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Image Lifted From Twitter Leads to $1.2M Payout For Haitian Photog
magic maverick writes "A U.S. federal jury has ordered Agence France-Presse and Getty Images to pay $1.2 million to a Daniel Morel, Haitian photographer, for their unauthorized use of photographs, from the 2010 Haiti earthquake. The images, posted to Twitter, were taken by an editor at AFP and then provided to Getty. A number of other organizations had already settled out of court with the photographer."
The problem I have with Hollywood Accounting is that I consider it very dishonest, to the point of fraud, for the producers/studio to imply that the movie might make a profit (by offering profit-based compensation) when history shows that the only part of the studio that makes a profit is marketing and distribution, by charging insane margins.
Right, I mean with that Harry Potter statement, the word "profit" appears nowhere on it. Net participants don't get "profit," they get "proceeds," as you can clearly see there.
Movies can be very profitable, and studios, where publicly traded, report their profits pursuant to completely legitimate GAAP standards (which suck and are gamed by all corporations, not just "Hollywood studios").
Explain to me how me downloading a copy of Hurt Locker, which I wouldn't never spend money to watch, own, or rent, is going to affect your bottom line?
Then tell me exactly how much money you would of made off me if I had seen it in a movie theater? How much if I bought a DVD of it? Or let's say I bought a blueray of it?
Nothing, because the way they write up the contracts, the movie makes a loss for everyone, but the main studio. But in this case, Hurt Locker sucked so bad, even the main studio lost money.
So cry and bitch all you want to us, but most of us are laughing at how stupid you are and how you try to defend the system that is robbing you.
Be seeing you...