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Getty Images Faces $1 Billion Infringement Suit

posted by martyb on Friday July 29 2016, @12:12PM   Printer-friendly
from the well-picture-that! dept.

Appalbarry writes:

Getty Images, one of the largest providers of commercial stock photos, is now facing a $1 Billion dollar (US) copyright infringement lawsuit after being caught selling a photographer's work without permission.

According to the story at art and culture web site Hyperallergic.com:

In December, documentary photographer Carol Highsmith received a letter from Getty Images accusing her of copyright infringement for featuring one of her own photographs on her own website. It demanded payment of $120. This was how Highsmith came to learn that stock photo agencies Getty and Alamy had been sending similar threat letters and charging fees to users of her images, which she had donated to the Library of Congress for use by the general public at no charge.

Highsmith has filed a $1 billion copyright infringement suit against both Alamy and Getty for "gross misuse" of 18,755 of her photographs.

Incidentally, while you're at Hyperallergic.com, be sure to check out From a Pineapple to a Six-Pack, 23 Buildings that Resemble the Things They Sell.

The legal complaint is available on Document Cloud.

Also covered at: Ars Technica .

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  • (Score: 2) by MrNemesis on Friday July 29 2016, @01:11PM

    by MrNemesis (1582) on Friday July 29 2016, @01:11PM (#381512)

    Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] says that in the US, statutory damages for infringement are $750-30,000 per work. For ~19,000 photos that puts Getty in the hole immediately for between $14.25-570m.

    Wilful infringement - and given Getty's apparent (and repeated) behaviour here I think any competent lawyer wouldn't have much problems convincing a judge and jury of that - are "up to" $150,000 per work, putting a theoretical cap on this case of roughly $2.8bn. So whilst certainly insane it's a far cry from bankrupting the world GDP :) However, observe the footnote about only stuff registered with the copyright office being eligible - I'm not sure if these would have been.

    I wonder if the discovery process will include all those who caved in to Getty's extortion tactics and coughed up the dosh?

    Nitpick though: I don't think she released these to the public domain, IANAL but I think there's a significant difference between that and bequeathing to the public (if that's the right terminology?) via the LoC. That said, if they were public domain, pretending to own the license of them would quite probably constitute fraud.

    --
    "To paraphrase Nietzsche, I have looked into the abyss and been sick in it."
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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by MrNemesis on Friday July 29 2016, @01:15PM

    by MrNemesis (1582) on Friday July 29 2016, @01:15PM (#381515)

    Replying to myself, but found a report which makes it a bit clearer:
    http://pdnpulse.pdnonline.com/2016/07/photographer-seeking-1-billion-getty-images-copyright-infringement.html [pdnonline.com]

    Highsmith says she never abandoned her copyrights to the images. She says the Library of Congress had agreed to notify users of the images that she is the author, and that users must credit her. But Getty has not only distributed her images without her permission, it has failed to give her proper credit, despite the copyright information attached to her images, Highsmith alleges.
    ...
    Highsmith claims that Getty is liable for statutory damages up to $468,875, 000. But she is seeking $1 billion dollars because a previous copyright infringement judgement against Getty enables the court to triple the statutory damages in Highsmith’s case, according to her attorneys. (The previous case in question was Morel v. Getty, which ended in a $1 million judgment against Getty).

    --
    "To paraphrase Nietzsche, I have looked into the abyss and been sick in it."