Letter of Demand from Getty Images

Yesterday I received an invoice from Getty Images for $1,320 AUD tor using a copyright image on my Junee Magic website. I was in shock for most of the rest of the day.

I gave Junee Magic an overhaul a couple of months ago because I don't want to offer web design services, my life is too busy these days, and the image is long gone. However, the invoice came with a snapshot of my site (God knows how old it was) and the image was a 72 x 100 thumbnail of a head. Not only can I not afford to pay that sort of money, I refuse to pay that sort of money for a tiny image. I found the image using Google Search about 5 years ago and didn't consider copyright. I know I should have and I'm conscious of that these days, but back then I was just looking for an image to fit the content.

I sent off a quick email to Getty, congratulating them on finding the image, because nobody ever found the website to offer me any work and I made zilch from the site as a web design business. These days I have a real job that pays real money and I'll be damned if I'm giving that hard-earned money to extortionists.

When I got home from work last night I found plenty of forum discussions with lots of people who had received the same letter of demand going back to 2005, though each one quoting different copyright laws depending on their particular country. Most of the advice said to immediately remove the image and ignore the demand. I had already removed the image before I received the demand, and will do my best to ignore it, though I imagine down the track there will be a debt collector harassing me for the money.

I have 21 days to pay the $1,320 and no excuses will be considered. I believe it's common practice to first send a "cease and desist" letter before asking for compensation but that didn't happen.

Here's a comment I found on another site:

I wish I hadn't been so quick to reply to them and am still not 100% sure whether to be worried or not.