Getty Images Getty Images strong arms a small company for $2,100.00 for a picture purchased elsewhere New York, New York

I appreciate your feedback and you are 90% correct, except I did not steal anything and documentation was provided as to the source of this image.  Just to let you know, that when I purchased this picture, I was sitting next to him, he took out several discs from a commercial collection of photos and I picked out a few pictures from this collection, but narrowed it down to the image in question.  

He printed off a receipt, with the source documented on it.  The owner of this shop has since passed away a few years ago.  Believe me, as soon as that letter was received, I would have been on his doorstep for the supporting documentation, a picture of the disc collection and any other documentation that I would need. Since I was a witness to the origin of this picture, I know that either Getty acquired it after the publication of this disc collection or was mislead when they did acquire it. 

I also suggest that you go out on the net and read about this common practice.  There are several more complaints here on this site and hundreds of other sites out there chastising their practices. 

I'm not upset with them investigating, I'm very upset about the fact that they do not accept the possibility that they may be wrong, considering the documentation provided.  

Visit http://extortionletterinfo.com/ for a more informative and professional explanation of this practice.  I only wish I had found this site before this whole mess got out of hand.   

If Getty owns the copyright to the image,  the real company you should be upset with is the local company that "copied" the image and sold it to you.  Because if they can't provide you any documentation that they had the rights to do that the local shop is wrong.

Now, if this local shop can provide you with proof that they had the right to re-sell it from Getty(or it is not actually a Getty Image), let Getty take you to court..they would loose.  But if this shop can't provide documentation, you(or your client) is going to have to pay.  But then you should turn around and sue the shop that originally sold you the image because they had no right to.

Heck they're only a multi-million dollar company (yes part of the 1%) why not step on one of the 99 percenters? 
- That doesn't give you a right to steel.  It doesn't matter if you "knew" about it or not, that is what happened if the company did not have the right to sell the image in the first place.

If you have "bought" other images you better work on verifying the copyrights very quickly or this may come up again.

It sounds like you do web design.  So imagine one of your clients copied your design and sold it to another company.  What would you do?  Would you just "let it go" without compensation or would you protect you rights for the work you did.