Getty, Corbis & Superstock being sued...a MUST read!

[Robert Krausankas (BuddhaPi)]

This is a truly fascinating new case filed in late December...

Not only is Getty, Corbis and Superstock being sued, but the photographer is also named and apparently said photographer registered these images wrongfully, and to add salt to the wound said photographer has made a very good income from copyright infringement lawsuits himself!!

I can see Getty crying "innocent infringement", but as we all know ingnorance is not a valid defense!!!

http://www.palmbeachdns.com/cooley_v_getty.pdf

[Robert Krausankas (BuddhaPi)]

I'll add this little tidbit about the photographer in question:

"As a matter of fact, Psihoyos funds his projects partially with healthy earnings from his stock photography and copyright infringement cases. "Thank God people tend to steal iconic images," says Psihoyos. "My copyrights are registered, and statutory damages have been the lifeblood of my career over the past few years while I've been trying new things. Along with my attorney Dan Nelson [of Nelson & McCulloch LLP], I've aggressively pursued copyright infringements and have made several million dollars on those cases in recent years."

http://www.photomediaonline.com/features-stories/person-of-the-year/item/270-louie-psihoyos-weapon-of-mass-construction.html

[Peeved]

Well isn't this interesting!

I have to assume here that somehow the photographer snatched some photos of the plaintiff's SCULPTURES? How in the heck did that happen? lol.....

"In this action the Plaintiff Cooley, a preeminent artist in the paleontology
field seeks to arrest the unlawful reproduction and sale of copies of two of his world
renowned copyrighted sculptures of dinosaur eggs and to recover damages he has
sustained as a consequence of this misconduct. As alleged herein, the Defendants-a
photographer, three photography clearance organizations and a publishing
conglomerate- have individually and collectively distributed and continue to distribute
illegal copies of the Plaintiff's works through their distinct channels of distribution, atall times doing so without authorization, and in violation of the Plaintiff's exclusive
rights of reproduction and distribution under the United States Copyright Act."

[Jerry Witt (mcfilms)]

Wow. WOW! Amazing find buddahpi. You are ON it.

Looking into it a bit, it seems the sculptor who created these dinosaurs is suing. He and the photographer, Psihoyos, who took the pictures of the sculpture, both registered for copyright. (They both worked for National Geographic). This will be an interesting case. Does a picture of a sculpture count as enough of a transformation to be recognized as a new work?

In any case, it's nice to see the stock photo companies having to sweat it out for a little bit.

[Oscar Michelen]

Only the owner of a copyright has the exclusive right to reproduce the copyrighted work. Photographing a copyrighted work amounts to reproducing it. Therefore, before you take a photo of any copyrighted work, you would need the prior permission of the copyright owner. It is not transformative - it is derivative. It is not the photograph that people are looking at on the cover, its the sculpture. 

[lucia]

My sister is a legal librarian; cases sometimes touch on IP.  She said the guys working on IP stuff (licensing?) for the "the bean" (aka Cloudgate) in Chicago had to think pretty broadly on about rights associated with the sculpture.  Obviously, any rights holder wants to be able to make money on whatever they legally can make money on. (Paper weights? Postcards? Calendars? )  Meanwhile, the sculpture is just sitting out there in the park where visitors are going to want to take pictures of themselves reflected in the thing.   I have a fuzzy memory about the conversation and my sister isn't an attorney. But photos of "the bean" might have a complication while the dinosaur ones look like straightforward garden variety copying to non-lawyer me!

'The bean' is reflective and photos generally include people and the surrounding park, I suspect one can frequently argue there is at least some element of transformative nature in photos. But it's very difficult to see any transformative nature in the images of dinosaur eggs put on the front of text books. It seems to me the images were used on the cover of the book precisely because the photographer did nothing transformative.

[Oscar Michelen]

Please remember that folks who take pictures of themselves reflected in The Bean (myself included) are not making a commercial use of the images.  These folks took his sculpture and put it on the cover of a book about dinosaurs, not even a book about sculpture. IMO this is open and shut copyright infringement; they could have at least given him accreditation.   

[Jerry Witt (mcfilms)]

Open and shut unless the sculptor and photographer were contacted by National Geographic and were under some sort of "Work Made For Hire" agreement. It is unclear to me what the sculptor means by, "Cooley & Co. is the lawful owner of the copyrights to the Works by way of written assignment."

This case will be interesting to follow.

[lucia]

Oscar--
I agree there is a great deal of difference between visitors taking photos of themselves under or next to the bean or even just taking a picture of the bean sitting in the park reflecting the clouds on the day when you happened to be there and someone taking photos of the dinosaur eggs skulptures and exploiting them commercially.
(I'm also interested in knowing if the text book made sure the young student studying from that book knew they were sculptures and not fossils. This should be important for pedagogical reasons as you likely don't want kids to "learn" that detailed fossil exist if they do not.) 

[Matthew Chan]

I am a little late to the party but the Complaint has been added to the ELI Document Library.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/80294487/Cooley-vs-Getty-Images-Corbis-Superstock-Complaint

[havenotreceivedaletter]

The photographer has made millions?  He must have sued everyone around the world because most people don't even have the money to pay any of the hefty fines levied against them.  Seems most of them have to declare bankruptcy.

[Jerry Witt (mcfilms)]

Yeah, that seems like an exaggeration. I wonder how many cases Mr. Psihoyos has really been involved in. It seems to me that a case of Hollywood-style boasting had ended up turning around and biting him in the bottom.

[Robert Krausankas (BuddhaPi)]

Yeah, that seems like an exaggeration. I wonder how many cases Mr. Psihoyos has really been involved in. It seems to me that a case of Hollywood-style boasting had ended up turning around and biting him in the bottom.

Are you attempting to get me to run up my pacer account balance??? Now I must go search!

[Peeved]

I wasn't sure about the plaintiff residing in Canada as I was not clear about copyrighted work on an international level. I suppose there are a lot of things that may factor in with that regard depending on the country.

I did take the liberty to search the U.S. Copyright site and I did find a registered number for Brian Cooley. I'm assuming that "Segnosaur embryo" may mean "Dinosaur Eggs".
 

Type of Work: Visual Material
Registration Number / Date: VA0001793313 / 2011-11-10 
Application Title: Segnosaur embryo.
Title: Segnosaur embryo.
Description: Electronic file (eService)
Copyright Claimant: Cooley & Co. Ltd., Transfer: by assignment. Address: 6727 Silverview Road N.W., Calgary, Alberta, T3B 3L5, Canada.
Date of Creation: 1995
Date of Publication: 1996-05-19 
Nation of First Publication: United States
Authorship on Application: Brian Douglas Cooley; Domicile: Canada; Citizenship: Canada. Authorship: sculpture.
Rights and Permissions: Cooley & Co. Ltd., 6727 Silverview Road N.W., Calgary, Alberta, T3B 3L5, Canada
Copyright Note: C.O. correspondence.
 
Names: Cooley, Brian Douglas
 Cooley & Co. Ltd.

You go Brian!
 

Budd.....You gotta quit running up your Pacer account but if you do find something by all means.... Gotta love it when the Karma Truck makes its rounds.

[Robert Krausankas (BuddhaPi)]

Yup, it would appear this guy likes to file suit, as shown in the below screen capture. I only looked at 2 of the most recent cases, both settled out of court, but both were probably for large amounts as one was against American Express, and the other McGraw-Hill ( the publisher), both big companies with deep pockets.