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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, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Friday July 29 2016, @02:28PM
There may be a problem with that plan. Obviously, the defendant is CLAIMING these thousands of images as their own. I would suspect that a lot of their other imaginary property also belongs to other people and/or companies.
Is it possible that the defendant actually owns nothing of their own? IN that case, none of "their" property could be legitimately put into the public domain.