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Messages - lucia

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646
Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: ELI Website Traffic Statistics Trivia
« on: December 01, 2011, 10:31:45 AM »
Daniel--
Zbblock http://www.spambotsecurity.com/zbblock.php will help block robo-spammers registering.  It's pretty easy to use but I know some people are uncomfortable editing php or ftping to their hosts and I don't know you well enough to know where you sit on the continuum of dealing with software.  If you need help ask me. (I know I'm new here, but I can still help on that.)

 I recently installed zbblock at my blog precisely because the load from crawlers has been exploding. Oddly, in Oct/Nov I spent time trying to figure out how to auto-detect and bounce lots of these guys and created a side-blog containing about 3 posts discussing a few things. I was planning to discuss that more.

I think we might also need to figure out some way to help people bounce any nuisance bots that draw our sites bandwidth for their purposes. This includes things like picscout; web rumors suggest getty uses that for crawling.

647
Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: how would you interpret this???
« on: November 30, 2011, 06:01:01 PM »
The photographer in who snapped the cardinals image appears to have died in 2008.
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=29579576

I have no idea who this would affect things other than that the copyright ownership must have passed to heirs.

648
Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: how would you interpret this???
« on: November 30, 2011, 05:28:53 PM »
Quote
I am not a lawyer, but it seems likely that Getty could not sue in this case. Only the photographer, as the copyright holder could take legal action.
That's interesting.  It motivated me to google. I see this:

http://www.iniplaw.org/2011/01/seventh-circuit-affirms-dismis.html

Quote
Although the license agreement used the phrase "exclusive licenses," the trial court concluded that the specific words in the license granted only a non-exclusive license. Thus, the trial court determined that HyperQuest did not have standing to bring the lawsuit and dismissed the case. The district court also ordered HyperQuest to pay N'Site and Unitrin's attorney's fees of $134,958.42 for defending the copyright infringement suit. The plaintiff appealed, but the Court of Appeals, decided that the Copyright Act limits who can sue for infringement of a copyright to "the legal or beneficial owner of an exclusive right under a copyright" and affirmed the district court's dismissal. The Court of Appeals also affirmed the award of attorney's fees to N'Site and Unitrin.

Practice Tips: When making a license agreement for the use copyrighted material, attorneys should carefully review whether the terms of the agreement reflect the parties' intentions. Even if an agreement uses the phrase "exclusive license," the terms of the agreement must reflect actually exclusivity for the licensee to bring a copyright infringement suit.

In the case of the Cardinals, the copyright owner seems to be selling licenses to use the images through a non-Getty shop.  So, at least with respect to those, they are behaving as if the exclusive license does not exist.  That said, I guess we don't know whether Getty gave permission for sales in this other venue ... or what.

649
Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Image Hosting Question
« on: November 30, 2011, 03:00:27 PM »
The html of this sort: <img src="http://not_my_domain.com/the_image_in_question.jpg"> was contained in a comment on my blog. My blog is hosted at "http://my_domain.com".  So, the comment appears on my blog hosted on a domain I own.  I'm not anonymous by any means, so I would be easy to identify. (I don't know if giving real addresses would violate terms about advertizing, so I'm avoiding giving my real domain name. Otherwise, I'd go ahead and do it!)

650
Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: how would you interpret this???
« on: November 30, 2011, 02:56:16 PM »
I'm finding something related to the exclusivity agreement a bit confusing.

Consider for example, this image at getty is here:
http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/northern-cardinals-on-holly-berries-branch-high-res-stock-photography/EB2511-001


Simultaneously, the virtually indistinguishable image is here:
http://gbi.photoshelter.com/image?&_bqG=6&_bqH=eJwrNstzTnJM8nIzLizyzkjyCvXKqPQ2Mqnwjgy0MjQ1tDI0MABhIOkZ7xLsbJucWJSSmZeYU6zmGR8a7BoU7.liGwqSLwpIdckOyw429jdQAyuNd_RzsS1Ri3d0DrEtTk0sSs4AAPhfIPY-&GI_ID=


Presumably, when uploading to Getty and PhotoShelter, the copyright owner entered into agreements with Getty and PhotoShelter, and did so in some temporal order. (Moreover, the wording of the current agreements suggest contractual agreements seem to evolve over time.)   

The current agreement at PhotoShelter  states

Quote
Posting. As a Content Provider, you will be entitled to upload, post, distribute or disseminate (collectively, "post") Content (the "Posted Content") on the Site, subject to your Storage Allocation. You hereby grant and agree to grant PhotoShelter a non-exclusive, royalty-free, fully paid up, sublicensable, worldwide right and license to use, reproduce, modify, display, perform, distribute, and create derivative works of the Posted Content solely in connection with Photoshelter's operation, marketing and promotion of the Site. You hereby represent and warrant that you have all rights necessary to grant the Site the rights set forth above. ....

(See http://www.photoshelter.com/support/terms)

Meanwhile, the Getty PDF linked above states

Quote
1.1 License Grant to Getty Images: You grant Getty Images a worldwide, exclusive right to market and sublicense the right to copy, reproduce, display, transmit, broadcast, modify, alter, create derivative works of and publish the whole or part of any Content (as defined below) that you submit to Getty Images. These rights may be exercised via any analog or digital means of communication now known or hereafter devised including without limitation via print, websites, other electronic formats, mobile devices, TV, cinema, exhibitions; and, subject to applicable laws, may be used for any purpose of any nature including without limitation for advertising, publicity, promotions, graphic design, marketing within and on products, corporate communications, press articles, press releases, brochures, reports, décor, programs and films. Getty Images may sublicense or authorize any third party distributors .


It seems to me that the two images I linked are identical. INAL, but it is difficult for me to understand how Getty could have an <i>exclusive</I> agreement to "copy, reproduce, display, transmit, broadcast, modify, alter, create derivative works of and publish the whole or part of"

the image while PhotoShelter simultaneously has

"a non-exclusive, royalty-free, fully paid up, sublicensable, worldwide right and license to use, reproduce, modify, display, perform, distribute, and create derivative works of the Posted Content".

What happens to Getty if they file a suit and it later turns out that someone had obtained the image through the photographer's PhotoShelter store?  For that matter, is the mere fact that photographer granted a non-exclusive license to PhotoShelter be a problem for Getty should Getty sue?  Could Getty sue the photographer or PhotoShelter for displaying, distributing etc? 

INAL, but this is very confusing to me.

651
Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Image Hosting Question
« on: November 30, 2011, 01:55:45 PM »
Oh-- To clarify:
The letter they wrote does not state the url of the page for which they supplied a screenshot.  In principle, the url could be read in the address bar of the image in the screencapture, but in practice no one's eyes are that good. I searched on plausible text that would accompany the image to find the comment.

652
Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Image Hosting Question
« on: November 30, 2011, 01:52:38 PM »
They show a screenshot of the display but not the html. So, no their screenshot doesn't show the path to the image.   However, I know the path to the image because looking at the screenshot they sent me, I was able to find the comment and find the path.  I edited my comment to break the "img src=" part, but retained the information in the comment and wrote an "update" in the comment, dating that.   So, as the comment now stands, the information about the link remains in the comment.

I also wrote a brief -- fairly vague for me-- blog post and people at my blog are commenting.

I don't know if this was a wise way to do it, but it's the way I did it.  What it does mean is that I will have witnesses to the fact that I wrote the post, that they commented and so on. 

653
Getty Images Letter Forum / Re: Image Hosting Question
« on: November 30, 2011, 10:41:44 AM »
Your situation is no longer unique. Yesterday morning, I opened a Getty letter dated Nov. 24.  It also alleged copyright violation for an image I do not and have never hosted host but which appeared to in comments at my blog because the html in comments causes a users browser to fetch the image and display it.

I wasn't aware of Oscars program, googled and responded on my own.  Maybe that was unwise since some blog visitors seem to be willing to pony up money to pay an attorney, but I admit to having wanted to respond before I discovered one suggesting I pass the hat around for donations!  :)

My response includes the text from the Perfect 10 case.    As a courtesy, I also removed the html that causes the image to display and told them that.  As I didn't host, I don't think removing the html would be required by copyright law, but it seemed a prudent course. Also, it's not as if I have any need to display an image in a comment on an old blog post that no one could possibly be reading anymore!

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