3 of Excuses, Excuses

List of IP attorneys I recommend

United States: Carolyn Wright PhotoAttorney
United States: Leslie Burns BurnsTheAttorney
Australia: Sydney lawyer Peter Knight of Banki Haddock Fiora
UK: Mark Corran of Briffa
Canada: Dan Pollack Dan Pollock Law

For the US attorneys to pursue an action, you will need your images registered with the US Copyright Office.  There are some exceptions so I suggest you contact them first.  The US attorneys will act on a contingency basis.  Again, there are exceptions.

Please feel free to contact me with recommended IP lawyers to add to this list. Please give contact name, name of firm and country.

Limestone Networks ignoring DMCA notices

Over the past month, I have been attempting to have  Limestone Networks  remove a site downloading copyright images for "free".  I sent them DMCA notices on 29 April 2012, 3 May 2012 and 9 May 2012, all of which have been ignored.  I have left them at least two messages on their webpage and still no response.  Not only is the infringing site downloading my images "for free", they are downloading hundreds of photographers images without license.  A similar site was taken down within 24 hours by GoDaddy for which we are very grateful and only wish that Limestone Networks will take heed of legal DMCA notices.

Update 19 May7 2012:  Well, the infringing site has been taken down.   Excellent.  I don't know who took it down as I contacted Xo.com yesterday which is Limestone Networks upstream provider so it could have been either one.

One of the comments on this post (which I did not publish) was from a site which stated that they loved free images and was downloading them from their site.  Well, I checked out the site and the images were absolute crap.  So nothing to lose any sleep over there!

New blog by David Hoffman in EPUK

An interesting read from photographer, David Hoffman, who wrote (amongst other interesting things) in EPUK on the possibility of a small claims court in the UK dedicated to settling infringement actions.  David has concerns over the caseload of the court at 150 cases per year.  I guess the UK Government is still unaware of the amount of infringements going on, mainly amongst newspaper groups and massive infringements on websites and blogs.  Still, it's better than nothing.  Here is the link to the the UK Government's Intellectual Property Office website IPO detailing the anticipated small claims court.

Another site giving away "free" images for download

I recent found yet another website allowing downloads of "free" images which, of course, are not free.  The site is based in Indonesia so I guess I have buckleys trying to get them to remove my many, many images which are being given away.  I have removed link to this site because of the stupid comment I received which I have deleted!   I have tried to contact the site via their email address which of course is false (it bounced twice) and I have left a message on their Facebook site and will continue to do so until they remove ALL of my images.  I have sent a DMCA notice to their server in the US (Limestone Networks) but even a reminder email has not elicited a response.  The site is still online and still giving away photographers' copyrighted work.  I will continue to send reminders to Limestone until they tire of me!

As a last resort, I will find an IP lawyer in Jakarta to pursue an action for copyright infringement but I had hoped that Limestone would co-operate as GoDaddy did awhile back when they took down completely another infringing site offering similar free downloads.

Update: 19 May 2012:  Site has now been taken down.  See my post re Limestone Networks.

Egg on face over at SmugMug

It would appear that the photosharing site,  SmugMug, had a major stuff up over a blog piece on one of their contributors.  The apology can be found HERE   The interesting thing is that the owner of SmugMug never actually explained why they posted the piece about the photographer in the first place without, apparently, doing any due diligence!  Nor was it explained exactly what they had done as, of course, the offending blog piece has been deleted and it did not show up in the Wayback Machine - darn!

Advice for those infringing copyright - Please read!

For those infringing copyright of photographers (and maybe the reason why you have clicked on my blog link!), I strongly recommend you read the blog of Seattle based attorney,  Timothy McCormack on why you should NOT infringe the copyright of others, especially if the image has been registered with the US Copyright Office.  Basically, ignorance of the law is no excuse.  Happy reading.

Beware DMCANOW

Through the  Alamy forum forum, I found this site DMCANOW      which allegedly does all the DMCA takedowns you want for the princely sum of $49.00 per takedown.  Yes, cheap at half the price!  Of course, it's a scam.  And if it isn't why would you pay 49 bucks for something which can take you less than five minutes to send your own DMCA (especially if you set up a template for DMCAs)..  The text of the website is straight out of "Google translations" which would indicate that English is not the first language of someone who allegedly has offices in the US and the UK.  "London, Essex" is part of the seemingly UK address but London is not in Essex and the website has a postcode of Ilford.    So beware and don't part with any money!


Update: It would appear that the addresses in both the US and the UK are bogus and that the owner of the site actually lives in Pakistan.

Pinterest on copyright infringement

This is the latest on the blog of Pinterest which seemingly is attempting to justify the constant infringement of photographers images which are "pinned" to their site by those who don't seem to realise (or care) that images are copyright.  Their blog suggests that we photographers place an "opt out" widget on our websites rather than  them insisting on their pinners obtain permission before pinning images on their site.  That would be like you or I placing a sign on our car/computer/bicycle which states DO NOT STEAL!

Edit: 7 May 2012: Looks as though the blog posts have been deleted.  And I am still finding my work "pinned" illegally and each time I send them an email demanding removal which is getting tiresome.  

Yet another site inviting downloads of copyright images

I took several emails before Pixdaus eventually removed one of my images from their website which has the facility to download copyright images.  They absolutely refused to explain why they invited followers to download images which were clearly in copyright without due licensing or permission of the copyright holder, ie the photographer.  As I have already had one site removed offering similar freebie downloads, this one is at the top of the list!  Many of the images are marked "unnamed" so if you find any images of yours there, I suggest you contact them and demand removal.

Alan Spencer's take on stealing!

I thought this blog of photographer Alan Spencer's take on Stealing a real hoot!