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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.
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.
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.