Photographer Suing Getty Images for $1B • Hacker News Board

Re: Photographer Suing Getty Images for $1B

#61

Post by tzs » Thu, Jul 28, 2016, 3:33 PM UTC

Spare_account wrote: post #51

LoSboccacc wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

many works are distributed under dual licensing and how you obtained the files define it's license. now what I don't know is the legality of attaching a license to a redistribution of a public domain work - technically one can claim recompression is transformative and that you hold a license to the altered work, in which case the origin of the file matters in defining if third parties are infringing (and this is why…

What does IAMNYL mean? I googled it but I didn't come up with anything

Others have already answered the question, but let me add to their answers that "I Am Not Your Lawyer" is usually rendered as IANYL, not IAMNYL, which is why you could not find it.

More common is IANAL, which means "I Am Not A Lawyer".

Re: Photographer Suing Getty Images for $1B

#62

Post by morninj » Thu, Jul 28, 2016, 3:41 PM UTC

finnh wrote: post #58

morninj wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Gross negligence" means you really really should have known of the risk. But it's still a contradiction to say that someone was deliberately grossly negligent.

Not really, I don't think. That's basically the idea behind deniability - you kinda sort know about something, but you kinda sort make sure you never actually know about it. Gross negligence is often more along the lines of "we are 99.999% sure you are lying, but we can't prove it".

No. The Wikipedia article linked above says:

    In Wilson v Brett Baron Rolfe (later Lord Cranworth) said he "could see no difference between negligence and gross negligence; that it was the same thing, with the addition of a vituperative epithet."

Re: Photographer Suing Getty Images for $1B

#63

Post by dpark » Thu, Jul 28, 2016, 3:43 PM UTC

stevefeinstein wrote: post #47

pavel_lishin wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might be able to sell prints, but you can't sell the rights to display those prints. You certainly can't come into people's homes and demand that they pay you for a copy you got from the Library itself.

I think you can, if you generate a derivative work. And I would bet that could be something as insignificant as color correction of the image.

Pretty sure that doesn't qualify as a derivative work. Changes must be substantive. Otherwise correcting a typo in a book would give you a copyright for that correction, preventing others (including the original publisher) from making the same correction.

Moreover, the photographer here certainly didn't use any "derivative" from Getty. So even if Getty could claim copyright on their "derivative", they cannot justly claim copyright over the original.

Re: Photographer Suing Getty Images for $1B

#64

Post by frobozz » Thu, Jul 28, 2016, 3:43 PM UTC

colomon wrote: post #55

dublinben wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That $2 pays for the physical paper copy of the book. You aren't buying a license though, because they can't legally sell you one. It's pretty clear here that Getty was selling something (licenses) they had no right to sell. Trying to enforce these fraudulent "licenses" was just the icing on the cake.

The Kindle edition is 99 cents.

This Kindle edition is free:

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4300.kindle.images

I assume that the 99c one comes with some feature other than the text - e.g. convenience, formatting, something else.

The 99c is not a licence fee for the text of Ulysses, and if Amazon tried to sue me for having the Gutenberg version on my Kindle, they would get the Arkell v. Pressdram response.

Re: Photographer Suing Getty Images for $1B

#65

Post by CodeSheikh » Thu, Jul 28, 2016, 3:44 PM UTC

People working at Getty and blindly sending cease-and-desist letters should be fired at once. These guys are similar to debt collectors and harassment is their virtue. They could have at least spend sometime time researching about her. Maybe Getty would have been $1 Billion richer today. She should be compensated for something at least.

Re: Photographer Suing Getty Images for $1B

#66

Post by dragonwriter » Thu, Jul 28, 2016, 3:45 PM UTC

morninj wrote: post #12

dublinben wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's likely that Getty have also fraudulently charged many other customers licenses for these photos. It's not inconceivable that each of them could individually sue Getty for their own damages. This looks like it could become a very expensive case of sloppy (or deliberately negligent) copyright overreach.

Nit: by definition, negligence can't be deliberate. Edit: "negligence" means you should have known of the risk. "Recklessness" means you knew of the risk but acted anyway.

> Edit: "negligence" means you should have known of the risk. "Recklessness" means you knew of the risk but acted anyway.

No, "negligence", in law, means you failed to act according to the duty of care you owed, which can include knowing about a risk but failing to act reasonably to mitigate it as much as it can include not knowing about a risk that one reasonably should have known about.

Negligence and recklessness are not mutually exclusive

Re: Photographer Suing Getty Images for $1B

#67

Post by cloudjacker » Thu, Jul 28, 2016, 3:49 PM UTC

> public domain

> but are falsely and fraudulently holding themselves out as the exclusive copyright owner (and suing others)

So the federal government should be suing them instead of the photographer? It doesn't seem like the copyright office has its own enforcement agency, so it probably would be up to the photographer to start a proceeding, since nobody else will.

This makes her attempt to get copyright damages to be a red herring which could undermine her entire case.

Therefore, I realize she has no claims, except the single one where Getty tried to sue her for using her own public domain images.

Re: Photographer Suing Getty Images for $1B

#68

Post by tzs » Thu, Jul 28, 2016, 3:51 PM UTC

StavrosK wrote: post #5

Isn't the problem here that she donated all her photos to the Library of Congress without clarifying what that meant? Apparently, the LoC thought that the photos were placed in the public domain, and the photographer thought she was retaining the copyrights. Also, why the hell is Getty charging for public domain photos? Are they not aware that people can use those without paying Getty?

> Also, why the hell is Getty charging for public domain photos?

The article was not clear on where Getty got the photos. If they did not get them from the Library of Congress, they might not have known that they are (purportedly) public domain.

Re: Photographer Suing Getty Images for $1B

#69

Post by chillydawg » Thu, Jul 28, 2016, 3:52 PM UTC

anc84 wrote: post #53

onli wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, the copyright those nicer versions sometimes claim already lead to this exact situation, with publishers making the case that the derivative work should be awarded new copyright. Here however it is clear-cut, the photos are not modified.

Oh but surely the images were optimised for computer display in a non-trivial process!

That's actually not totally unreasonable. Also maybe getty ran some clever image recognition to auto tag them up and organise them all? That's all a useful charge-able service. Going after existing usage is clearly BS, though.

Re: Photographer Suing Getty Images for $1B

#70

Post by 6stringmerc » Thu, Jul 28, 2016, 3:55 PM UTC

My goodness gracious, I hope she wins and helps inform other Copyright-based individual professionals of the avenues that are available when one's work is being exploited in ways that aren't legal (the whole "pay us a penalty" aspect here, not the selling Public Domain stuff which is okay). Good for her. Will stay tuned to see how this plays out.