ACACIA Solutions is Permanently Closed

I received a $600 bill from Getty Images (Owned by a private equity firm - Hellman & Friedman) for one small photo file they claim came from their copyright material. The image was at best very grainy, small DPI/size (72 dpi/100x100 pixels) and had obviously been significantly changed from the original that Getty Image's says they own. In addition, the image was certainly not on a featured part of the article it was a part of or this web site. I honestly have no idea of the source of the image and of course immediately removed the file in question.

I discovered that this is not apparently good enough to satisfy Getty Images for an honest mistake. They want damages!

As most of you know, although the site appeared to be a business ( I put it up after I retired with the idea I could offer my years of experience), I never received one penny in revenue and consequently there are no assets - In other words it was more like a labour of love to share what I learned over the years. All I ever experienced were costs associated to operation of the site. (liabilities)

I have no assets or revenue to cover the damages demanded by Getty Images, so have no alternative but to close the site and the corresponding "team culture knowledge" experiment.

Also my suggestion for anyone reading this AND who uses images collected from websites is that you “NEED” to Google “getty image invoice”.

You need to know that:

• There are NO “free” images on the internet. All of them, including common creative or public domain come with risk.

• Use your own images and make sure you copyright them

• "Stock” photo sites are nothing more than a lure to entice people to download images, use them and then be found in non-compliance of a copyright with demands to pay exorbitant penalties.

• If you absolutely must download an image, make sure you track where it came from AND the licencing information. Keep it in your records for ever! Although you should be aware that having this information will not save you from being invoiced or litigation should someone claim copyright licence of the image.