Getty Sued For $1 Billion For Selling Publicly Donated Photos (thestack.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Online stock media library Getty Images is facing a $1 billion lawsuit from an American photographer for illegally selling copyright for thousands of photos. The Seattle-based company has been sued by documentary photographer Carol Highsmith for 'gross misuse', after it sold more than 18,000 of her photos despite having already donated them for public use. Highsmith's photos which were sold via Getty Images had been available for free via the Library of Congress. Getty has now been accused of selling unauthorized licenses of the images, not crediting the author, and for also sending threatening warnings and fines to those who had used the pictures without paying for the falsely imposed copyright.ArsTechnica has more details.

Comments

Rules for thee, not for me

[Anonymous Coward]

Glad to see a copyright troll getting what it deserves.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[pete6677]

Not like anything will actually happen to them.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[Anonymous Coward]

Congrats on FP!

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[OverlordQ]

She's only asking for like $400M, but a previous lawsuit allows treble damages for any further suits against Getty. Sooooooooo.

Re: Rules for thee, not for me

[hackwrench]

Financial stake is not the only stake.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[jellomizer]

She is still the copyright owner.
Getty took her work and sold it without her permission as well as harassing others she freely gave it away to. Damaging her reputation, as well her customers. The fact that she gave them away for free doesn't mean mean that they didn't have value.

Heck in slashdot when we find a company breaking the GPL we want Blood from them.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[OverlordQ]

They're statutory damages.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[EvilSS]

She gets $400 million for what? She's asserting that other people were wronged, that she had zero stake (she let the images out for free), and that she thus somehow is owed $400 million?

Even if she licensed them for public use she is still the copyright owner of the images so she is the one that has the standing to sue for copyright infringement against Getty. The others could just sue to clarify their rights, stop legal actions against them, and maybe, if lucky, recover their legal costs. The photographer is the one in a position to extract a truly punitive judgement against Getty.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[Revek]

They are the ones who a clearly at fault. They are a repeat offender. As a repeat offender the amount is in line with the law. Getty shouldn't have claimed that which they do not own. Think of how much revenue they have collected over the years while infringing on this ladies copyright. The whole system is corrupt and broken and this may shed light on it. More likely it will cause a change in the law where companies such a Getty will receive immunity for their thefts.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[Revek]

She gets $400 million for what? She's asserting that other people were wronged, that she had zero stake (she let the images out for free), and that she thus somehow is owed $400 million?/
They sent her a letter and a bill. That is her stake.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[taustin]

Statutory damages. She allowed the Library of Congress to distribute the photos for free, but the Getty never had permission, and certainly never had permission to charge for them. The $400 million+ is straight up statutory damages for the number of violations.

Since they did this for commercial purposes, what should happen is criminal prosecution.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[taustin]

Hard to sue:

• Her images are now in public domain.

No, they're not. She licensed the Library of Congress to distribute them royalty free, but did not place them in the public domain. In fact, the license to the LoC specifically requires that they, and anyone they distribute the photos to, give her credit. So your premise is factually incorrect.

And what really pissed her off was when the Getty sent her a legal threat and demanded money for using her own photos on her own web site, when the Getty had no permission to use the photos in any way.

Honestly, a billion dollars in damages seems perfectly reasonable to me, and the Getty will hardly notice it.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[Anonymous Coward]

If the RIAA/MPAA can sue for billions of dollars of damages under the existing law, so should she. I feel like those laws should be changed, but at the moment they are what they are and if they're used against grandmas who never touched a computer, they should also be used against corporations with giant legal departments who clearly knew better.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

For an imperfect analogy: If I loan my volunteer fire department use of my car, I haven't given up title, Nor have I indicated that anyone is now free to abscond the vehicle with impunity.

In fact, Getty not only stole these, by falsely asserting ownership rights, it's as if they took the car from my analogy, and drove it for Uber.

Her images are NOT public domain. They are her copyright, for which she waived license fees for re-use and distribution, via Library of Congress, per her attribution remain.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[sjames]

It's statutory damages as set by law. It's tripled because Getty is a repeat offender. Unlike the many cases of *AA vs. Grandma where the same statutory damages were applied, Getty is exactly the sort of defendant the lawmakers had in mind when they wrote the law and the evidence is much more clear.

If the courts do not award the full amount, they will demonstrate once and for all that natural people are second class citizens.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[mrchaotica]

Since they did this for commercial purposes, what should happen is criminal prosecution.

Maybe charge them not only with criminal copyright infringement, but RICO Act violations too if it turns out to be part of a pattern (which OverlordQ's allusion upthread to a "previous lawsuit" implies there might be).

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[Anonymous Coward]

Getty are illegally profiting from her work. The fact that she had chosen not to profit from those works herself does not mean that anyone else should be allowed to simply take them over without permission and behave as if they had the right to them.

And as for the amount of the damages, punitive damages claims take account of the resources of the defendant, as well as the nature of the crime; there would be no punitive or deterrent effect if the amount is completely trivial to the defendant. The fact that the plaintiff receives the award is almost incidental; the level is more about the effect on the defendant than restitution for the plaintiff. Getty has an annual revenue of somewhere approaching $1billion, so a few hundred million is a reasonable starting point.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because we lease our soul to the devil 23 hours out of the day doesn't mean we sold it.

CAPTCHA: unplug

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[arth1]

I haven't seen anyone else noting this, so...

She is a copyright holder, and have released the images under one license, that does not incur any payment, but restricts how people can use the images.
That does NOT prevent her from also licensing the images under a different license, which gives the licensee other rights. (Like, for instance, being allowed to modify, re-sell, or not give attribution.)

In the software world, there are plenty of examples of dual licensing, so this shouldn't be news to anyone.

She is the copyright holder, and what she could have charged for other licenses is her stake.

Then add punitive damages. Tripled because of Getty having lost other cases that means they were definitely made aware of transgressions, and any new transgressions of the same type have a high chance that they will considered willful.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[Anonymous Coward]

Granted even if they were public domain, what Getty did is still illegal. If they were public domain they're free from copyright so thus Getty cannot claim ownership of them anyway. But in that case the only people who could sue would be people they made legal threats towards.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you for the car metaphor, i was completely lost.

All better now. :)

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[Holi]

RICO? Who did they conspire with? What organization are they a part of? I am very confused as to how RICO could apply in this situation. RICO is about the ability of all members of an organization to be charged for a criminal act performed by one.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[omnichad]

If they were public domain they're free from copyright so thus Getty cannot claim ownership of them anyway.

While true, they could still sell access to their copy in that case. You can still profit off of collecting and distributing public domain materials.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[bill_mcgonigle]

In fact, Getty not only stole these, by falsely asserting ownership rights, it's as if they took the car from my analogy, and drove it for Uber.

No, because if it's a car, she is deprived of the use of that car while Getty is driving for Uber.

It's as if she had a Tesla with a magic 'clone' button, and Getty pressed the button and started driving the new clone for Uber. Except she had drawn a picture of a unicorn on her Tesla, so Getty's new Tesla is also decorated with a unicorn, and now she's throwing a hissy fit about it looking like hers, even though she still has her original Tesla.

It's hard to make an IP analogy that doesn't seem completely absurd. Funny 'bout that.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[phantomfive]

Getty sent her a legal threat and demanded money for using her own photos on her own web site

That is the most delicious part of the entire story.

(Note also that this the online Getty image provider, not related to the Getty museum).

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[freeze128]

Getty's defense: "Uh, it was a clerical error."

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[Anonymous Coward]

How about some money laundering to boot? Or does that only come into play if it's the fed going after foreign owners of torrent websites?

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[sycodon]

Doesn't matter,

Punitive Damages are not about what the plaintiff wants. They are about dissuading the defendant from repeating their offence.

So how do you dissuade an an entity such as Getty? You savage their pocket book so badly that the board of directors take notice. For public corporations, you hit them so hard it affects their stock prices and subsequently their shareholders, who then would hopefully respond by replacing board members who allowed the President or CEO to take the offending actions.

In the case of corporations, the buck stops with the shareholders. There is no punishment until the shareholders feel the pain.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[mrchaotica]

RICO? Who did they conspire with? What organization are they a part of?

Allegedly, the executives of Getty Images, Inc., who directed their subordinates to engage in criminal intimidation and racketeering based on false claims of copyright, are part of the criminal organization Getty Images, Inc.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[Kierthos]

There's part of me that wonders if Getty had some automated process sending out these notices, or if there actually was someone signing off on them. If it's the latter, do they just send out so many of these claims that they didn't realize they were sending a legal threat to the owner of the pictures?

Of course, there's another part of me wondering if this wasn't Joe the Intern's last little "Fuck you" before putting in his two week's notice at Getty.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[torkus]

Agreed.

THIS is what copyright law is (well, was) designed to protect. An individual or company wrongly selling, misrepresenting, harassing or even suing others over works it does not have control over the copyright of is exactly what copyright law was targeted at. THIS is how copyright could 'protects the artists' and foster more artistic contribution to the world as a whole.

Getty would do well to quickly offer up a very reasonable/rationa settlement - such as repaying every customer who paid for images they didn't have the right to sell and making a sizable donation to some art charity/foundation. Anything else, and they undermind the very laws that provide for their business model and very existence.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[tsstahl]

While true, they could still sell access to their copy in that case. You can still profit off of collecting and distributing public domain materials.

If by 'access' you mean charging people to come to their office and look at the picture, sure you are correct. Making copies of their copy is the very definition of copyright infringement in letter, spirit, moral, and natural law. Forgive the slight hyperbole, the point is the pictures are free to the public, but not public domain.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[Holi]

According to the LoC she actually has relinquished her rights.

"Publication and other forms of distribution: Ms. Highsmith has stipulated that her photographs are in the public domain. (See P&P Collection Files.) Photographs of sculpture or other works of art may be restricted by the copyright of the artist."

https://www.loc.gov/rr/print/r...

This may cause problems with her standing to sue.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[Holi]

No she is not, she has relinquished her claim of copyright.

"Publication and other forms of distribution: Ms. Highsmith has stipulated that her photographs are in the public domain. (See P&P Collection Files.) Photographs of sculpture or other works of art may be restricted by the copyright of the artist." - LoC site

By declaring her works to be in the public domain she no longer has any say what is done with them.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not illegal to sell works in the public domain, particularly if these were "transformed" in any manner beforehand. Getty could argue that they transformed the work by selective editing, which is the process by which you choose amongst many options. Any transformation can initiate a new copyright. This might come down to technical process copyright law, by which you take a Tiff and convert it into a jpeg, versus misrepresentation (claiming you own the rights to something you don't). When publishers print classic books out of copyright, they will still stick a copyright claim in the book on the grounds the work was edited again and gained a new copyright. Same thing with music. These claims are not generally challenged because the claimant could always just go back to the original source. This is a rare case because the artist is still alive. However, it's not clear you can positively put something into the public domain by fiat as an author. You're still the copyright holder. The best you can do is issue a promise not to sue. This will be very messy to resolve.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[PRMan]

It's statutory thanks to the MAFIAA. The judge has limited leeway.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course natural people are second class - they have a corporeal body that can be imprisoned or killed.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[Anonymous Coward]

There's part of me that wonders if Getty had some automated process sending out these notices, or if there actually was someone signing off on them. If it's the latter, do they just send out so many of these claims that they didn't realize they were sending a legal threat to the owner of the pictures?

Of course "they" didn't realize they were sending a legal threat to the owner of the picture. The copyright information had been stripped from the images and this is a really large corporation with lots of employees. The only way the employee sending out the notices would have known she was the copyright holder if they were keeping records along with the images, and keeping such records along with the images would be a field day for some district attorney deciding to raid them.

You don't keep easily accessible records for systematically committed large-scale crimes, and without such records, the person sending the notices has no knowledge of the actual ownership and need not even be in knowledge of the criminal nature of the enterprise. Now in this case, it sounds like the respective records were marked with a "don't charge $x, justification: $y" entry that did not preclude charging other people. Which means that there is no viable process for Getty to stop generally charging for images they don't have rights on, or they don't care to use it.

And make no mistake, they will have a very hard time explaining why they shouldn't be hit with punitive damages based on statutory damages based on the actual violations they committed commercially and on a continuing basis even after getting notified.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[omnichad]

Did you read what I was replying to before spouting off nonsense? The post I'm replying to is a hypothetical - Getty can sell copies of public domain images.

This photographer's photos are not that - but nobody here is claiming they are.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[Immerman]

Indeed, I was going to say something similar. If she released the images into the public domain, or even retained copyright but licensed them under something like a Creative Commons license with no restrictions on redistribution, then it would seem that Getty Images would be completely within its legal rights to sell them. Just like anyone who wants to can sell a BSD Unix distro if they can find someone gullible enough to buy it.

Now, if they're threatening people in order to collect licensing fees, *then* they're probably committing some sort of crime, but one that has nothing to do with copyright infringement, and probably doesn't give the artist any legal standing to sue unless they themselves were threatened. And even then I doubt the artist would have any special (legal) standing compared to anyone else thus threatened.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[Anonymous Coward]

True, they can sell access, but they have crossed the line once they start making copyright infringement claims. In this case even if it does turn out that they are public domain (which it does appear they may be from some other threads) they're still in the wrong. The letter that was again posted in other threads claim that they own the copyright and money must be paid because the use has provided benefit to the abuser. But this is a claim they cannot make if it's public domain and lands in falsely claiming copyright of property which they don't own. Now if they were selling a book with the picture in it, then they'd have a case, but no matter how this is spun, Getty acted illegally.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[Immerman]

That would depend entirely on the specific terms under which she allowed the Library to distribute the images.

If she put them in the public domain, then she is no longer the copyright holder, because they are no longer under copyright, and GI cannot violate a copyright that doesn't exist.

If the terms under which the LoC distributes the images to not prohibit commercial redistribution (vanilla Creative Commons for example), then GI is likewise not violating copyright by selling them.

If either of those is the case, then the only crime GI may be committing is if they are trying to shake down people for licensing fees they're not entitled to. And I suspect that in that case neither the copyright holder nor the artist (if copyright has been transferred or relinquished) have any standing to sue, as only the shakedown victim has been wronged.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[Khashishi]

Hardly notice a billion dollars? How big is Getty, really? That's a fucking lot of money.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[jellomizer]

Offering your work for free isn't going to public domain.
GNU is free but not public domain.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[Immerman]

I'm not sure that's legally relevant. The only copyright-violation question is, do the terms under which the LoC distributes the images allow for commercial redistribution? If they do, then Getty Images is completely within their rights to sell the images. Just as you would be completely within your rights to sell a Linux distro.

Now, if they're trying to shake down people for licensing fees for images they don't hold the copyright or an enforcement contract on, then that's a completely different issue, and I hope they get nailed to the wall for it. But I'm not sure the artist has any special standing to do so.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not RICO.

It's not RICO!

IT'S NOT RICO.

Relevant portion from that link:

RICO is not a fucking frown emoji. It's not an exclamation point. It's not a rhetorical tool to convey you are upset about something. It's not a petulant foot-stomp.

RICO is a really complicated racketeering law that has elaborate requirements that are difficult to meet. It's overused by idiot plaintiff lawyers, and it's ludicrously overused by a hundred million jackasses on the internet with an opinion and a mood disorder.

You might be able to show a pattern. You might be able to show that it was happening under 18 USC 2318 or 2319, which are RICO-able. But you have to show that the photographer in this case was personally harmed by the actions of Getty. And since she had donated these images, precluding monetary gain from them by normal means, she probably wasn't harmed by the infringement. Therefore, and say it with me...It's Not RICO (tm).

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[Immerman]

Though yes, if GI did not properly credit the artist as required by their license, then that would likely expose them to copyright infringement claims.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[Immerman]

Analogies to property are rather terrible, as copyright law is essentially nothing like property law, nor even patent or trademark law.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[AthanasiusKircher]

Hardly notice a billion dollars? How big is Getty, really? That's a fucking lot of money.

Not that big. Just a few years ago the company was sold for $3.3 billion. I don't know what their current estimated worth is, but I definitely imagine a billion-dollar loss would be noticeable.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[omnichad]

My thought is they scraped public domain images from the LoC to "sell access" and totally missed that this was not public domain. But then they stupidly included all the scraped images in the index they sent over for copyright enforcement.

Kind of like the Family Guy gameplay footage fiasco.

Re: Rules for thee, not for me

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey doofus, go back to 1L property law. Even if your "selective editing" argument held water (it doesn't) the primary copyright holder owns the copyright in derivative works as well.

Re: Rules for thee, not for me

[Anonymous Coward]

I really think jail would be more appropriate, but hopefully a billion will make a dent in their fucking bank account.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[AthanasiusKircher]

Getty would do well to quickly offer up a very reasonable/rationa settlement - such as repaying every customer who paid for images they didn't have the right to sell and making a sizable donation to some art charity/foundation. Anything else, and they undermind the very laws that provide for their business model and very existence.

Not enough, sorry. Not when we have court judgments standing against ordinary citizens for non-commercial infringement of over $10,000 per violation.

The $1 billion would be a bargain for them to get off so easy, compared to how Getty and similar companies have treated individuals. Frankly, if I were Ms. Highsmith, I'd take the billion dollars and track down every individual non-commercial "infringer" she can find who has been the victim of such lawsuits and use the money from the lawsuit to pay them back. If there was any money left over, I'd create a victims defense fund for people who are sued for ridiculous amounts for non-commercial infringement.

It's not that I'm pro-piracy. I'm not. But I think non-commercial copyright infringement with no intent to cause harm (and sometimes unknowing infringement, in the case of photos just grabbed over the internet) shouldn't be putting individuals in the poorhouse. If the infringing fees were more reasonable (particularly for first-time offenders), that'd be one thing... but they're not. I'd be all in favor of an escalating set of penalties for repeat offenders, even.... but suing for thousands of dollars over a single violation?

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[Cajun Hell]

The story does use a lot of funny wording which implies that they had been donated to the Public Domain, but if you click through to sources, it looks more like they were still under copyright, offered through some kind of free-as-in-beer license.

Looks like. It's really hard to see WTF the actual status is. What shitty, lazy reporting! But my guess is they're not PD, because the lawyer would have checked before he sued, that being the responsible and common sense thing to d-- why is everyone laughing at me?

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[mysticgoat]

I also feel this is not enough.

Getty was either doing this with full knowledge that it was breaking the law, or it was grossly negligent-- criminally negligent-- in failing to determine that it could not have copyright on these images no matter how the images might have come to it. A company that makes its profits by licensing use of copyrighted material does not search the Library of Congress before purchasing or otherwise claiming copyright on its stuff? The only way that could happen is if the company deliberately chooses not to do due diligence before representing itself as the copyright holder.

At the least, the courts should put the company in receivership to be dissolved since that is the only way to assure that the clique of corporate officers who conspired to bring this situation about would be broken apart. Ideally various corporate officers would be tried for fraud or other white collar crimes, but at least the corporation could be destroyed.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[mysticgoat]

Yes, it appears they were not in public domain. And Getty violated a copyright notice that gave a broad class of individuals license to use these photos without payment in certain ways. But also Getty claimed a false copyright on material that was copyrighted by the creator.

There is no problem here in understanding "WTF the actual status is" for anyone who has a passing familiarity with FOSS copyrights. And those who benefit from the use of FOSS copyrights should become somewhat familiar with FOSS. Such as anyone who makes use of the material in any of the more than 80% of all websites that use Apache. And of course anyone who uses Slashdot.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[Anonymous Coward]

The only copyright-violation question is, do the terms under which the LoC distributes the images allow for commercial redistribution?

No, there's another question. Was Getty compliant with the terms of the license which allowed commercial redistribution. For example, commercial distribution could be fine provided they give attribution. This is not a trivial term. This is the only payment that the photographer is expecting. If you wanted to distribute without providing attribution, then you would have to go to the photographer and ask for a separate (and presumably paid for) commercial license. This means that the attribution had the same value for the photographer as a normal commercial license.

In this case it looks like Getty is (or should be - courts are notoriously unpredictable) completely fucked. There was a license which demanded attribution and they didn't give it. Every one of their sales counts as illegal distribution. Plenty of legal precedents say that the $1B is quite reasonable, no matter what any sensible human might think.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[mysticgoat]

Exactly how she gave the images to the LoC, and exactly what the LoC means when it says the images are now in the public domain, will need to be explored in court. If she transferred the copyrights to the LoC, then she has no standing to sue for copyright violation. So she must be saying that she retained the copyrights and only gave an unlimited use license to everyone.

Getty Images needs to show that she transferred the actual copyrights to the LoC and therefore has no standing. That is likely to be a very tough thing to do.

And frankly I'm not sure that it matters. The photographer is righteously pissed off that Getty Images is making profits off of her work when she intended it to be freely given to everyone. And for as long as this trial makes news, Getty Images is being righteously punished as its name gets dragged through the mud, and potential customers start using the LoC and other resources for stock photos. Which is as it should be.

Getty Images best course of action is to settle quickly and quietly and cut its losses. But it may already be too late: it is clear that G.I. was making false claims of copyright ownership, which violates USA Federal law, and must have involved a conspiracy between the executive officers of the corporation. Since they were either doing this knowingly, or were deliberately grossly, criminally, negligent in failing to search for prior copyright before they claimed they held it.

There should be a story along soon about FBI involvement in this case.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[epine]

RICO also occurred to me when I read the following paragraph:

According to the suit, Getty and its affiliates have not only sold unauthorized licenses of Highsmithâ(TM)s photos, but they have sent threatening letters to people that they believe have infringed the copyright.

Then I see that someone here objects thusly:

RICO? Who did they conspire with?

That's a cool parlour trick you've got there: pack all the accused into one side of the court room, then wave your hand toward the empty half.

RICO dismissed.

So, I guess I'm to understand that if the Mafia were to incorporate itself, it would no longer be a conspiracy, because the collective decision to become a fictitious legal individual sloughs off all conceptual notions of with-hood.

At that moment their eyes were opened, and they suddenly felt shame at their nakedness. So they sewed LLC fig leaves together to cover themselves.

That makes so much more sense than the original version, and it's blindingly obvious in retrospect how easily the three "LLC" ink scratches could have been neglected at some juncture of the inter-generational hand-me-down.

Also, we're all sure the person receiving one of these shakedown letters has no feeling at all of being the one pitted against the many, aren't we?

Let me hazard a guess that what gives you the largest dopamine rush in any debate is to find something that costs you next to zero cognitive effort (you seemed not to even notice your use of the word "they" in your question "who did they conspire with?") while demanding that your adversary fill in the tedious technical blanks to your exacting and high standards of approval.

What gives me a big dopamine rush is to notice that the person attempting to wield this kind of argumentative posture has already failed to notice the nose on their own face.

But then I'm more interested in laughing than winning. Each to his own, I guess.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[Anonymous Coward]

Except her standing is perfectly fine.

Since they sent a demand letter claiming to OWN the images or the right to sell the images.

As a result; they were committing fraud against her directly. At the very least, the fraud they committed against her gives her standing.

Thats if the license is precisely as you claim. I think "the next" line of the information about the rights on those images state that you must clearly represent the author of the works.

Just because its in public domain; doesn't mean you get to ignore the other "requirements" as set out by the LoC.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[vux984]

Not when we have court judgments standing against ordinary citizens for non-commercial infringement of over $10,000 per violation.

One gross miscarriage of justice is not a rationale to commit another one, nor to entrench systematic miscarriages.

f the infringing fees were more reasonable (particularly for first-time offenders), that'd be one thing... but they're not.

They are in some civilized countries.

Bill C-11 passed in 2012:
http://www.parl.gc.ca/content/...
-----

38.1 (1) Subject to this section, a copyright
owner may elect, at any time before final
judgment is rendered, to recover, instead of
damages and profits referred to in subsection
35(1), an award of statutory damages for which any
one infringer is liable individually, or for
which any two or more infringers are liable
jointly and severally,

(a) in a sum of not less than $500 and not
more than $20,000 that the court considers
just, with respect to all infringements involved
in the proceedings for each work or
other subject-matter, if the infringements are
for commercial purposes; and

(b) in a sum of not less than $100 and not
more than $5,000 that the court considers
just, with respect to all infringements involved
in the proceedings for all works or
other subject-matter, if the infringements are
for non-commercial purposes.

-----

Give that a good read. Statutory damages in Canada, for a noncommercial infringement starts at $100, and tops out at $5000; as a single payment for all infringements involved ithe proceedings. (so not 'per song' )

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[Anonymous Coward]

18,000 photos is a lot of photos. She's only asking for about $22 for each one.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[radarskiy]

Not all rights are alienable.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[SNRatio]

But you have to show that the photographer in this case was personally harmed by the actions of Getty. And since she had donated these images, precluding monetary gain from them by normal means, she probably wasn't harmed by the infringement. Therefore, and say it with me...It's Not RICO (tm).

I don't know about the other parts, but would this count as harm?

The communication, sent by the License Compliance Services, associated with Getty, charged her with copyright infringement and demanded a $120 payment

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[Anonymous Coward]

Absolutely - Moral Rights cannot be abandoned.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[sabt-pestnu]

It's not RICO, dammit!. It's almost never RICO.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[Sir Holo]

They are indeed still protected by Copyright under the creator's name.

Her making them freely available is a gift to humanity, but does not make them public domain. As far as the typical copyright infringement argument of "potential lost income". . . Well, actually, she can make that one. They damaged her reputation as a professional photographer.

Their main argument will be much simpler: Dear Getty, how much income did you derive from charging people for these copyrighted pieces of mine? Please include the legal costs of anyone who fought you on the fallacious copyright-infringement notices that you sent out. Now triple it (treble damages).

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[WorBlux]

An algorithmic conversion doesn't create a new copyright, especially if the algorithm is available to the public as it makes it likely two people would make the same conversion. Moreover the whole line of argument is bullshit precisely because Getty themselves failed to distinguish between copied of the work they purportedly "licensed" and those distributed by the plaintiff.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[WorBlux]

Artist keep moral rights, And for sell a "licence" where you have no authority to do so is fraud.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[WorBlux]

Doesn't matter, they should have known. Being in the copyright business, they have no excuse not to know the law, and now excuse not to check for error.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[WorBlux]

Fasle, keyword: Moral rights. Secondly even if copyright give you the ability to effectively release the work into the public domain (which is actually doubtful) Getty by claiming copyright over the images, violated the very copyright which allowed Ms. Highsmith to commit the images to the public domain.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[WorBlux]

Actually DMCA notices to be valid mush be signed "under penalty of perjury", and require a statment the sender is the copyright holder, or is authorized by the copyright holder of the work to send the notice. How the hell can anyone send out a valid DMCA notice, large company or not, without being have a prima fascia full copyright information about the work in question

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

We aim to uphold a glorious tradition.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Yes! Of course!

I did try to preface my imprecision with the caveat...

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Agreed. We are illustrating, imperfectly, one flaw in the parent comment's proposition, with a thought-experiment.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[sjames]

Sometimes clerical errors are costly. This one is no exception...

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[serviscope_minor]

The your analogy is bad:

It's as if she had a Tesla with a Magic clone button, Getty pressed it, took a car then tried to have her arrested for stealing their car.

Even if you don't believe copyright should be a thing, Getty are still in the wrong any way you look at it.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[Anonymous Coward]

The issue isn't selling her work. If she release her work into public domain, then it can legally be sold to another person. Though if that person knew the images were available else where for free of course they wouldn't pay for them. The issue here is with Getty claiming ownership of the images and threatening others who used the images. That is illegal since they have no right to to do that since the images are not theirs and they are in public domain.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[Anonymous Coward]

No, this is like if she drew a picture of a unicorn on her Tesla, and told everyone they could draw pictures of that same unicorn on their Teslas if they wanted, and Getty started going around to people telling them that Getty owned the unicorn pictures and anyone who drew a unicorn on their Tesla owed Getty money. Then Getty did that to the original unicorn artist, who got pissed that she was being charged a criminal misdemeanor and being extorted a bunch of money over the work that she originally told everyone that anyone could have for free.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[Holi]

The next line "Photographs of sculpture or other works of art may be restricted by the copyright of the artist." means that the artists of the sculpture or other works may still be covered by THEIR copyright not hers.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[Holi]

Corporations exist to provide legal protection to the officers. So who would the corporation be conspiring with? Itself? maybe you could make the point by grouping them with LCS.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[AthanasiusKircher]

One gross miscarriage of justice is not a rationale to commit another one, nor to entrench systematic miscarriages.

You're assuming that this would be a "miscarriage of justice" to Getty. But corporations and commercial infringement SHOULD be different from individual infringement.

And in this case, it's much, much worse -- because the artist explicitly wanted to license the works effectively to be used freely by the public. (Not technically public domain, but free for use with attribution.)

Getty then truly "stepped over the line" when they not only charge fees for someone else's work, but then threaten people who don't pay fees to them.

I know you probably won't agree with this, but to me stealing "from the public" is one of the worst sins that can be committed. I find modern copyright extensions to a horrific infraction against human knowledge and culture. (Copyright should be "for limited times," perhaps a few decades at most, as it was originally.) The natural state of "intellectual property" should be public domain, i.e., the cultural resources of the public. To threaten people with legal action for using the resources of the public is despicable behavior and should be punished accordingly.

It would be one thing if this were a first offense. It was not -- Getty has done precisely this before, and that's why the lawsuit is entitled to treble damages. It would also be one thing if they merely mistakenly were selling rights to photos without vetting them -- that's a copyright violation, and should be subject to the smaller fees you've discussed, raised higher for commercial violation and increased because they've done it before.

But Getty has gone far beyond that in appropriating material for itself that was released for free to the public and threatening people who used it. THAT is an offense against our society and our culture. And they've done it before. It's no different from the level of outrage that should be directed at a public official who embezzled funds out of the public school treasury. Or even an official who went around and started charging rent to people who owned land claiming, "This is actually state property." Those are equivalent scenarios here -- Getty has committed an offense against the public.

It would not be a "miscarriage of justice" in this case to sue Getty out of existence, along with any other entity who systematically tries to deny the public access to free intellectual property when it has been released as such.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[UnknowingFool]

From the exact webpage:

Reproduction (photocopying, hand-held camera copying, photoduplication and other forms of copying allowed by "fair use"): Subject to P&P policy on copying, which prohibits photocopying of the original color photographs.

Publication and other forms of distribution: Ms. Highsmith has stipulated that her photographs are in the public domain. (See P&P Collection Files.) Photographs of sculpture or other works of art may be restricted by the copyright of the artist.

Public domain does not mean she gave away every right. Also it did not give Getty any rights to claim copyrights and ownership on her works.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[UnknowingFool]

then it would seem that Getty Images would be completely within its legal rights to sell them. Just like anyone who wants to can sell a BSD Unix distro if they can find someone gullible enough to buy it.

Whether Getty can sell it is the legal question for the court. It will depends on what is allowed in the public domain from the LoC; however, it is not a legal question that Getty cannot claim ownership of her work which they did.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[shutdown -p now]

She has standing to sue them for fraud, and probably malicious litigation (or whatever the name of that was). But not for copyright infringement.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[mrchaotica]

Hey dumbass, maybe it's true that "it's almost never RICO," but the key word is "almost" and this case actually could fit the definition.

From your own goddamn link:

To win, a plaintiff would have to prove (1) conduct, (2) of an enterprise, (3) through a pattern, (4) of racketeering activity called "predicate acts," (5) causing injury to the plaintiffâ(TM)s "business or property."

• (1) the executives and management of Getty Images, Inc. manage the enterprise Getty Images, Inc. Obviously.
• (2) Getty Images, Inc. is an enterprise. That's what the "Inc." part in the name means, so again -- obviously.
• (3) Other people in this thread have mentioned Morel v. Getty, and a site on which I read about that case (that I can't be bothered to cite; deal with it) listed several other previous instances of Getty Images, Inc.'s similar conduct. That's a pattern.
• (4) Getty Images, Inc. is extorting payment from innocent people based on bogus claims of copyright infringement. Extortion is "racketeering activity" as defined in 18 U.S. Code ss. 1961 (1) A.
• (5) The racketeering is causing damage to Highsmith's professional reputation, which is part of her "business or property." It's also costing her money, which is obviously property.

So there you go: RICO Act violations. QED, asshole!

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "It's not that I'm pro-piracy. I'm not. But I think non-commercial copyright infringement with no intent to cause harm (and sometimes unknowing infringement, in the case of photos just grabbed over the internet) shouldn't be putting individuals in the poorhouse. If the infringing fees were more reasonable (particularly for first-time offenders), that'd be one thing... but they're not."

AthanasiusKircher, Just like the music industry sued "regular people" for thousands... The regular person who "grabbed [images] over the internet..." must be taught a lesson over and over again until everyone learns... you CANNOT simply grab an image... someone OWNS those images. You must get permission in writing, or shoot it yourself... "grabbing" is against the law. LEARN IT.

No one would need to be sued if folks stopped just "grabbing" images off of the internet. It's not a free grab what you want store... it's a marketing location. You cannot just grab jewelry that's in a display case promoting the jewelry designer... you go to jail. You cannot also just grab images in a display case [the internet], or you get fines that equal the crime.

-s2-

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[Holi]

According to the LoC her works are in the public domain.
https://www.loc.gov/rr/print/r...

Yes her works were protected by copyright until she relinquished them to the public domain.

"Sometimes people wish for a piece of their own work to be freely available to everyone to use with no strings attached, and put the work in the public domain. This isn't very hard to do — the copyright holder merely has to make a statement that they release all rights to the work. Once this irrevocable act is complete they no longer have any power over how the work is used since it is then owned by the public as a whole."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[beastofburdon]

In my opinion the blood is much more important than the money. People tend to fuck off much better after blood, bruises, and broken bones.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[Holi]

In Germany Moral rights cannot be abandoned, That is not the case in the US.

"In the United States[edit] Moral rights[14] have had a less robust tradition in the United States. Copyright law in the United States emphasizes protection of financial reward over protection of creative attribution.[4]:xiii The exclusive rights tradition in the United States is inconsistent with the notion of moral rights as it was constituted in the Civil Code tradition stemming from post-Revolutionary France. When the United States acceded to the Berne Convention, it stipulated that the Convention's "moral rights" provisions were addressed sufficiently by other statutes, such as laws covering slander and libel.[4]:30"

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[Holi]

You make the claim now prove it. In the US. I know the moral rights issue in Europe, but we are talking US law here.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[Holi]

If the work is in the public domain then EVERYONE has the right.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[Holi]

I don't get this argument against my assertion. I have shown irrefutable evidence that her works are in the public domain. Unless you think the Library of Congress is lying.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[Holi]

What do you think the public domain means?

"Photographs of sculpture or other works of art may be restricted by the copyright of the artist." This relates to the fact that the artworks she photographed may still be under copyright by the respective artists not her.

In no way am I defending Getty, I am just making the claim that she may have lost standing to sue for damages.

"Sometimes people wish for a piece of their own work to be freely available to everyone to use with no strings attached, and put the work in the public domain. This isn't very hard to do — the copyright holder merely has to make a statement that they release all rights to the work. Once this irrevocable act is complete they no longer have any power over how the work is used since it is then owned by the public as a whole."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[vux984]

You're assuming that this would be a "miscarriage of justice" to Getty

A billion dollars? Would be a miscarriage of justice. I expect you could buy and sell the whole company several times over for that.

It would not be a "miscarriage of justice" in this case to sue Getty out of existence, along with any other entity who systematically tries to deny the public access to free intellectual property when it has been released as such.

I'm pretty confident there is a number far lower than a billion dollars that would straighten Getty out.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[Holi]

Subject to P&P policy on copying, which prohibits photocopying of the original color photographs.

I believe this policy (note it is a policy of the Print and Photographs Reading Room at the LoC, not because of anything Ms Highsmith as stipulated) is more for the protection of the original prints stored at the LoC.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[Holi]

Look I know there are some actual lawyers here, any of you want to chime in and explain what rights may be kept when a work enters the public domain in this way (meaning the work does not just time out but the creator states that she wants it to be in the public domain).

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[Holi]

I am going to guess this case will test copyright and the ability of artists to put their works in the public domain. If she can still claim ownership after releasing works to the PD then you are right. If putting a work in to the public domain is revocable then it means the public domain in this sense means nothing.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[Holi]

And upon hearing her reply said the issue was closed. So what harm? Did she sprain her finger typing the reply?

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[Holi]

It shouldn't be too tough since the LoC lists her works as public domain, not as licensed works.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[Holi]

"No, they're not. She licensed the Library of Congress to distribute them royalty free"

I keep hearing that but no one has provided any proof of that statement. The LoC does list them as public domain which they would not do if they were licensed.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[Holi]

The LoC distributes them as public domain. To me that would mean the public owns them and that the creator has relinquished all rights.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[Holi]

What license? Can anyone claiming these works are licensed produce the actual terms of the license?

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[Holi]

Carol M. Highsmith
Rights and Restrictions Information

Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., 20540-4730

Carol M. Highsmith's photographs are in the public domain.

Access: Subject to P&P policy on serving originals.

Reproduction (photocopying, hand-held camera copying, photoduplication and other forms of copying allowed by "fair use"): Subject to P&P policy on copying, which prohibits photocopying of the original color photographs.

Publication and other forms of distribution: Ms. Highsmith has stipulated that her photographs are in the public domain. (See P&P Collection Files.) Photographs of sculpture or other works of art may be restricted by the copyright of the artist.

Credit Line: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, photograph by Carol M. Highsmith [reproduction number, e.g., LC-USZ62-123456]

For more information, please read: Copyright and Other Restrictions That Apply to Publication/Distribution of Images: Assessing the Risk of Using a P&P Image

Prepared by: Prints and Photographs Division staff. Last revised: Sept. 20, 2012.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[Holi]

You and several others make the claim she licensed them to the LoC, Please cite your source.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[Holi]

"the point is the pictures are free to the public, but not public domain."

According to who? Please cite your source as the LoC makes the claim they are Public Domain.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[Holi]

I don't think they missed anything:

Carol M. Highsmith
Rights and Restrictions Information

Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., 20540-4730

Carol M. Highsmith's photographs are in the public domain.

Access: Subject to P&P policy on serving originals.

Reproduction (photocopying, hand-held camera copying, photoduplication and other forms of copying allowed by "fair use"): Subject to P&P policy on copying, which prohibits photocopying of the original color photographs.

Publication and other forms of distribution: Ms. Highsmith has stipulated that her photographs are in the public domain. (See P&P Collection Files.) Photographs of sculpture or other works of art may be restricted by the copyright of the artist.

Credit Line: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, photograph by Carol M. Highsmith [reproduction number, e.g., LC-USZ62-123456]

For more information, please read: Copyright and Other Restrictions That Apply to Publication/Distribution of Images: Assessing the Risk of Using a P&P Image

Prepared by: Prints and Photographs Division staff. Last revised: Sept. 20, 2012.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[tsstahl]

TFA?

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[omnichad]

OK, it seems that the LoC might be partly at fault for the misinformation by using one of their standard text templates - at least according to the evidence presented on the case:
http://digitalcommons.law.scu....

Unfortunately, there seems to be no digital copy online of their Exhibit B - the text of the oriignal "Instrument of Gift" that gave the public access to her photos in the first place. At the very least, her intent was to make the photos freely available to use/copy but not public domain.

Of course if you read the "Assessing the Risk of Using a P&P Image" section of the web site you quoted, you'll see that they aren't claiming those records to be without fault.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[WorBlux]

How lazy are you that you can't answer the question for yourself? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[Anonymous Coward]

Punitive Damages are not about what the plaintiff wants. They are about dissuading the defendant from repeating their offence.

So how do you dissuade an an entity such as Getty? You savage their pocket book so badly that the board of directors take notice. For public corporations, you hit them so hard it affects their stock prices and subsequently their shareholders, who then would hopefully respond by replacing board members who allowed the President or CEO to take the offending actions.

In the case of corporations, the buck stops with the shareholders. There is no punishment until the shareholders feel the pain.

That's the wrong way to look at things.

First, just because the company is assessed for punitive damages, DOES NOT MEAN we give that money to the plaintiff. That's an enormous legal ethics problem, since the lawyers are going to try to claim a huge percentage of that money. The US legal system is riddled with legal problems, we need to start correcting that state of affairs, and this is a good place to start. As the right to ethical practice of law is certainly a fundamental right "retained by the people" under the 9th Amendment, all the legal justification needed already exists.

Instead, provide reasonable compensation to the plaintiff and her lawyers, and allow the plaintiff to give the remaining money to charity, preferably a charity with which she has no existing connection and hence no conflict of interest, or to medical research.

Also, a fundamental right to not have one's time wasted arises under the 9th Amendment, as a worthy right in and of itself - and thus a natural right in a free society - and also as a consequence of the right to ethical practice of law.

As such, the executives of the corporation who violated this right - or who set up policies that allowed this right to be violated - have clearly violated a major fundamental right. Unless this matter happened entirely without their knowledge, and without any negligence on their part, then they should pay substantial penalties in their own accord. Potentially the members of the board of directors should as well. At a minimum, they should be disqualified from holding any position of public trust or responsibility, including executive, management, or board positions with any corporation (and forfeiting any 'golden parachute').

Threatening people "under the color of law" - i.e. under copyright law - is clearly also a violation of fundamental rights - threats are stressful, and have negative physiological consequences. Sending somebody a false threatening letter is really no different from punching them in the face. In fact, it's preferable to the punched then subject to long term negative stress - the face heals quickly, stress leads to internal damage potentially requiring surgery to correct, and potentially taking years away from somebody's life.

Violation of fundamental rights is actionable under two sections of the US code, one of which provides for criminal penalty, the other for civil suit. A government that respects the Bill of Rights would take appropriate action to ensure that the sociopaths running corporations pay an appropriate penalty when they abuse others, and thus this is also a matter for DOJ investigation.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[WorBlux]

Copyright law doesn't clearly provide a mechanism to release works to the public domain. If it actually doesn't provide that mechanism, Ms. High-smith still holds copyright, and what sher gave away was in effect a royal-free license to every member of the public that chose to accept it. If copyright does give you the right to commit works to the public domain, a third-parties claim of copyright on the same work, is a violation of the original parties copyright by which they committed the work to the public domain. A third party claiming copyright explicit interferes with the original artists desire for the work to be freely available.

Even the link you gave noted to controversy around grants to the public domain. "The public" is not a legal entity, has no legal identity, not property, no standing in any court, nor capacity to enter into any contracts or agreements. Gifting anything to "the public" is an absurdity and should not be interpreted as such, but rather a grant of license to all members of the public while keeping the original copyright nominally intact. until it would naturally expire . Such interpretation would sever most rights under copyright, but by keeping nominal claims the owner may have standing in some cases in order to make the "public domain grant" have more teeth legally speaking.

Also under section 203, a grant to public domain may in fact be revocable in some circumstances. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

TLDR; public domain is messy, and an artist is much better served with explicit public licenses, rather than a nebulous and legally dubious concept such as a grant into the public domain.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[radarskiy]

The LoC's statement is that she has stipulated that they are PD. However, copyright law contains no mechanism for a creation to become PD other than by the passage of time.

In addition, copyright law contains no assertion that PD works become creatorless. This is the main inalienable right involved here: the right of the original creator to be factually identified as such. Since Getty is claiming *they* are the creator, they are making a false statement in commercial speech which is fraud.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[UnknowingFool]

What do you think the public domain means?

I already answered this question: Being in the public domain does not mean she gave away every single right. She specifically did not give copyright to Getty. Please read my last sentence.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[UnknowingFool]

Putting a work in public domain does not strip someone of their recognition of their work. Again, I said it very clearly: Getty cannot claim ownership of her work regardless if she put it in the public domain or not.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[Anonymous Coward]

> Being in the public domain does not mean she gave away every single right.

Yes, it does.

"Public domain" means all rights revert to the public, i.e. you can do anything with the work that the author can. No copyright protection.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[mysticgoat]

That doesn't matter. Until it is demonstrated in court that she does not have standing to press her suit, Getty Images continues to lose credibility and customers. She wins.

And if GI does take it into court and proves that the images are public domain, then its loss is even greater since that would also prove that it had been fraudulently claiming to own the non-existent copyrights. That opens the door for multiple lawsuits from its previous customers. And of course is an admission of violation of USA Federal law.

Checkmate. She wins. Getty Images best course of action is to attempt to liquidate itself while trying to cover the asses of all its highest level executives.

If the FBI is not yet investigating, it will be soon.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[Anonymous Coward]

Getty would do well to quickly offer up a very reasonable/rationa settlement - such as repaying every customer who paid for images they didn't have the right to sell and making a sizable donation to some art charity/foundation. Anything else, and they undermind the very laws that provide for their business model and very existence.

Not enough, sorry. Not when we have court judgments standing against ordinary citizens for non-commercial infringement of over $10,000 per violation.

The $1 billion would be a bargain for them to get off so easy, compared to how Getty and similar companies have treated individuals. Frankly, if I were Ms. Highsmith, I'd take the billion dollars and track down every individual non-commercial "infringer" she can find who has been the victim of such lawsuits and use the money from the lawsuit to pay them back. If there was any money left over, I'd create a victims defense fund for people who are sued for ridiculous amounts for non-commercial infringement.

It's not that I'm pro-piracy. I'm not. But I think non-commercial copyright infringement with no intent to cause harm (and sometimes unknowing infringement, in the case of photos just grabbed over the internet) shouldn't be putting individuals in the poorhouse. If the infringing fees were more reasonable (particularly for first-time offenders), that'd be one thing... but they're not. I'd be all in favor of an escalating set of penalties for repeat offenders, even.... but suing for thousands of dollars over a single violation?

Getty should settle of course , to free up the courts with many more important things , such as corporations reaming customers they maligned , cheated , lied to , screwed sideways for fun and profit , you know the really critical stuff that reflects on why the minimum wage as well as Social Security amounts are pretty close together at maturity i should say where you worked to age 66 , if you do the math it is about even , the CEO's will certainly take a bath of looses that might exceed $20.00 per check , corporations spending huge amounts to steal freely. When a corporation is caught , such as BOA they made so much every time they screwed customers , the fines or payouts no matter the size are a drop in the ocean of stolen money , same as polluters dumped toxins in the ocean by the ton at $10,000.00 a day they laughed because they made $200,000.00 a day dumping , when the amounts of penalties are suited to hurt or obliterate the corporation that would work . BUT the first defense is the poor stockholders will lose their shirts , reply OH WELL ITS ALL ABOUT INVESTING WISELY , RISK ASSESSMENT , THEY GOT CAUGHT DOING IT AGAIN , INVESTORS TAKE A BATH WOULD FIX THE PROBLEM SEE NOW?

IF there is a settlement , pronounce loudly publically and completely the terms , and no secrecy , no disclosure crap , none of the no assigned blame , wring them out to show who they really are , and this will show the lobbyists and congressional help they get , see better yet? I hope the settlement screws getty sideways as they have done over and over to anyone they came in contact with , white collar crime , murder in an Armani suit is acceptable to slap the wrist

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[toddestan]

The thing is, Getty has been caught at this before and has not straightened out. At some point the only way to deal with a repeat offender that won't change their behavior is to sue them out of existence.

Re:Rules for thee, not for me

[UnknowingFool]

"Public domain" means all rights revert to the public, i.e. you can do anything with the work that the author can. No copyright protection.

Um, no it does not. It means that the copyright owner will not enforce their copyrights in certain ways. It does not mean that she gave Getty ownership of said copyright. Even by your logic, Getty cannot claim ownership at all as it belongs to everyone.

A billion in damages?!

[Anonymous Coward]

I can see a couple million.. but come on a Billion?!

Re:A billion in damages?!

[Anonymous Coward]

That is for 18,000 pictures. That comes out to $55,555.56 per picture. For willful infringement that can be up to $150,000 per infringement.

Sounds like she is giving them a discount!

Re: A billion in damages?!

[Anonymous Coward]

Hopefully they just remove any and all rights to images Getty currently has.

Re:A billion in damages?!

[Calydor]

There are roughly 18,000 pictures. 1,000,000,000 / 18,000 = 55555,55.

A bit of rounding suggests they're being sued for 50,000 per image.

Re:A billion in damages?!

[Stephenmg]

How many times have they tried to collect $120 on 18,000 images? Have to make it hurt to get Getty images to change practices.

Re:A billion in damages?!

[locofungus]

151. GettyÃââs violations of 17 U.S.C. ÃÂ 1202 entitle Ms. Highsmith to recover, among
other things, and if she so elects as provided in 17 U.S.C. à1203(c)(3)(B), ÃâÅ"an award of
statutory damages for each violation of section 1202 in the sum of not less than $2,500 or more
than $25,000.ÃâÂ
                152. When Getty is found to have committed one violation of 17 U.S.C. ÃÂ 1202 for
each of the 18,755 results of a search for ÃâÅ"Carol M. HighsmithÃâ on GettyÃââs website, Ms.
Highsmith would be entitled to recover, among other things, and if she so elects, aggregate
statutory damages against Getty of not less than forty-six million, eight hundred eighty-seven
thousand five hundred dollars ($46,887,500) and not more than four hundred sixty-eight
million, eight hundred seventy-five thousand dollars ($468,875,000).
                153. Additionally, because Getty has already had a final judgment entered against it in
the past three years in the Morel v. Getty case, the Court may treble the statutory damages in
this case.

Re:A billion in damages?!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but the suer is not **AA, so we should not be outraged now.

Re:A billion in damages?!

[Anonymous Coward]

I can see a couple million.. but come on a Billion?!

Because now it's willful.

They know that they don't own the copyright, and they're still claiming copyright and selling them to other people without proper attribution.

Willful copyright violations are expensive.

Re: A billion in damages?!

[Anonymous Coward]

Small and "reasonable" amounts do no good discouraging future behavior.

Re:A billion in damages?!

[NatasRevol]

The previous final judgement & treble damages is really going to fuck Getty.

Re:A billion in damages?!

[Anonymous Coward]

I would bet she's giving them more of a discount that you're suggesting, I bet she's TAKEN 18k images, Getty has probably sold the images tens of thousands of times at the very least. Assuming that they only sold about half of the images only 100 times each that is almost a million infringements. That is only $1k per infringement and I'm imagining that that those are extremely conservative numbers. I hope she does take them to the cleaners, this kind of flagrant abuse of patent/copyright needs to be nuked from orbit. Legal action on copyright/patent infringement should only be taken when the party is sure they own the patent and someone is blatantly violating it, not on a whim against anyone who is possibly infringing in any possible way.

Re:A billion in damages?!

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm, in Brazil, the court would act on it as if it were "willful infringement", and Getty would have to be *very* careful on their defense or else they would also get "in bad faith" added, which makes it much harder to actually win the court case, as they would be assumed to be lying at everything, every time.

Re:A billion in damages?!

[Holi]

Nope she is suing for 400 Million, a previous case allows for treble damages because Getty has a history of pulling this crap.

Re:A billion in damages?!

[pz]

The amount will, of course, be determined during discovery when Getty is forced to reveal the number of times they actually sold a license for each of her images. The three-times-$400M amount bandied about is assuming maximum value on each image, and one violation per image. That's a place to start, and gives a scale for the potentially massive size a judgement could take, but is unlikely to be found to be accurate in the end.

Re:A billion in damages?!

[Areyoukiddingme]

The amount will, of course, be determined during discovery when Getty is forced to reveal the number of times they actually sold a license for each of her images. The three-times-$400M amount bandied about is assuming maximum value on each image, and one violation per image. That's a place to start, and gives a scale for the potentially massive size a judgement could take, but is unlikely to be found to be accurate in the end.

The actual value is irrelevant when calculating the statutory damages. This is why Jammie Thomas-Rasset who got sued and lost for pirating 24 songs owes $1.92 million. (Which will never get paid.) The quoted $468 million is the ceiling for damages provided for by law, regardless of real damages, without factoring in willful infringement, as in the Thomas-Rasset case. Using the Thomas-Rasset award for willful infringement as the benchmark (which a judge would consider perfectly reasonable), the damages per violation is $80,000 on each image, out of a possible $150,000, times the number of violations per image. $1.5 billion is the lower bound, by law and precedent. The Thomas-Rasset case was upheld on appeal, so it establishes binding precedent for its federal district, and persuasive precedent everywhere else. Discovery will only make that go up.

Undoubtedly Getty Images will refuse to pay. I suspect in order to actually get the damages, this woman will have to pull the stunt that Warren and Maureen Nyerges did to Bank of America: show up at their offices with two sheriff's deputies and a moving van and start confiscating their furniture.

Re:A billion in damages?!

[pz]

the damages per violation is $80,000 on each image, out of a possible $150,000, times the number of violations per image.

Exactly my point. They don't know yet how many violations per image. The document quoted assumes exactly one violation per image. That is unlikely to be true. It is a justifiable inaccuracy to assume one violation per image as a starting point, but until discovery is complete, the figure is not accurately known. It may be substantially higher, it may be substantially lower.

My understanding is that Getty's offering of licensing is not in and of itself illegal with regard to this case, but the selling of licenses, that is taking money from a licensee under false pretense, is the issue. We don't know how many such licenses were actually sold, yet. Given the vast number of images, my bet is that the total number of licenses sold is going to be substantially below 1 per image on average. I also bet that Getty is busy calculating the actual number.

Re:A billion in damages?!

[david_thornley]

If I remember the law correctly, the statutory amount is based on number of copyrighted works,not the number of violations. In that case, counting one violation per image is correct.

No surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

I've had photos stolen in this way by "journalists", who completely strip attribution. I don't really mind because I'm just a hobbyist and would rather people enjoy the images, but this is quite damaging to the profession - which, I'm sorry to say, is fairly noble and still employs a lot of people.

Glad to see some manipulative corporate asshats get caught with their hand in the cookie jar.

Re:No surprise

[Jason Levine]

As a counter-point, I've worked with companies who contacted my wife and I because they wanted to use a photo we posted for an ad campaign of theirs. We agreed, they paid us (not a lot of money, but a decent amount for one image), and everyone walked away happy. It makes it all the more infuriating when you realize just how easy it is to do the right thing and credit/pay photographers for their work. It's sheer laziness coupled with a "we won't get caught and if we do we'll lawyer our way out" attitude that leads to companies thinking that they can abuse others' copyrights - often while complaining about how people abuse their copyrights.

Re:No surprise

[Bob the Super Hamste]

Your experience sounds not all that different from mine, permission wise but I don't charge as I know the people who ask. My wife is a quilter and has published several quilt books and so have some of her quilt friends. As I have some really nice photo gear I am often told to help out and take pictures of quilts and projects to help out. I still use film so I do ask that they pay for the film and developing costs but I deliver to them some very nice pictures and just request that I be properly credited, so I have around 200 photos that are credited to me.

Getty threatened her is how she found out

[UnknowingFool]

Ironically the photographer found out when LCS threatened her with copyright infringement unless she paid $120 after she used one of her own photos. Getty does not acknowledge their relationship with LCS however LCS uses the same address as Getty's corporate office. I would suspect LCS is their enforcement subsidiary so that they don't get negative press.

Re:Getty threatened her is how she found out

[Anonymous Coward]

Ironically the photographer found out when LCS threatened her with copyright infringement unless she paid $120 after she used one of her own photos. Getty does not acknowledge their relationship with LCS however LCS uses the same address as Getty's corporate office. I would suspect LCS is their enforcement subsidiary so that they don't get negative press.

Naw, Getty needs to be the ones to pay. They're relationship with LCS is a different matter entirely and they're acting on Getty's behalf. With any luck, she will end up owning Getty; then as owner of Getty, she can sue LCS into oblivion for damaging Getty's reputation.

With any luck this will be a double corporate death sentence.,/p>

Re:Getty threatened her is how she found out

[UnknowingFool]

They're relationship with LCS is a different matter entirely and they're acting on Getty's behalf.

I don't know the relationship, however, if LCS is acting on Getty's behalf, it means they are an authorized agent of Getty which makes Getty responsible for their behavior. Despite whatever LCS relationship exists, it is clear that Getty sold her images and therefore violated her copyright.

Re:Getty threatened her is how she found out

[Anonymous Coward]

Naw, Getty needs to be the ones to pay. They're relationship with LCS is a different matter entirely and they're acting on Getty's behalf. With any luck, she will end up owning Getty; then as owner of Getty, she can sue LCS into oblivion for damaging Getty's reputation.

DNS records show that LCS' listed address is 605 5th Avenue South, Suite 400 Seattle, Washington, which is Getty Images' corporate address.

Getty is LCS.

LCS is Getty.

Re:Getty threatened her is how she found out

[locofungus]

Even more fun, in their original letter to her they said:

                97. The Letter went on to state as follows: "Although this infringement might have
been unintentional, use of an image without a valid license is considered copyright infringement
in violation of the Copyright Act, Title 17, United States Code. This copyright law
entitles Alamy to seek compensation for any license infringement."

              104. In the "Frequently Asked Questions" section of the Letter, the answer to the
question "What if I didn't know?" includes the following language: "You may have employed a
third party, former worker or intern to design and develop your company's site. However, the
liability of any infringement ultimately falls on the company (the end user) who hired that party,
employee or intern." The answer to the question "What if I simply remove the image?"Â
includes the following language: "While we appreciate the effort of removing the material in
question from your site, we still need compensation. Your company has benefited by using our
imagery without our permission. As the unauthorized use has already occurred, payment for that
benefit is necessary."

Hoist by their own petard.

Re:Getty threatened her is how she found out

[UnknowingFool]

The relationship between LCS and Getty will be uncovered. LCS might be another company that Getty has hired which uses Getty office space. Or they are owned by Getty. We don't know at this point.

Re:Getty threatened her is how she found out

[taustin]

With any luck, she will end up owning Getty;

You obviously have no idea how much money the Getty has. A billion dollars is not even enough to affect the CEOs bonus. Not even a speed bump. It's nearly petty cash.

Re:Getty threatened her is how she found out

[UnknowingFool]

She may not "own" Getty but copyright law is pretty specific about statutory damages. Per work it can be $750 to $30,000. If she can prove that Getty was willful then the penalty can be up to $150,000 per infringement in this case, each sale. Of course the courts can reduce the amount to $200 per infringement. If Getty sold 1,000 photos of hers that's $200,000 minimum in statutory damages. By her lawyer's estimate, Getty could be liable for $468,875,000 at least .

Re:Getty threatened her is how she found out

[Khyber]

"DNS records show that LCS' listed address is 605 5th Avenue South, Suite 400 Seattle, Washington, which is Getty Images' corporate address."

Just speaking from personal experience, many times, 'corporate addresses' are some cheap-ass rent-a-virtual-office.

You can find a Papa John's, Apple Repair Tech, Divorce Lawyer, and Games Design Company all in the same address of buildings that look very much like that of Getty Images.

Re:Getty threatened her is how she found out

[Anonymous Coward]

105. A judge will read these in your face if you're a commoner.

106. Most of this shit won't apply if you're Too Big To Fail.

Re:FUCKING MILLENNIAL SNOWFLAKES

[Anonymous Coward]

Grow the fuck up you asshole. She's in her fucking 70's, donated 18k photos for public use and Getty is stealing them, charging for their use.

If you had half a fucking brain and were able to read you may not sound like suck an anal conservative closeted sex freak.

Fuckin old smelly sysadmin who never bathes.

YouTube defense

[Anonymous Coward]

"We didn't know! It was that darn user's fault! We'll make sure to delete photos if you go through our service and find every infringing photo. Thanks!"

Getty screwed up

[MAXOMENOS]

If you dig around a bit, you'll see that the artist did not make her photos public domain. She licensed them to the Library of Congress and gave a permissive license for anyone else to use them --- presumably including to sell them --- as long as users give notification that the these are the photographer's work. Nonetheless, she retains copyright. This is basically a BSD-style license. Getty is not only suing her for using her own copyrighted work, but is also not informing customers that they're her work, in violation of the license. She's suing to preserve the terms of her license.

Re:Getty screwed up

[Jhon]

You should write article summaries for /.

Seriously.

Re:Getty screwed up

[taustin]

Well, somebody should. The monkeys aren't doing a very good job.

Re:Getty screwed up

[paiute]

Well, somebody should. The monkeys aren't doing a very good job.

The monkeys were laid off years ago. The summaries are now written by rabid prairie dogs.

Re:Getty screwed up

[sconeu]

I heard the prairie dogs were trying to unionize, so /. will be hiring mongooses (or mongeese) from India using H1-B visas. The prairie dogs will have to train their replacements...

Re:Getty screwed up

[Khyber]

It wouldn't matter. Editors have re-written summaries that we've made nice and succinct, and turned them into a huge mess many times before.

Re:Getty screwed up

[Holi]

Maybe you should dig harder. Instead of going to random sites, get your info from the source.

"Publication and other forms of distribution: Ms. Highsmith has stipulated that her photographs are in the public domain. (See P&P Collection Files.) Photographs of sculpture or other works of art may be restricted by the copyright of the artist."
https://www.loc.gov/rr/print/r...

According to the LoC her work is very much in the public domain.

Re:Getty screwed up

[cdrudge]

The actual license paperwork that was attached as Exhibit B to the court filing may not have actually put it in the public domain. Parts are similar, but there also were restrictions (single-use, attribution requirements) that in my IANAL opinion prevent it from actually being in the public domain.

Re:Getty screwed up

[Holi]

Then this may be a case of the LoC screwing up as her works are listed as public domain.

Re:Getty screwed up

[Holi]

But thank you, you are the only person making the claim to back it up with evidence.

Re:FUCKING MILLENNIAL SNOWFLAKES

[rickb928]

Please do not feed the ACs. They will only multiply.

Re:FUCKING MILLENNIAL SNOWFLAKES

[Calydor]

Look up public domain images.

Pick some you like.

Use them.

Get threatening letters from Getty for using them.

How the FUCK does that not hurt the average person who just wanted to use a few free images?

Re:FUCKING MILLENNIAL SNOWFLAKES

[zenlessyank]

As you feed the AC??

As someone who has been on the wrong end

[Overzeetop]

As someone who has been on the wrong end of a letter from Getty's lawyers concerning a set of images which were bought (on a CD) with the impression that they were already properly licensed, I hope she wins every fucking penny.

Re:As someone who has been on the wrong end

[wardrich86]

So wait... you bought a CD of images from Getty, and they told you to fuck off and stop using them?

Re:As someone who has been on the wrong end

[UnknowingFool]

Depends on the situation. From what I understand the OP bought a CD of images thinking that the purchase of said CD was a license. The OP then used the images. For the sake of argument, Getty owned the images and not the CD seller, Getty can sue the OP for infringement; however, they cannot sue for willful infringement as the OP in good faith believed he or she properly licensed the image. Any amount that Getty collected from the OP, the OP can then sue the CD seller. However all this takes time in court to resolve. A court however probably would not have fined the OP much and would have been okay with the OP merely removing the images. Again it may be a long legal hassle should Getty chose to pursue. Of course, Getty could be dicks about it the whole time.

Re:As someone who has been on the wrong end

[Anonymous Coward]

I would like to be on that Jury also.

Re:As someone who has been on the wrong end

[Overzeetop]

Exactly. In fact, it was my web site creator who bought (several) commercial/shrink-wrapped CDs of "royalty free" images to use. It was 5-6 years before I got the letter asking for ~$2200 in fees for 3-4 images. Turns out royalty free simply means that a fee is not due for every single impression, but the images required a license for each image to be used.

Going to court would have cost me in the $10k-30k range, presuming I would win. Of course, the developer didn't even have all of the CDs any more, and the ones she had contained so little information it would have been impossible to track down the companies, even if they existed. After $350 in legal fees to review the conditions and send out a form letter, Getty countered for $1400. I sent in the check and vowed I would never again pay a single penny to Getty for anything. Any stock company I use which has been bought by Getty I have eliminated from my purchasing list (it's happened at least twice so far).

Stock media

[wardrich86]

I always thought the purpose of Stock media was a way to provide pictures/music/video to the public for them to use for free. Is that not their purpose?

Re:Stock media

[i.r.id10t]

More of a subscription license to whatever copyrighted images they have. Basically one stop shopping for licensed works to use in your print or web publications.

Re:Stock media

[Solandri]

They're not free. When you buy a CD (or DVD) of stock photos, the fee you paid for the CD or DVD includs licensing rights for you to use those photos commercially.

That's the way it used to work. The web changed all that by cutting out the middleman so to speak. You didn't need to buy an entire DVD full of images 99.9% of which you'd never use. You could go to the website of a stock photos company and license only the photos you wanted to use. Getty is one of those companies.

I'm more curious how Getty ended up thinking they owned the copyright on those images. If they misappropriated her photos, it's possible they misappropriated photos belonging to less-famous people by simply lifting them off web sites. I would propose Getty be forced to produce documentation (contracts for photos shot as work for hire, licensing rights for photos licensed, etc) for every single one of the photos they offer for sale. It's not unreasonable - that's what they ask you to do if they claim you're using one of their photos in violation of copyright. Now that their copyright "chain of custody" has been found to be flawed, they need to do the same for every photo they're using.

Re:Stock media

[Anonymous Coward]

I have seen a case where Getty has not been able to establish their ownership/licensing of the image at the alleged time it was used or produce verifiable pricing for that image that was available on other media. They clammed up fast after they were not able to do so.

Re:Stock media

[Anonymous Coward]

I always thought the purpose of Stock media was a way to provide pictures/music/video to the public for them to use for a small fee (photogs/artists gotta eat).

FTFY.

Re:Stock media

[omnichad]

I'm more curious how Getty ended up thinking they owned the copyright on those images.

I assume it went something like this:
1) Scrape all freely shared images from LoC, assuming they're public domain.
2) Sell licenses to access their copy of the photos without mentioning that the images were freely available elsewhere
3) "Accidentally" include these images in the index they provide to their copyright enforcement arm.

Re:Stock media

[wardrich86]

Thanks for the clarification. So is there a term for truly free photos and media?

getty?

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't worry, SystemD will soon eat that one too.

The intent of Copyright

[s.petry]

Has historically little to do with the artists. We have trials recorded from a couple hundred years ago where companies buying copyrights (often artists were required to transfer ownership just to publish a book) wanted extended duration for Copyright and increases in penalties. Meanwhile, the artists giving up the copyright were left broke and their families received nothing from their works.

IMHO a long ago fix would have been to remove the ability of Copyright ownership by a company and make them to people only. Larger productions can have multiple owners.

Re:The intent of Copyright

[idontgno]

The intent of Copyright Has historically little to do with the artists.

Your statement reflects a common-sense but inaccurate understanding of the word "artists" in this context.

"Artist" is short for "Con artist", who tricks creators of cultural artifacts into surrendering their copyrights for pennies and then tricks users of those cultural artifacts into paying to access them. See also "rent seeker", "grifter" and "bridge seller".

Re:The intent of Copyright

[MickyTheIdiot]

I have been trying to promote that as idea for years. I see no reason corporations should be allowed to own copyrights. They shouldn't be allowed to force licensing in perpetuity either.

Re:The intent of Copyright

[tepples]

Ownership by the individual or individuals credited as the film's producer or producers and an exclusive license to a corporation for the life of the copyright would have exactly the same practical effect as a corporate owner. Or if you plan to abolish "work made for hire" entirely, even if the person doing the hiring is an individual, who would own copyright in a motion picture with a cast and crew of hundreds?

Re:The intent of Copyright

[arth1]

Ownership by the individual or individuals credited as the film's producer or producers and an exclusive license to a corporation for the life of the copyright would have exactly the same practical effect as a corporate owner.

Perpetual licenses seems a very bad idea in the first place. I see no reason why they shouldn't have to be renegotiated yearly, by law, so if something becomes a success, the actual owner gets a bigger share.

Or if you plan to abolish "work made for hire" entirely, even if the person doing the hiring is an individual, who would own copyright in a motion picture with a cast and crew of hundreds?

I think one should be able to abolish "work made for hire after the fact", i.e. that only something made while in employ and on company time can be considered property of a company.

Re:The intent of Copyright

[tepples]

Perpetual licenses seems a very bad idea in the first place. I see no reason why they shouldn't have to be renegotiated yearly, by law

If it becomes standard practice for a motion picture's producer to own its copyright, then studios could make it a standard practice to require producers to defer royalties for a year and further require producers to forfeit royalties earned during the previous year if the producer declines to renew the license. Otherwise, if a producer can take the royalties and run, studios would be unwilling to give producers hundreds of millions of dollars to make motion pictures.

Watermark...

[Anonymous Coward]

As a photographer that had an entire album stolen from my Facebook page and used on another website without authorization or attribution, I have learned the hard way to boldly watermark every photo posted anywhere. Live and learn.

$1 billion is actually pretty reasonable

[Solandri]

The music industry set the bar at $22,500 per violation ($675,000 for 30 works) for an individual violating copyright without a profit motive. $1 billion for 18,000 works is only $55,555 per violation, which is relative to the Tenenbaum case is not unreasonable when you consider this is commercial copyright violation. Her lawyers are actually being nice by "only" asking for $1 billion. Copyright law allows her to sue for up to $150,000 per violation, which would be a cool $2.7 billion.

In other words, if she gets less than $22,500 * 18,000 = $405 million out of this, there's been a gross miscarriage of justice either in her case or the Tenenbaum cause. Unlike filesharing, what Getty Images did is precisely the sort of thing copyright law was made to prohibit - profiting off the work of others.

Re:$1 billion is actually pretty reasonable

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately, for the rich and powerful -- to paraphrase the head of the FBI -- no reasonable judge would find them to be infringing. :-\

Re:$1 billion is actually pretty reasonable

[arth1]

Copyright law allows her to sue for up to $150,000 per violation, which would be a cool $2.7 billion.

Far more than that. 18,000 is the number of images they appropriated.

Now add $150,000 for every time they've sold "rights" to one of those images, either individually, or in any and all catalogs they might have been in.

Re:$1 billion is actually pretty reasonable

[ItsJustAPseudonym]

It's pretty staggering. That would move her far up the list of GDPs by country.

Simple...

[Anonymous Coward]

...is she put them into the public domain, Getty, me, you, anyone, can use them as we see fit. Sell, alter, etc.

Re:Simple...

[Anonymous Coward]

And hit the copyright holder (she still holds the copyright, she just gave the LoC an open ended license) with an "infringement" letter demanding money? That's a little like suggesting a grandma who let her grandson (LoC) use her summer home on occasion gave "permission" for his friend (Getty) to rent it out on the side. That and after the grandma showed up for a to use the house the friend of the grandson tried to charge her rent as well for using her own summer home.

Re:Simple...

[Anonymous Coward]

...is she put them into the public domain, Getty, me, you, anyone, can use them as we see fit. Sell, alter, etc.

1) They are not public domain, they are royalty-free, attribution required; i.e., she retained the copyright.

2) Getty is claiming copyright, which you can't do even if they were public domain.

Re: F***ING MILLENNIAL SNOWFLAKES

[mschwanke97402]

F***ing millennial snowflakes getting their panties in a wad because someone else does something they don't like that doesn't hurt them. It must be a form of bullying. Sue! Sue! Sue! Whine! Whine! Whine! Sue! Sue! Sue!

Did you even read the original post and source material? Getty attempted to extract compensation from the original creator, and legal owner, of the work. They also charged others for use of the work without any legal right to do so or any thought of royalty payment to the owner of the work. Its got nothing to do with millenials.

Go try and sell copies of any Hollywood movie on a commercial scale without permission. You'll be headed for jail. The only difference here is it isn't a billion dollar corporation it's a little old lady. I guess they don't count and they don't have rights in your view.

Finally, take your foul mouthed, brain-dead commentary elsewhere, this isn't Twitter, though you are a twit, This is one of the few message forums where there is still some reasonable, intelligent discussion!

Getty and NASA?

[Anonymous Coward]

Getty now sells NASA on-orbit and other spaceflight images. These images are available through NASA, already bought and paid for with tax dollars. How Getty sells any of them at lower res than NASA supplies for $500+ is beyond comprehension.

Re:SUCK MY BALLS

[Khyber]

Very apropos for her - she seems to have more testicular fortitude than most lawyers.

FEED ME!

[Anonymous Coward]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Public Domain

[Holi]

I am not sure she has standing anymore.
The idea we see here, that she licensed her work to the LoC, does not seem to be accurate. According to the LoC it seems that she has relinquished her rights and intentionally placed her works in the public domain. This would mean that the works can be used for any purpose, commercial or private, without her having any say. This does not excuse the false copyright claim but it would also remove any standing she would have had.

From the LoC site.
"Publication and other forms of distribution: Ms. Highsmith has stipulated that her photographs are in the public domain. (See P&P Collection Files.) Photographs of sculpture or other works of art may be restricted by the copyright of the artist."

my source:
https://www.loc.gov/rr/print/r...

Re:Public Domain

[cdrudge]

It's going to depend on interpretation of Exhibit B that is mentioned in the original complaint. I'd think that it would trump the LoC webpage if the LoC can't produce a superseding agreement regarding the copyrights. It does say that the Highsmith "dedicate to the public all rights, including copyrights throughout the world". I'm not sure if "dedicate" legally means the same as putting it in the public domain or otherwise relinquishing the copyrights. It also includes restrictions for single-copy reproductions and reproduction credit be given back to Highsmith.

Re:Public Domain

[Anonymous Coward]

The summary is misleading. Selling public domain images is fine. Problem is Getty is claiming to own the copyright for her images.

Re:FUCKING MILLENNIAL SNOWFLAKES

[Anonymous Coward]

He sounds like a troll. Not like a conservative.

Most small-government conservatives are very big on individual property rights. Unlike progressives who think the government is the end-all-be-all.

Take a look at Kelo. The horrible conservatives ruled against eminent domain and the wonderful progressives ruled for eminent domain. /GLM

Oh, It's Simple, All Right...

[maz2331]

The technicalities of her grant of rights requires attribution, and do not give any right to sub-license the works. They are well and truly screwed in this case. Even if they claim that they were merely acting as an agent for someone else who submitted the pics to them, they failed to do proper due diligence to ensure that whoever that person was actually had the rights to begin with.

And this sure appears to be a case brought by someone with legitimate standing who wants to have very severe punishment imposed, and is one where the evidence is public and incontrovertible.

Following Disney's lead

[Martin S.]

Disney have been doing this for years with public domain and other content and getting away with it using their army of lawyers crush their opponents. Their stolen works, which will get them suing you including Rudyard Kipling, Robert Louis Stephenson, Winnie the Poo and even European fairy tales that are hundred of years old.

Re: F***ING MILLENNIAL SNOWFLAKES

[clonehappy]

Anyone who gets the, ahem, pleasure of browsing at -1 consistently know this troll has been posting the same crap in nearly every article's comment section for like a week now. It's nothing against this particular article, just lowest-common-denominator trolling on the level of links to goatse, etc. Don't feed it.

It's statutory damages, not compensatory.

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's say you have a victimless crime, such as punching someone in the dark. Nelson goes around punching people and nobody complains, but then Principal Skinner finds out. So Skinner sends Nelson to detention. The detention isn't to "right the wrong." It's to hurt Nelson, and for the people who got punched in the dark, the pleasure of seeing Nelson stuck in detention is just a bonus. They get to say "HA HA!" and Nelson is further discouraged.

So while Highsmith maybe wasn't out a billion dollars, whatever revenue Getty has ever made, should be taken away from them as a painful message to future crooks. That Highsmith gets the money is almost irrelevent; they point is that Getty will lose it, and Highsmith gets to rub their nose in the fact that whatever they lost, she also gained. HA HA!

avoid this hassle

[Cederic]

I get away without having to deal with all this hassle by being such a shit photographer that nobody tries to sell my photos.

Lawyer GREED and lawyer JOKES

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like they will settle. Sounds like they want a settlement. Sounds like the goal is to settle.

This is basically a SLAP suit. That conflated sounds Jewish.

What Getty deserves, but law is not on her side.

[psherman2001]

I truly dislike Getty due to the fact that they use an ENORMOUS number of public domain images, and try to pass themselves off as having ownership rights. It is selfish and disgusting. And there should be a way to punish entities who do this. (You might be surprised how many places do this, including taxpayer funded museums here in the USA...)
However, the Library of Congress page of "Carol M. Highsmith - Rights and Restrictions Information" at:
https://www.loc.gov/rr/print/r...
States:
"Carol M. Highsmith's photographs are in the public domain."

The article that appears on PDNPULSE:
http://pdnpulse.pdnonline.com/...
"Highsmith says she never abandoned her copyrights to the images. She says the Library of Congress had agreed to notify users of the images that she is the author, and that users must credit her."

If the images are public domain, she did not retain the right to enforce accreditation.
What she is describing would be equivalent to a Creative Commons Attribution License.
http://opendefinition.org/lice...

Part of the reason for a cc-by license is to stop greedy folks from reselling and trying to "own" what would otherwise be public domain works. Of course, those of us who work at organizing, editing and adding our own works to the public domain on sites such as my wpclipart.com, cannot touch anything with a cc-by license.

What would be much better is if there was a legal mechanism to punish people for falsely claiming rights/ownership of images.
Without it, greedy companies/entities are continually narrowing what is available in the public domain.

Oh you!

[Sir Holo]

Oh those "IP Pirates" are really making it hard for the mega-corps to make a decent living...

Wait, this is a mega-corp pirating from an individual?

To all slashdotters: Torrent on!

Re:Oh you!

[Anonymous Coward]

excellent point, and you stated it well.

You just unveiled lawyer motivation and MPAA/RIAA motivation without the Jewish link. I usually add the Jewish part.

A Proper Token of Atonement . . .

[Gnostic Teflon]

A Proper Token of Atonement for all the myriad sins the copyright abuser industry engages in would be Bill Gates issuing a public apology and then donating all of the photo stock of Getty Images to the Library of Congress, including all rights pertaining thereto. It would show that even fatcats can be magnanimous. Bwahahaha . . .

Re: F***ING MILLENNIAL SNOWFLAKES

[david_thornley]

I can sell F/OS software. The licenses allow me to do so, and I believe the ability to sell is considered important both by the FSF and the OSI. I don't have to compensate anyone.

Of course, I can't remove attribution. If I do, then I've violated the license and am selling copyrighted works without a license, and the MAFIAA has made sure you can send legions of avenging angels/devils/whatever to scourge the earth and sow salt where once I stood. At least if I'm in the US. I also shouldn't legally threaten people for having their independently obtained versions of the software, and I don't know how bad that is. If I send a DMCA takedown notice, I'm committing perjury.