[Petertherock]

Be very careful about posting images...a good rule of thumb is if you don't own the image, don't post it. Links are fine but images could be a problem...

This is from a thread from another forum I am on...

http://aeroforce2.freeforums.net/thread/440/forums-future

As some of you probably saw, the great website 'aeronewsdaily' had to shut down recently due to being threatened with huge fines for innocently posting an image. I have been doing research on the subject for a few days now and although there are varying opinions, this is something that can cause a lot of headaches and possibly financial difficulties for little forums such as this one. Before you say "That couldn't happen here", trust me, there are hundreds of examples out there of little forums, blogs, non-profits, etc out there that have posted about it happening to them.

I have since gone through and either cleaned up or deleted over 600 posts and deleted 90 threads altogether in an effort to remove any images that are not obviously owned by the member who posted them. Most of them were my posts, but I apologize to any others I had to delete in the process.

So, what does this mean to you? Well, obviously I don't want to be sued or threatened, so the way I see it there are 3 options.

A) Don't allow any images that are not taken by a member here, period. This would be fine with me, but I can see this as being a lot of work reminding, removing, arguing over what is allowed, etc., and would also make the forum less visually interesting. For the record, it seems that YouTube videos are not subject to these limitations. If YouTube posted the video and offered a link then they are the ones liable if someone doesn't like it.

B) Let one of you who thinks you are up to the challenge take over the forum. If I did this, I would certainly be happy to stay on either temporarily or permanently to help out as much as needed.

C) There is another piece of this puzzle. Another Aerosmith site (not AF1) is opening a forum soon and has offered to 'merge' with us. By merge, they mean close this forum and I go over there to help out. I have told them that I probably am not interested in being an admin at another site, but it does leave the option of just shutting this down and any of us who are interested could all head over there instead.

So, unless one of you is a lawyer and willing to offer me free services for life, those are our options.

Your thoughts/comments? Post them here, or PM me if you want to discuss it privately.
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Well, that was a lot to take in, but I do have a few points to touch on. First, I apologize for dragging aeronewsdaily into this. They were kind enough to warn me though, and that's what started this whole mess, but I am very grateful for the warning because I was thinking exactly the same way, that if an image is on google, then it is free to use as you please.

I also want to clarify that I don't know for sure that it was Getty. Sak never mentioned who tried to sue, just that it was over an image. In my research, Getty is just the name that comes up time after time.

Anyway, my many hours of research has taught me how very wrong I was. If an image owner such as Getty finds that you are using their image without paying the proper royalty, they have a right to sue you for the royalty fee plus a portion of the cost it took for them to track illegal users down. I don't like it, but many online lawyers have said this is true.

What they do NOT have the right to do is to threaten to sue you for a huge sum of money IF they do not plan to go through with it. This is what has the internet community up in arms. Many small web owners, such as aeronewsdaily cave in to the pressure of these people and pay a reduced fine to avoid going to court. This is the numbers game they are playing.

Sak assured me that these people are very ruthless and relentless, and online research backs this up. So even if they were 100% full of hot air, its a situation I'd rather not deal with. I do this for fun, not for stress and headaches.

The next problem is that they are NOT 100% full of hot air. As of January this year, Getty has started following up on their actions and actually taking people to court. Some speculate that this is in response to the online community beginning to ignore their threats due to many forum people stating that if you ignore them long enough they will go away.

I could go on, but I'm sure most stopped reading paragraphs ago. Bottom line is that I'd rather just forgo images than run the risk of dealing with the bullshit. Its not a big deal to me. We still have videos and conversation, so be it, its good enough for me.  
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Well, I just read up on this online. Getty is a predatory company who is purposely going after small website owners who lack the resources to fight in court....and pressuring them hard to settle out of court despite the fact that most likely, Getty would be unable to win the case if it actually went to court.

This is absolutely disgusting and despicable.
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Some things I have read suggest that they avoid people who can afford to fight back (such as AF1) and/or people who are seen favorably in the public eye (again, Aerosmith is probably seen as somewhat favorable by the majority). They like to go after the small potatoes (like forum owners) because they might easily give in and pay a fine to avoid a lawsuit. They also like to sue lawyers because 'no one likes lawyers anyway', so they (Getty) won't look bad by going after them.

That's what I read, but yes, it sounds like a contradiction to me too. Lawyers are obviously very well equipped to fight back.
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 I think because Getty Images is not going after those who have deep pockets. Aerosmith would be liable to say "fine, whatever, let's take it to court," which isn't what Getty wants. Since the law isn't actually on Getty's side, Getty would most likely lose the lawsuit if it went all the way to court. They've only filed a handful of actual copyright lawsuits in the last several years because I'm sure Getty knows that it would be very difficult for them to win a lawsuit in court. Really and truly, the law is not on Getty's side here.

Getty purposely goes after small website owners like AeroNewsDaily because they know that they DON'T have deep pockets, are likely to be intimidated, are unlikely to have the resources to hire a lawyer and take it all the way to court. Small website owners are likely to pay up to avoid going to court -- and that way, Getty gets their money. If website owners like AeroNewsDaily actually met Getty in court, Getty would probably lose and go home empty-handed. Getty doesn't want to go to court!!! This is basically a money-making scheme. What they're doing is extorting money from those who lack the resources to fight back.

Going after small-potatoes makes them look terrible.  It makes them look like a bunch of predatory bullies. If they're "trying to look good," it isn't working.  I hate seeing the powerful take advantage of the powerless.  

It's really disgusting. What a bunch of nasty extortionists. I'm never giving Getty Images another dime ever again.
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I know this issue is done and dusted now but I did contact a lawyer who had a look and then gave some advice, unfortunately of not much help to Coop as this guy is in Oz.

Also what people just mentioned about there image, unless you sign a specific contract for your image to be used then the photographer never owns the image and the person whose likeness it is can ask for it to be removed and in cases where it ends up in a magazine or on tv without their permission they can sue for damages. Aerosmith will always own there own images no matter who takes them except in the case of an ad for another product they are being paid to endorse.

One of my godsons is lawyer but his specialty is criminal law so he put me onto one of the guys at his firm that handles this type of issue. He finally got back to me this morning. First he wanted to state that while Australia, England, Canada and the US do have similar laws they do vary and in the US they actually go state by state, so there is no blanket law that covers the whole country. He also said and I quote "Getty Images are a pain in the arse".

I had saved a couple of pages from aeronewsdaily that had articles I liked so I sent those to him and also gave him a link to this site which he said was literally disappearing before his eyes. I now understand why, you were deleting threads and photo's as he was looking. He said there was one huge difference he could see, aeronewsdaily had advertising on the pages I sent and also no forum where the articles could be discussed. Your site was free to enter so no fees to read or participate and also no ads, so no revenue from advertising coming in. In effect a totally free site that was run by users as anyone could post anything and not just the owners or administrators, so that in effect takes away your liability, except for what you yourself posted, but they would come after the registered owner first if they wanted to file a suit. He said non-profit sites don't get sued here unless it is a criminal matter because in civil suits they can only go after revenue earned by the site.

He went on to mention some of what aaeerroo said about the fair use laws, in the case of this site they would come under fair use/review and critique. He couldn't see where anyone claimed authorship of the original articles other than the original author whose name was left intact in alot of cases and also in most cases a link was supplied as to where the original article was sourced from. He said 2 grey area's are the original authors could sue and also the person in a photo or a photographer if images were used in the article BUT they would be skating on thin ice because it was all used to review and then critique the contents of the article, which is allowed by law.

The thread that had old photo's was another grey area, he said posters and photo's from old magazines would be hard to sue over because once you buy the magazine you can do what you want with it as long as you don't try and pass any of it off as your own composition or photography, he said putting an old photo there and then being sued would be akin to someone trying to sue you for taking a poster out of a magazine and putting it on your bedroom wall.

Bottom line was he really didn't think anyone had anything to worry about if it was under Australian law and you need someone to tell you exactly what the laws are in the state you live in. I told him where you live and he doesn't have any contacts there that he could check with, he said it appears if you lived in Conneticut? or a couple of other states you would be fine.