4 ms·

agree that this is a sleazy business practice, but (and not mentioned here, also, not a laywyer but), in music for example, there are typically 'artistic' right

by cat199 8y ago

agree that this is a sleazy business practice, but (and not mentioned here, also, not a laywyer but), in music for example, there are typically 'artistic' rights and 'mechanical' rights - e.g. BMG can have the right to duplicate the recording of your song but not to record someone else performing it, or vice-versa where they cannot reproduce your recording but can record others performing it. There are also nebulous cases involving sampling - some decided in favor of the one sampling, the others decided in favor of those who were sampled, depending on the particulars of the case / district / judge, etc. I would suspect that getty is taking the public domain image, tweaking the file slightly (perhaps even in non-image related metadata), and thus creating a 'new work' to which they can make some sort of claim about. so, while i think you are correct in that the 'visual image' (e.g. the visual object representation) is entirely in the public domain, the 'image' (e.g. the actual file) that they actually distribute is not, because they have modified it somehow and 'added value', etc etc etc. then, enforcement just becomes a fishing expedition. if you did your homework and used the public domain one and can refer to it, they don't press. if you didn't, and don't catch it, they have a reasonable claim/plausible deniability of mis-attribution, and you pay. easy (but unethical) money to them. shady, dubious, etc, but probably not out-and-out fraud in the 'illegal' sense. still not good otherwise because it does facillitate them gaining market share (by having a bigger product base / collection) which in turn creates a cyclical effect/ barriers to entry/ etc (just like BMI/ASCAP and music, for example)

Retric 8y ago
Copyright is not so easy to gain. Sampling is at least nominally a creative act, where changing the resolution for example is not. You can gain copyright for a collection of say “Dog Photos” collected from public works. But, you don’t gain anything over individual photos in that collection only over that specific listing.
- sgc 8y ago
  I agree, it is thankfully somewhat difficult. One thing the US Copyright office pointed out to me on a request a number of years ago was that any changes need to be themselves copyrightable to have any influence on the status of the final work. Little snippets of text/titles are for the moment still not copyrightable, changing hue or saturation etc would probably not pass the smell test, nor would any batch processing, purely technical changes like resolution or file type, etc. Unfortunately the larger players with standing are unlikely to push for these rulings so it is hard to find established case law.
acjohnson55 8y ago
Fun fact: in music, anyone can avail themselves of a compulsory mechanical license to record someone else's already-recorded song. As the songwriter, you only have a right to specify who may release the first recording. This is how cover songs can exist with minimal effort of rights acquisition. I wonder what the IP world would be like if this model, or some variation, were more widely applied?

by cat199 8y ago

Retric 8y ago

Copyright is not so easy to gain. Sampling is at least nominally a creative act, where changing the resolution for example is not. You can gain copyright for a collection of say “Dog Photos” collected from public works. But, you don’t gain anything over individual photos in that collection only over that specific listing.

sgc 8y ago
I agree, it is thankfully somewhat difficult. One thing the US Copyright office pointed out to me on a request a number of years ago was that any changes need to be themselves copyrightable to have any influence on the status of the final work. Little snippets of text/titles are for the moment still not copyrightable, changing hue or saturation etc would probably not pass the smell test, nor would any batch processing, purely technical changes like resolution or file type, etc. Unfortunately the larger players with standing are unlikely to push for these rulings so it is hard to find established case law.

acjohnson55 8y ago

Fun fact: in music, anyone can avail themselves of a compulsory mechanical license to record someone else's already-recorded song. As the songwriter, you only have a right to specify who may release the first recording. This is how cover songs can exist with minimal effort of rights acquisition. I wonder what the IP world would be like if this model, or some variation, were more widely applied?