Photographer sues Getty Images for $1 billion after she's billed for her own photo

[Liberal_in_LA]

ol Highsmith is a distinguished photographer who has traveled all over America, aiming to chronicle for posterity the life of the nation in the early 21st century. She’s donating her work to the public via the Library of Congress, which has called her act “one of the greatest acts of generosity in the history of the Library.” The Carol M. Highsmith Archive, which is expected ultimately to encompass more than 100,000 images, is accessible royalty-free via the library’s website.*

So one can imagine Highsmith’s reaction last December when she got a threatening letter from a firm associated with the photo licensing agency Getty Images, accusing her of license infringement by posting one of her own images online. The firm demanded a “settlement payment” of $120 from her nonprofit This Is America! Foundation, backed up by the implicit threat to take her to court.

-----

Getty nowhere identified Highsmith as the sole creator or copyright owner of the photographs it was hawking to the public. Nor did it volunteer to its clients that the photographs were available for free, in high-quality digital format, from the Library of Congress.

That could damage her own reputation, Highsmith says, since it could look as if she’s been trying to profit from images she had ostensibly donated to the public: “Anyone who sees the Highsmith Photos and knows or learns of her gift to the Library could easily believe her to be a hypocrite.”

Neither Getty nor Alamy has filed a formal answer to the lawsuit. In a public statement, however, Getty responded with bluster. The agency says the lawsuit is “based on a number of misconceptions” and plans to “defend [itself] vigorously.” It acknowledges that the images are in the public domain, but still maintains that it has the right to charge a fee for distributing the material. “Distributing and providing access to public domain content is different to asserting copyright ownership of it,” Getty says. That’s true as far as it goes, but skates over the question of who gave it permission to distribute the content on any terms.

http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-getty-copyright-20160729-snap-story.html

[Volaris]

1. Fuck that company.

If it's in the Public Domain, then we have a Right to it. Since we have a Right to it, charging us a fee is not different in kind than a Poll Tax.

It's not like Congress is charging a fee to maintain the archive, our Tax Dollars pay for that already.

This is a PRIVATE, FOR PROFIT company charging us fees for something that already belongs to us. It's like Citibank just decided to start charging people a hundred bucks a head for access to Yellowstone National Park.

Fuck that company.

[TheBlackAdder]

18. These firms often use file scanning software to detect a photo's use on a website.

.


I doubt Getty had any handling of the image in question, which negates the "handling charge" claim.

They might be looking for cases to file claims with, or have ambulance chasers look for claims on commission.


.

[progressoid]

2. As has been discussed on other photo forums,

this is going to be a tough one for her. Getty and their cabal of asshole lawyers are notoriously cut throat.

Hope she prevails.

[Wilms]

5. Here's a wiki snip.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getty_Images#Controversial_practices_to_enforce_copyright

[pnwmom]

6. What sort of argument can their cutthroat lawyers make? Getty can't charge her for her using

her own copyrighted photographs, and they don't have the right to charge anyone who downloads them from the Library of Congress, either.

[progressoid]

9. Right.

My guess is that particular incident was one of many cease and desist letters sent out daily to infringers by LCS. Getty is already trying to distance themselves from that part of it.

LCS works on behalf of content creators and distributors to protect them against the unauthorized use of their work. In this instance, LCS pursued an infringement on behalf of its customer, Alamy […] however, as soon as the plaintiff contacted LCS, LCS acted swiftly to cease its pursuit with respect to the image provided by Alamy and notified Alamy it would not pursue this content.

Supposedly Getty and LCS are separate entities but strangely they have the similar corporate addresses.

Where is gets weird is that she's made all of her images public domain. Getty is claiming “It is standard practice for image libraries to distribute and provide access to public domain content,” and that distributing and providing access should not be confused with “asserting copyright ownership.” Apparently in response to the lawsuit which states “[Getty] are not only unlawfully charging licensing fees … but are falsely and fraudulently holding themselves out as the exclusive copyright owner.”

This is going to get interesting.

There are over 100 others named in the lawsuit as well. Getty in particular are assholes IMHO. They've been screwing photographers and filmmakers for a couple decades. Hey, guess who owns them now? The Carlyle Group.

I hope Ms. Highsmith is successful against these leeches.

[muriel_volestrangler]

11. But the letter accused her of "copyright infringement in violation of the Copyright Act"

and that sounds, to a layman at least, like "asserting copyright ownership". If they'd just charged people (who didn't know the pictures were available elsewhere for free) for making them easily available, I could see they'd say that's legal; but the letter demanding payment and talking about copyright infringement looks bad for their case.

[obamanut2012]

20. Exactly -- they are claiming copyright infringement as a COA

When they legally can't.

[awoke_in_2003]

14. If you have good enough lawyers

then truth doesn't matter in the court room.

[Monk06]

3. They are a vile and devious company How they think they can charge for public domain content

is unbelieveable

Huge archives of historical photographs could be firewalled if they get their way

At the very least they should not be allowed to charge a fee for content provided by
the Library of Congress Those assets belong to the nation not to private internet
hustlers and ambulance chasing licencing hacks

[thesquanderer]

12. re: "How they think they can charge for public domain content is unbelieveable "

Anyone is allowed to charge for public domain content. What people can't do is claim that they own it. Shakespeare is freely available... that does not make it illegal to charge for a book of Shakespeare. As I understand it, the issue is not that Getty charges for the images, but rather that they claim to own a copyright on it. If Getty wants to provide a service that includes curating, making easily searchable and easily downloadable images that are public domain, they can charge for it... but they cannot claim that they own the image.

[nikto]

4. This is what you get ...

When you live in a freakin' CORPORATOCRACY.




All sane people oppose Corporatocracy, always.

[2naSalit]

7. Sad but true!

[SoCalDem]

15. What pisses me off, is how Ancestry.com and newspapers.com

has proprietary rights over things that used to be free access online.. It's a big gripe because you have to pay to view things that used to be in the public domain..

[nikto]

16. That should be taken back from the $$$ Interest$, IMO

It shows the danger of privatizing public stuff.
It's always a real loss for The People.

[PatSeg]

8. Whoa

I really don't like these people. They try to claim ownership of historic photos that have been in the public domain for 100 years or more and that are in the Library of Congress. You can't own history.

I hope she brings them down.

[Wednesdays]

10. Something similar is going on at YouTube

Not entirely YouTube's fault, but still they are letting the perps get away with it via lax vigilance.

What's happening is music and audio clearinghouses are claiming copyright on what would otherwise be public domain recordings, and therefore receiving YouTube's ad revenue anytime someone uses that audio in one of their videos. In the long run the clearinghouses make a fortune off of recordings they have no business collecting from.

I made a video a few months ago that included a recording of Sousa's "Liberty Bell March," a public domain composition, played by The President's Marine Corps Band, a public domain recording (U.S. government recordings are almost always public domain). Even so, YouTube flagged my video for copyright violation because some unscrupulous company placed a claim on it--a government recording! After doing a little research I discovered that sort of thing (companies abusing YouTube's copyright flagging system) is not that uncommon. And it's really difficult to counter the claims (indeed, impossible to talk to a real person) at YouTube.

[nikto]

17. Thank you, for that scary, but honest and informative post

Privatization Mania must stop.

[dembotoz]

13. what is legal and what is just is often completely separate

to expect justice is a fools game