linastylist - Profile

I have just been contacted for a similar thing.

But the company in question is AUGUST, not Getty.

Has anyone come across augustimage.com ? 

The interesting thing is the address of the company calling themselves License Compliance Services, AUGUST is actually the address of Getty in London.                                            (Look here: http://www.endole.co.uk/company-by-postcode/nw1-0ag)

On the Wikipedia though it says black on white that August is a competitor of Getty.

I am confused and not sure about the validity of the company who has sent me the following letter and called me as well. Any idea?

Any advise on how to avoid paying the fee would be very helpful and highly appreciated.

 

The letter: 

Subject: Unauthorised Use of AUGUST Image(s) - Case Number 379123616 (Ref: 4U60-

EUVL) - United Kingdom

License Compliance Services, AUGUST.

101 Bayham Street, London NW1 0AG, United Kingdom.

Email: LCS@augustimage.com,Telephone: 0800 376 2514.

09 April 2015

Case Number: 379123616

Dear Style by Lina,

It has come to the attention of AUGUST that imagery represented by AUGUST is or has been

used online by your company. According to our records, this use was made without a valid

license.

You can view the imagery in question as used on your company’s website at

https://LCS.augustimage.com/4U60EUVL

Using imagery of AUGUST without a valid license is considered copyright infringement (Copyright

Design and Patents Act of 1988) entitling AUGUST to seek compensation for infringing uses.

TO RESOLVE THIS MATTER - (Case Number: 379123616)

You are requested to take action within 10 business days of the date of this email, as follows:

If your company has a valid license/authorization for the use of the imagery, please email

the license purchase/authorization information to LCS@augustimage.com.

If your company does not have a valid license for the use of the imagery:

A £316.80 settlement payment should be remitted (see payment options below).

We are willing to offer you, ex gratia, a 5% discount off the

abovementioned settlement payment amount, provided that you submit

payment within 10 business days from the date of this email. Failure to do so will result

in the settlement amount being returned to its original amount upon the expiration of

the aforesaid time period.

Cease using the imagery immediately

IMPORTANT NOTES

Ceasing use of the imagery does not release your company of its responsibility to pay for the

imagery already used. As the unauthorised use has already occurred, payment for that

benefit is necessary.

You may have been unaware that this imagery was subject to license. However, copyright

infringement can occur regardless of knowledge or intent. While being unaware of license

requirements is unfortunate, it does not change liability.

REMITTANCE PAYMENT OPTIONS

Online payment: You can remit your payment online at:

https://LCS.augustimage.com/4U60EUVL

Alternatively, you may contact us at 0800 376 2514.

AUGUST is committed to protect the interests, intellectual property and livelihoods of its

contributors.

We believe that prompt cooperation will benefit all concerned parties. If you would like to continue

to use the imagery in question, or if you believe you have mistakenly received this letter, please

contact us by email at LCS@augustimage.com, or call 0800 376 2514. and we will assist you.

This letter is without prejudice to AUGUST’s rights and remedies, all of which are expressly

reserved.

Sincerely,

License Compliance Services, AUGUST.

LCS@augustimage.com

Has anyone used this paid tool?

It doesnt cost much while good package is promised there.

I would be happy to go ahead with it unless anyone has experienced a "waste of money" thing with that?

Although it does make a lot of sense I am not 100% sure about that now.

Websites with rich content are still desperately trying to compete with others which offer minimal content but still manage to be in the top positions in G.

So it must be something else

The only thing I can think of to get back to the top is more backlinks, more social media and more text content unless you have anything else to suggest.

Backlinks are not possible of doing in the right way.
You would either need to exchange links with some not related websites or pay for getting links on not known sites.

More social media is doable but you need to be quite creative and have a lot of spare time. I would say it is a full time job and you need news and stuff to share and talk about on a regular basis almost every day.

More text is a tricky one.
There are two questions: Where to place the articles and how often do you need to add one? If you add one every week you will end up in hundreds of them so where do you keep them?

Obviously you are targetting your home page.
You cannot keep adding articles on to your homepage can you?
This would ruin the design of your webpage and would make it look messy.
How about creating a new website, or may be a blog where your would post articles one after another, eventually having a lot of them and having the right key words for your website with embedded links to it?
Will that work and help your website?

Another option is to keep submitting articles to 3rd party directories.
But I dont like this option because you are simply giving your work away which can be used somewhere else in the end and you could even get a blame for copying it.

How best to proceed?

My website has been No 1 in Google search results for 3 years for my key phrase, as well as my position in Google Places.

That was the result of the achievement by hard work of many weeks.

Now annoyingly it is on the 3rd page.

What really drives me mad is that although my website has rich content, competitors' websites are in the top and look very simple with minimal content.

My simple question is why?

Is Google not clever enough yet to see the difference and the contribution to the website to make a fair ranking/sorting?
Where is the justice?

I am sure I even have more backlinks than the other sites above me but even if I didnt, I thought these days Google would appreciate the content more than anything else because this is what is relevant for the searchers.

Occasional articles

But those articles are to be updated as well therefore they are not going to be static I think are they?

I know a forum would be the best way for interacting however this is not my intention and sorry for the misunderstanding.

My purpose is add articles including short and long, then updating those articles with more content etc.

As far as I understand people call it blogging.

I am running out of space in my home page however if I create a new dedicated page I may loose the focus for Google

It is recommended everywhere to add value to your SEO campaigns by means of blogging.

Here is for example a useful resource
5 Reasons Blogging Is The New SEO | Convert With Content

It obviously makes sense as the content gets rich and is updated on a regular basis which makes Google happy.

However my concern is the actual page for blogging which is normally a separate page. www.yourdomain.com/blog

I am trying to contribute by adding more content to my home page as this is the page I want to be searchable and be my landing page.

To avoid messing and keeping it neat I tend to use panels (have a look Local Hairdressers Milton Keynes | Home Hair Salon) so the articles are hidden unless you click a button.

Now if I move all of the content to a separate page, the home page may be in danger of loosing its value.

I appreciate I can put a link to the home page from the blog page but I dont think it would add as much weight as the actual content.

The bottom line is, I do want to blog but I dont want to waste my time for a page I dont need promoting.

Would be good to have any comments or thoughts on this

Yes you are right this looks pretty scary.

The solution consists in 3 steps as follows:

Step1: Identify the problem.
Step2: Fix it
Step3: Make Google review it

In my case the problem was that my website had been hacked and infected.
And actually I should say thank you to Google for pointing this out, otherwise I would have never noticed it.

Although your website looks fine to you, Google may see it differently if your website is infected by a malicious content.

The first thing I tried was to find a way of viewing the website like Google sees it.
This can be done by using the Googlebot tool in the Webmaster tools.
That did not help much unless I missed something.
There are some more tools that you can find on the web as well.

In the Webmaster Tools dashboard you have an overview of your site's performance where a number of keywords etc are listed.
I noticed a strange keyword there which has nothing to do with my website.
It still did not help me to dig in to the problem though.

Luckily I found what I was looking for in Google analytics where a list of the viewed pages including statistics are detailed.
I noticed a number of page names which retracted porn etc content and were under my domain.
I viewed the pages in a browser and saw malicious content (normally hidden) on top of my pages.
That was the moment when I passed the step1.

I then contacted my hosting provider who advised me on scanning my PC for viruses and malware which I did, but there was nothing else they could help with.
I then managed to identify several "alien" folders and files in my hosting's root directory which represented malicious content.
After successfully deleting those, I reloaded my website in full.
I also changed password in my hosting account.
That was when I passed the step2.

Now the 3rd step I thought would be the most tricky one, however, surprisingly it wasnt.

The action was to make Google aware of my "clean" website and make them remove the "compromised" label or inform me of any more problems which I might not have been aware of.

First thing I did was requesting indexation using the Googlebot tool.
Then I pinged my website using Pingler.com
Finally, again using the Webmaster tool, I submitted a "request for reconsideration" of my website, clearly explaining what happened and what exactly I did to fix it etc.

I was quite surprised seeing my website flag-free in google results on the following day

Hope it helps

Just for your information, I have managed to solve this problem in literally one day.

My website is not flagged any more as "compromised" by Google

If you wish to know how I have done it, please let me know and I will share the experience