If your story is true frankly, then it makes Getty Images a bunch of criminals, period. This is fraud and racketeering, no more, no less.
It's even worse than the "Prenda Law" story where lawyers were making money threatening people who downloaded porn torrents illegally and forced them to settle or be sued, because Getty Images does not own the content at first place, they stole it, literally.
This justice department isn't going to take any action against businesses of any sort, so Getty is pretty much in the clear on this. They might get in trouble in the future, but the end result is unlikely to be more than just a slap on the wrist (a few tens or hundreds of millions in fines) so there isn't much downside for them.
It's not illegal if a corporation does it after all.
If your story is true frankly, then it makes Getty Images a bunch of criminals, period. This is fraud and racketeering, no more, no less.
It's even worse than the "Prenda Law" story where lawyers were making money threatening people who downloaded porn torrents illegally and forced them to settle or be sued, because Getty Images does not own the content at first place, they stole it, literally.