3 ms·

People charge for public domain things all the time. I've bought plenty of books from the 17 and 18 hundreds on my kindle. Pay for the convenience and for them

by donatj 10y ago

People charge for public domain things all the time. I've bought plenty of books from the 17 and 18 hundreds on my kindle. Pay for the convenience and for them putting together a nice version.

kuschku 10y ago
But the publishers of those nicer versions don't go around and threaten anyone who got them for free with lawyers. Getty actively threatened anyone using the public domain images.
- onli 10y ago
  Actually, the copyright those nicer versions sometimes claim already lead to this exact situation, with publishers making the case that the derivative work should be awarded new copyright. Here however it is clear-cut, the photos are not modified.
  - anc84 10y ago
    Oh but surely the images were optimised for computer display in a non-trivial process!
    - chillydawg 10y ago
      That's actually not totally unreasonable. Also maybe getty ran some clever image recognition to auto tag them up and organise them all? That's all a useful charge-able service. Going after existing usage is clearly BS, though.
      - artursapek 10y ago
        She just had her photo up on her website. They clearly went after her without any reason to believe she used their "clever organization" image searching service. These scumbags were probably using an image recognition bot to scrape the web for all usage and spraying everyone with legal letters.
        anarres 10y ago
        Certainly, not probably. Getty purchased picscout in the past few years, a company making and using such bot, and sending automated demand letter.
sleepychu 10y ago
What you're buying there is a copy. That's not the same thing as someone coming after you and saying that you need to pay them for the copy you have acquired.
gvb 10y ago
Books in the 1700s and 1800s are no longer under copyright, they are now in the public domain. Anybody can sell them for whatever the market will bear. Since they are not longer under copyright, there is no longer a copyright holder whose rights they are infringing and thus nobody that can charge them for violating copyright law. The question with Highsmith is whether she still holds the copyright or whether she put the pictures in the public domain. Answering this could be very interesting. The other angle that I would expect to see come up is whether Getty can sue (or threaten to sue) over pictures that they clearly do not hold the copyright to. That seems to be a clear violation of racketeering laws. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racketeering https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racketeering Ref: * http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-duration.html#duration http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-duration.html#duration * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain "Works in the public domain are those whose exclusive intellectual property rights have expired, have been forfeited, or are inapplicable."

by donatj 10y ago

People charge for public domain things all the time. I've bought plenty of books from the 17 and 18 hundreds on my kindle. Pay for the convenience and for them putting together a nice version.

kuschku 10y ago

But the publishers of those nicer versions don't go around and threaten anyone who got them for free with lawyers. Getty actively threatened anyone using the public domain images.

onli 10y ago
Actually, the copyright those nicer versions sometimes claim already lead to this exact situation, with publishers making the case that the derivative work should be awarded new copyright. Here however it is clear-cut, the photos are not modified.
- anc84 10y ago
  Oh but surely the images were optimised for computer display in a non-trivial process!
  - chillydawg 10y ago
    That's actually not totally unreasonable. Also maybe getty ran some clever image recognition to auto tag them up and organise them all? That's all a useful charge-able service. Going after existing usage is clearly BS, though.
    - artursapek 10y ago
      She just had her photo up on her website. They clearly went after her without any reason to believe she used their "clever organization" image searching service. These scumbags were probably using an image recognition bot to scrape the web for all usage and spraying everyone with legal letters.
      - anarres 10y ago
        Certainly, not probably. Getty purchased picscout in the past few years, a company making and using such bot, and sending automated demand letter.

sleepychu 10y ago

What you're buying there is a copy. That's not the same thing as someone coming after you and saying that you need to pay them for the copy you have acquired.

gvb 10y ago

Books in the 1700s and 1800s are no longer under copyright, they are now in the public domain. Anybody can sell them for whatever the market will bear. Since they are not longer under copyright, there is no longer a copyright holder whose rights they are infringing and thus nobody that can charge them for violating copyright law. The question with Highsmith is whether she still holds the copyright or whether she put the pictures in the public domain. Answering this could be very interesting. The other angle that I would expect to see come up is whether Getty can sue (or threaten to sue) over pictures that they clearly do not hold the copyright to. That seems to be a clear violation of racketeering laws. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racketeering https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racketeering Ref: * http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-duration.html#duration http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-duration.html#duration * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain "Works in the public domain are those whose exclusive intellectual property rights have expired, have been forfeited, or are inapplicable."