I’m seeing lots of analogies here, but are they really necessary? A rights company notorious for fiercely defending its own copyrights flagrantly violates those of a photographer, appropriating and then aggressively defending illegitimate copyright over her work. Is this not a straightforward enough situation to explain without the overhead of analogy-making?
Photographer Suing Getty Images for $1B
71–80 of 165 posts
Re: Photographer Suing Getty Images for $1B
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
I'm not sure which law school taught you that, but it's just wrong. Here's a law review article that discusses the differences in mental state between negligence and recklessness: http://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=...
Re: Photographer Suing Getty Images for $1B
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Kindle edition is 99 cents.
This misses the point. If you have the public domain ebook already, Amazon isn't knocking on your door asking for their cut. Getty literally told the photographer she had to pay a license for her own work posted on her website. She didn't acquire it from Getty. You can acquire a public domain ebook from somewhere else for free or you can pay 99c to acquire it from Amazon. But either way, you're not paying for a licen…
That's the rub in this case it seems, that if Getty never took this action against the creator herself, who understood the situation and, I'm not sure they'd run into much stink about selling Public Domain images as a business component (they provide a service). Her catching them in the act is stunning.
Re: Photographer Suing Getty Images for $1B
#74Isn'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?
Perfectly legal to charge for public domain photos, just as it is legal to charge for software that's released under open source licenses, so long as you follow the terms of the license. People are lazy and will pay money so they don't have to think about licensing. If you are a graphic designer working in an ad agency and you have a choice between "go online and download a PD work and not be sure" and "pay Getty $50…
Not legal to trawl the internet and find people using that photo, and make legal demands of licensing fees.
That's fraud and misrepresentation.
Re: Photographer Suing Getty Images for $1B
#75While $1B seems excessive, and more of a number to make a point, it does seem outrageously egregious to send her a bill for her own photo on her own website that she donated for public use. It would be like coming home to find a naked vagrant sitting on your couch, demanding that you pay him rent.
While $1B seems excessive, and more of a number to make a point...
Broadly speaking, the "content industry" has habitually been dragging individual file-sharers into court and claiming life-altering, bankruptcy-forcing judgements for more trivial violations, in order to terrify the general public into compliance.
If the threat of a $1B judgement is enough to threaten Getty with bankruptcy, if it's enough to scare other rights-claimers into making their businesses more businesslike, that's actually very comparable.
Re: Photographer Suing Getty Images for $1B
#76Isn'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?
The article doesn't seem to touch on why Getty thinks they own the rights to the images. I'll toss out a few possibilities:
• Getty buys images from many people. Perhaps an unscrupulous individual bundled up a bunch of images from the library of congress, misrepresented their ownership, and sold them to Getty. (Bonus dickery to use a false identity so Getty can't find you to try to sue you back.)
• Getty could have bulk loaded up on hoards of public domain photos to sell to people looking for images. There's nothing wrong with that, curation has merit. But at some point they might have missed setting or checking the bit that says "we don't own exclusive rights on this one".
• Or the pitchfork and torch mob could be right.
Re: Photographer Suing Getty Images for $1B
#77Isn'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?
Anyone can reproduce and sell public domain stuff, which is how you get old books published. The problem comes when Getty claims copyright ownership over something they DO NOT own.
Then they should be able to show up to court with information on where they -did- get the images (because they didn't create them), and the photographer's release, of course...
Re: Photographer Suing Getty Images for $1B
#78A google search returned this PDF as the actual court filing:
http://digitalcommons.law.scu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?articl...
Re: Photographer Suing Getty Images for $1B
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
I'm not sure which law school taught you that, but it's just wrong. Here's a law review article that discusses the differences in mental state between negligence and recklessness: http://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=...
[deleted]
Re: Photographer Suing Getty Images for $1B
#80Using some examples from the comments of the article: It's akin to Getty setting up a small tent inside of Central Park, and asking people that walk by to pay an entry fee. But Getty goes 1 step further: They hire strongarm guys to go around the park and tell people (one-on-one) that they skipped out on their 5 dollar entry fee and they can 'settle' with them right now or be taken to court. It's terrible. I can't ima…
Couldn't be a more evil company to be sued.
Wish Thier would represent him and kick a hole in Getty!