DavidVGoliath,
On this:
I'd really hope that there aren't any creatives out there exploiting the system by knowingly seeding their works just so they can issue legal demands or court proceedings from infringements; that's fraud on the same level as people whom fake accidents, injuries or illness so they can instruct an ambulance-chasing attorney to collect for them.
I think the overall numbers are very samll.
But there is a photographer whose behavior and listings suggest he is either intentionally or unintentionally seeding. His photos are lovely in the way that many who visit Hawaii with a decent camera in hand could take lovely photos. He has sent out many letters.
The path does involve wall paper sites, but also involves the photographer uploading very high resolution images for downloads as wallpapers. (There is discussion all over the place. Some here:
http://www.extortionletterinfo.com/forum/getty-images-letter-forum/what-is-glen-carner%27s-official-position-on-vincent-k-tylor/msg7487/#msg7487 .) The very high resolutions images are displayed in places where it is either free or very cheap and easy to download a wallpaper image. These quickly end up on free wallpaper sites, where people who think they are free download and then display publicly rather than just using as wallpapers on their ocmputers. I'm under the impression the behavior has been going on for years, and many people have been sued. Meanwhile, the free/cheap high resolution images continue to appear at sites that are traceable to the photographer.
Of course once can't be sure the photographer really, truly understands what is happening here. But one might think a person who is vigilant about suing would figure out that making high resolution images available at a very cheap site will provide the first step to the path of infringement.
This issue has been discussed. It does appear the legal representative who used to work with this photographer no longer does so
http://www.extortionletterinfo.com/forum/getty-images-letter-forum/vincent-k-tylor-no-longer-associated-with-copyright-services-international/I can't guess the extent to which conversation here lead to the change in legal representation.
It would be a severe abuse of the system and - in my opinion - would need to be treated as a criminal matter.
I'm not sure how a letter recipient could get the authorities to treat it as such.
I also don't know if this particular photographer ever
won a case on court. I know he has sued. I think some suits have settled. What does that mean? I don't know.
Lettered
simple unremarkable picture of a common item like a baseball is important enough to protect with life crushing fines of tens of thousands of dollars
I think you need to distinguish between merely "common item" and "common snap-shot of common items". After all: Andy Warhol's pictures of soupcans are pictures of soup can's. Some paints of fruit are lovely. Some advertising photos are, when you come right down to it, just common items. To a large extent, the US requirement that statutory damages only apply to material the creator or owner bothered to
register, paying a relatively small fee, and doing so in a way that makes it possible to trace
that specific creation to the creator and owner ought to take care of the issue.
In my view, the fact that Getty has been fairly sloppy about bulk registration and even-- we suspect-- the licensing paper work- is
to quite a large extent the evidence that those images were not considered to have great commercially valuable individually. (BTW: I think bulk registration can be ok provided it is done properly. It reads like DavidVGoliath does that. Getty seems to have done things like: no mention who the creators are, not provide individual photos and so on.
There is a big difference here. It's huge
proper bulk registration shows the creator values
that work sufficiently to bother to file. Few 'flickr' type photographers who take even very nice photos of the shrubs in their back yard or pairs of tennis shoes lined up by the door, or photos of their sweaters, upload to flickr, and then auto-licence to Getty are going to bother to register because
they know the photos are not distinctive. They may welcome the potential for a few bucks should someone want to use the thing. But for most those photographers, the filing fees would exceed the
probably anticipated licensing feeds.
Of course, difficulties could arise if an amateur photographer happens to be positioned in a location where he can-- by luck-- take a photo of historic interest. e.g. You're in the apartment above the street from the Tsarnaev brothers/police shoot out. You're brave enough to stand by the window and take a photo. You upload. But-- really- to cover this sort of situation - you have something like 6 months to register and still get statuory penalties, and you ought to do so.
Topic: A note on photos that are "public domain" (Read 15528 times)