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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 .
(Score: 3, Interesting) by BsAtHome on Friday July 29 2016, @01:15PM
That is, indeed, a technicality, by which the whole infringement case can be brought. It is a construct for handling an imperfect system. In essence, the images are free for anyone to use in any way, /except/ claiming them to be yours.
All copyleft licenses base their effectiveness on very strong copyright law. In and by themselves, these licenses are a very strong statement about the state of things in copyright-land. They exist to use a protective system to obtain the opposite and that makes these licenses a stroke of genius. But the fact that they are required should be a very stern warning about the state of affairs.