This Medium Writer Got a $1000 Legal Demand From Getty Images
Royalty free doesn’t mean free
A Medium writer read one of my stories about a Blogger who was sued for $150,000 over using a Creative Commons image and said…
“This actually happened to me!”
In reality, it wasn’t quite the same situation, but she received a legal demand for $1000 and paid $500 for using a photo belonging to someone else.
“I used a photo I liked from Getty Images,” she explained.
Getty is a leading stock photography website, which supplies the BBC and major news outlets. They charge a lot for their images, and they are very choosy about which images they will accept from photographers. For this reason, they are considered to be among the best suppliers of stock photography, because their images are top notch and I think all the images of recognisable people come with model release forms.
The reader went on to explain, that she’d taken the image off a website a few years ago. She didn’t say which website. Only that, “it was not on a money site at all”. She added that she, “did give the photographer the kudos”.
Getty Images sells photos, so it’s definitely a money site. Most people wouldn’t be able to download an image from Getty without paying for it. This made me wonder if she found it on a third-party website, belonging to a Getty customer, or did a right click and saved the thumbnail image without paying for it.
The reader added, “The image was royalty free — I didn’t have to pay for it”. This is a common misconception.
Royalty free does not mean free
Royalty free doesn’t mean you don’t have to pay for a photo belonging to a third party. It just means that when you pay for a licence to use the image, you can keep it on your computer and don’t usually have to buy a new licence for each new use.
You still need a licence to use the image in the first place. A quick glance at Getty shows that their rates appear to start at £150 for a standard licence. There may be deals for regular customers.
Royalty free means there are no further royalties to pay to the photographer if you want to use it again — unless there are terms attached to the purchase of the licence, saying that its use is limited — some stock photography sites have been known to attach special terms to their royalty free licences. As always, the terms of the licence are everything.
Here’s Getty’s definition of Royalty Free licencing from their website:
Royalty-free licensing: This is the most common license we offer our customers. It allows them to use your content for an unlimited amount of time in as many projects as they like, for a one-time fee.
Note the fee. That bit is important. Very important.
The fine
The reader continued, “Getty Images contacted my website client and demanded $1,000 for the use of the photo.
“Also, we had to take it down. This didn’t sit well with me.”
She explains that she found the photographer online and explained why she wanted to use the image, and what she had used it for. The photographer was fine about her using his image for this purpose. He didn’t mind.
“But because it was on the Getty Images site, they took precedence,” she explained.
She removed the image from her website, while arguing with Getty that the site didn’t have many visitors. She added: “No laws were technically broken, I had contacted the photographer and he gave his permission — so I told them I would pay them $500 for the darn image and I would never use them again.”
She paid the money and I imagine she’s steered well clear of any photos marked ‘Getty Images’ since then.
The photographer is powerless
The problem here is that when a photographer signs an image over to Getty, they assign Getty all rights to licence it. The image is exclusive to Getty and their customers. So the photographer has lost control of that image.
A photographer cannot give permission for someone else to use his image. He cannot licence it himself. If I submit an image to Getty, I cannot then send it to a magazine editor to use with one of my articles. As a photographer, I have lost my own rights to use the image as I please.
This is clearly written in their contract, point 3. This is one reason why I don’t sell images through Getty.
Laws were broken
So while the photographer might not have minded the lady using his image on her website, he gave away his power to licence the image when he signed it over to Getty. This means the unlicensed use of the image was a breach of copyright laws. Messy, I know.
If a user doesn’t have a licence to use an image, it’s a breach of copyright, regardless of whether the photographer minds or not. The company that owns the rights to licence the content are within their rights to follow it up. Getty are well known for doing that.
The reader was unlucky that she selected a Getty image for use on her website. If the image had been owned and managed by someone else she might have received a more sympathetic response, but you cannot rely on that. She might have been charged more!
We should never assume that ‘royalty free’ means free. It doesn’t. It means you probably don’t have to pay royalties to the photographer for every single use, but you still need to buy a licence to use it the first time.
I’ve had a bill from Getty Images in the past too. A work colleague made a mistake, and I got a £1000 fine within weeks of starting a new job because of this employee’s error. My company paid it. You can read about that here.
Conclusion
The reader tells me that it wasn’t a total disaster because the photographer is an author who stayed in touch. Her takeaway from the experience was: “Make sure to add the correct caption / info regarding the picture you are using no matter what.”
But the idea that captioning someone else’s work correctly will relinquish you from the need to buy a licence is misguided.
Buy a licence. Read the licence. Follow the terms of the licence.
If you’re using creative commons images, the licences may be free, but you still need to read the licence and comply with its terms in full.
© Susie Kearley 2023. All Rights Reserved.
Here’s the story she was responding to…
Read more of my copyright stories here:
Read Illumination’s photography policy here.
