At this point, we can say with great certainty that those involved in the stock photo industry are loathe as to registering their content with the copyright office, and the contracts with their contributors are often quite shoddy.
Now, these stock image companies are testing the court system in the hope that some judge will find in their favor, thereby setting a precedent that essentially shows that one needn't possess actual concrete evidence of ownership in order to collect significant monetary damages. Additionally, such a ruling would demonstrate to extortion letter victims that the stock images companies
could win even if the evidence is quite lacking.
I believe that such court judgements are becoming increasingly less like to happen. In the case of Getty vs Advernet, the judge said (with underlining by me), "In light of the foregoing analysis of the plaintiff's claim that the images at issue are licensed exclusively to it, the Court finds that material issues of fact exist with respect to the plaintiff's copyright ownership interest in twenty-seven of the images at issue, as discussed above. Moreover, with respect to the remaining eight images at issue, no specific time of infringement was asserted or established by the plaintiff. Additionally, whether the plaintiff, who is alleged to be “one of the world's leading content providers,” licensing “imagery via the Internet” and serving “an average of 3.2 million thumbnails, 6.5 million visits and 3.5 million unique users in addition to an average of 167 million page views each month,” has an exclusive right(s) in any particular image
has the potential to be an issue of substantial public importance, given the size and scope of the plaintiff's alleged image collections.."
http://www.scribd.com/doc/75525341/Getty-v-Advernet-Decision-Southern-District-of-NY?query=publicI doubt that multi-million dollar companies are going to be able to forego signed and dated contracts, and proper registrations and still be able to collect Statutory damages. There's been word that these companies have been lobbying Congress, however, I doubt that copyright legislation will be "loosened". If that were to happen, and the courts needed no proof of copyright ownership, then anybody could make dubious claims in court in order to simply to steal money. That's just not going to happen.
I hope that the copyright trolls enjoyed their Christmas/New Year full of exquisite Butthurt:
http://img822.imageshack.us/img822/2233/santatrollcopyrightcour.jpgS.G.
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