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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.
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?
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
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.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
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.
I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
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.
Hard to sue:
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.
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.
Well, somebody should. The monkeys aren't doing a very good job.
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.
Unfortunately, for the rich and powerful -- to paraphrase the head of the FBI -- no reasonable judge would find them to be infringing. :-\
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.
You can get rich if you own a politician, but you have to be rich to buy one in the first place.
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?