SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
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: 4, Interesting) by Thexalon on Friday July 29 2016, @01:23PM
There's also an obvious followup: Getty was firing off cease-and-desist letters demanding payment. Well, if anybody responded with payment, they now have obvious grounds for suit based on a fraudulent legal representation that they have copyright on images they don't actually own. So yeah, they should get into real trouble, like potential-for-bankruptcy kind of real trouble.
Although, is it really more absurd than Comedy Central suing CBS for Stephen Colbert using without permission a fictional character known as "Stephen Colbert" that Stephen Colbert used to portray on Comedy Central?
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Friday July 29 2016, @06:37PM
How fortunate for CBS that going forward Stephen Colbert will portray Stephen Colbert, the identical twin cousin of Stephen Colbert instead.
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Saturday July 30 2016, @02:47PM
Although, is it really more absurd than Comedy Central suing CBS for Stephen Colbert using without permission a fictional character known as "Stephen Colbert" that Stephen Colbert used to portray on Comedy Central?
Doesn't the Redstone family's National Amusements own both Viacom (Comedy Central's parent) and CBS anyway?