8 ms·

There's nothing unfortunate about it. It would set a very bad precedent if content in the public domain, freed from copyright law, would still be subject to arb

There's nothing unfortunate about it. It would set a very bad precedent if content in the public domain, freed from copyright law, would still be subject to arbitrary usage limits. If you want to release something for free with conditions, use other licences like Creative Commons instead.

BrianHenryIE 7y ago
> if content in the public domain, freed from copyright law, would still be subject to arbitrary usage limits. But that's not what happened. The content was placed in the public domain. Then the author was notified > your company does not have a valid license for use of the image(s) If you want to release something for free without conditions, it should not be subject to conditions by those who did not create it
diffeomorphism 7y ago
> would still be subject to arbitrary usage limits. Didn't the ruling achieve the exact opposite? Getty took public domain images and added arbitrary usage limits on them by (fraudulently) claiming to be the sole copyright holder. Taking the images and using them for whatever is fine, taking them and then trying to forbid anybody else from taking them (the originals, not getty's copies) is not and unrelated to the license.
- bootloop 7y ago
  If they are public domain you can do with it whatever you want. Also republish them, charge money for it or limit usage. That's the point of it. So everything is fine. BUT, if someone prints the images and ignores any usage limits and then gets sued you might just get a jail free card because you can claim that's anyway public domain.
  - daveFNbuck 7y ago
    You may be able to limit usage of your own derivative works, but you can't just declare that everyone using a public domain image owes you royalties.
  - Hamuko 7y ago
    Like blackmail people into paying a licensing fee with the threat of legal action?
  - diffeomorphism 7y ago
    > Also republish them, charge money for it or limit usage Of your copy or derivative work, not of the public domain one you copied. The fact that they tried to force their limits on other people using the public domain works is what is the issue here and is not fine. > you might just get a jail free card because you can claim That seems entirely the wrong way around. Getty knows it is public domain because that is where they got it from. The fact that they sue for damages despite this should put them in contempt of court and not me in a position where I have to defend myself.
    - smaryjerry 7y ago
      You are dead right but I wonder if the article is badly representing the story or her lawyers were bad because Getty won the lawsuit anyways. Perhaps she did download the photo from Google images or something and it did have Getty watermark in it when she used it. Otherwise I see this as a slam dunk against Getty.
      - daveFNbuck 7y ago
        What lawsuit did Getty win? The article says they haven't responded formally to her suit yet, and it doesn't mention them suing her.
        diffeomorphism 7y ago
        The article is from 2016. Links to the outcome of the lawsuit are further up the thread.
      - daveFNbuck 7y ago
        From the representation of her story in the article, it hardly seems like Getty has caused her a billion dollars in damages. It's a slam dunk that Getty did something wrong, but that doesn't mean that they necessarily owe her any money.
- oliwarner 7y ago
  Public domain is special. You free yourself of all ownership which means that somebody else can pick it up and relicense their distribution of it, including saying you cannot do things with it. I emphasise "saying" because that's pretty much all you can do unless they know they're the only entity distributing it. The problem here was trying to enforce on something that was obviously non-exclusive. This mistake happens with all sorts of content available through multiple channels. Getty should have marked it as such on ingestion.
  - chrismcb 7y ago
    My reading of this article is getty was claiming they own the rights to the photos, and requested payment from the photographer. Because they didn't have a record of her paying them... Despite the fact she didn't get it from them.
    - oliwarner 7y ago
      Yeah, that's my reading too. Getty treated this as if it were exclusive and that they were working as sole agent for the owner. They do this for lots of the things they distribute. But PD is incidental here. Getty could have legitimately had a exclusive license and still incorrectly gone after its creator.
    - anticensor 7y ago
      Getty treated itself as the state and the work as a government royalty subject. (government royalty subject is what your work becomes if you do a work-for-hire for a continental European government, i.e. the government becoming the copyright owner)
      - anigbrowl 7y ago
        In the USA all works of the government are considered public domain. The idea of a public copyright is a legal contradiction in terms. So it's perfectly legal to take PDFs of official government publications and republish them if you think there's a market for it.
- ChrisLomont 7y ago
  >Getty took public domain images and added arbitrary usage limits on them by (fraudulently) claiming to be the sole copyright holder. The article states this is not the case. "It acknowledges that the images are in the public domain, but still maintains that it has the right to charge a fee for distributing the material. “Distributing and providing access to public domain content is different to asserting copyright ownership of it,” Getty says."
  - diffeomorphism 7y ago
    That is misleading. They are perfectly within their rights to charge for distributing their copy of the material. Nobody claimed they weren't. What they did instead is claim exclusive rights of distribution over the the other public domain works as well. So, yes what they say is perfectly true, but also entirely irrelevant.
    - ChrisLomont 7y ago
      Your name is diffeomorphism, so I assume you like math, and care about accuracy. You started with this: >>Getty took public domain images and added arbitrary usage limits on them by (fraudulently) claiming to be the sole copyright holder. They did not claim copyright as you stated. Now you've changed to this: >What they did instead is claim exclusive rights of distribution over the the other public domain works as well. You originally stated they claimed they were the sole copyright holder. They did not. Moving the goalposts or downvoting does not change your original claim is incorrect. Accuracy matters, in math and in public discourse.
      - diffeomorphism 7y ago
        I still don't understand what your point is. Fine, they claimed they were the exclusive "distribution rights holder". And then argued that you don't need to claim copyright to distribute and sublicense PD works. Yeah, fine. But that is irrelevant. The "exclusive" is what is the issue and their comment does not address that at all.
blowski 7y ago
I know pretty much nothing about copyright law. Are you saying that the US Library of Congress or the photographer released them under the wrong kind of license?
- chrismcb 7y ago
  No. The photos were placed into public domain, copyright free. Anyone can copy them # but it also means anyone can sell them.
  - TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
    I'm still not clear how being able to sell them seems to mean they can demand licensing fees from anyone who uses the image - effectively claiming they are the sole and exclusive rights holder. I understand that Getty can license PD images through their own site. Legally this seems to be covered by caveat emptor and by the fact that Getty provide search and indexing services to users. But trying to demand licensing rights for a PD image from users who have found the image through another channel[1] is a whole other thing, and seems more like a plain old monopolistic land grab, bordering on extortion. I'm surprised - although not entirely, for cynical reasons - that the court didn't pursue this argument. "Mistakes were made" isn't really a mitigation here. Besides, I'm not sure it's even possible to place work into the public domain under US law without a formal written waiver of moral rights. [1] Including their own camera.
    - smaryjerry 7y ago
      My guess why Getty won the lawsuit is because lawsuits are in order to grant damages and she wasn't able to prove monetary damages to herself as it was already in the public domain. Unfortunately there is very much law enforcement against entities falsely claiming copyrights, especially those that technically have no owner. It seems hard enough for you tubers who get claimed by copyright troll companies constantly and steal their advertising revenue.. or YouTube technically steals and res distributes to the copyright troll. Even those cases you won't see criminal charges or even civil or monetary charges unless the copyright holder wants to go to court. It's basic time scamming. Copyright trolls can claim 100 million videos in the time it takes one person to defend one of those claims. Basically every day these companies make claims that would take the combined lifespan of the entire world to defend against.
dredmorbius 7y ago
I'm not entirely sure how moral rights of authors operates under US law, when or whether such rights extinguish, or what the penalties for infringement are. Under EU copyright, this is a quite strong provision. US governing law would seem to be 17 USC 106A, noting it applies specifically to visual work (as in this case): Rights of Attribution and Integrity.—Subject to section 107 and independent of the exclusive rights provided in section 106, the author of a work of visual art— (1)shall have the right— (A)to claim authorship of that work, and (B)to prevent the use of his or her name as the author of any work of visual art which he or she did not create; https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/106A https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/106A Under 17USC106A(d)(1) the rights "shall endure for a term consisting of the life of the author.* The 107 exemptions are for fair use, which would not apply to Getty's usage claiming exclusive rights. The broader problem would seem to be that releasing works to the public domain cedes critical rights, most especially of enforcement against misappropriation or unsupported claims of copyright. Getty clearly might be (and per some comments on this thread are) engaging in little more than shake-down rackets based on specious copyright claims. An attention-grabbing penalty for such behaviour seems warranted. Apparently US courts see the sanctity of privately or corporately-owned property, but not the property of the public as a whole (public domain).
- Meph504 7y ago
  When she donated the works, she relinquished all copyright, and the works moved into public domain. These images are for all intensive purposes not owned by anyone, and anyone can do what they see fit with them. (this is where the Getty lawsuit should have focused, as they don't have the right to make claims to the images either, unless the work she published was copied from getty's servers which have lisc restrictions on them [which is a loophole that should be closed]) its unfortunate for the artist, but as others have said, she gave up all rights to the works by placing them in the public domain. You can see the documentation stating she gave those rights up on the LOCs website (https://www.loc.gov/rr/print/res/482_high.html https://www.loc.gov/rr/print/res/482_high.html)
  - sokoloff 7y ago
    “intents and purposes” not “intensive purposes”
foobarbecue 7y ago
Ok for them to sell it. Not ok for them to send threats to others for using it.
anigbrowl 7y ago
What about the bad precedent of companies like Getty trying to collect rents on public domain works? It's a two way street. Please don't tell me the solution is better consumer education while corporations are allowed to keep lying about owning IP - that's just shifting the burden to those least well equipped to handle it and treating individuals like the aggregate of all consumers who are presumed to be fully informed about market conditions, a fallacy of division.

BrianHenryIE 7y ago

> if content in the public domain, freed from copyright law, would still be subject to arbitrary usage limits. But that's not what happened. The content was placed in the public domain. Then the author was notified > your company does not have a valid license for use of the image(s) If you want to release something for free without conditions, it should not be subject to conditions by those who did not create it

diffeomorphism 7y ago

> would still be subject to arbitrary usage limits. Didn't the ruling achieve the exact opposite? Getty took public domain images and added arbitrary usage limits on them by (fraudulently) claiming to be the sole copyright holder. Taking the images and using them for whatever is fine, taking them and then trying to forbid anybody else from taking them (the originals, not getty's copies) is not and unrelated to the license.

bootloop 7y ago
If they are public domain you can do with it whatever you want. Also republish them, charge money for it or limit usage. That's the point of it. So everything is fine. BUT, if someone prints the images and ignores any usage limits and then gets sued you might just get a jail free card because you can claim that's anyway public domain.
- daveFNbuck 7y ago
  You may be able to limit usage of your own derivative works, but you can't just declare that everyone using a public domain image owes you royalties.
- Hamuko 7y ago
  Like blackmail people into paying a licensing fee with the threat of legal action?
- diffeomorphism 7y ago
  > Also republish them, charge money for it or limit usage Of your copy or derivative work, not of the public domain one you copied. The fact that they tried to force their limits on other people using the public domain works is what is the issue here and is not fine. > you might just get a jail free card because you can claim That seems entirely the wrong way around. Getty knows it is public domain because that is where they got it from. The fact that they sue for damages despite this should put them in contempt of court and not me in a position where I have to defend myself.
  - smaryjerry 7y ago
    You are dead right but I wonder if the article is badly representing the story or her lawyers were bad because Getty won the lawsuit anyways. Perhaps she did download the photo from Google images or something and it did have Getty watermark in it when she used it. Otherwise I see this as a slam dunk against Getty.
    - daveFNbuck 7y ago
      What lawsuit did Getty win? The article says they haven't responded formally to her suit yet, and it doesn't mention them suing her.
      - diffeomorphism 7y ago
        The article is from 2016. Links to the outcome of the lawsuit are further up the thread.
    - daveFNbuck 7y ago
      From the representation of her story in the article, it hardly seems like Getty has caused her a billion dollars in damages. It's a slam dunk that Getty did something wrong, but that doesn't mean that they necessarily owe her any money.
oliwarner 7y ago
Public domain is special. You free yourself of all ownership which means that somebody else can pick it up and relicense their distribution of it, including saying you cannot do things with it. I emphasise "saying" because that's pretty much all you can do unless they know they're the only entity distributing it. The problem here was trying to enforce on something that was obviously non-exclusive. This mistake happens with all sorts of content available through multiple channels. Getty should have marked it as such on ingestion.
- chrismcb 7y ago
  My reading of this article is getty was claiming they own the rights to the photos, and requested payment from the photographer. Because they didn't have a record of her paying them... Despite the fact she didn't get it from them.
  - oliwarner 7y ago
    Yeah, that's my reading too. Getty treated this as if it were exclusive and that they were working as sole agent for the owner. They do this for lots of the things they distribute. But PD is incidental here. Getty could have legitimately had a exclusive license and still incorrectly gone after its creator.
  - anticensor 7y ago
    Getty treated itself as the state and the work as a government royalty subject. (government royalty subject is what your work becomes if you do a work-for-hire for a continental European government, i.e. the government becoming the copyright owner)
    - anigbrowl 7y ago
      In the USA all works of the government are considered public domain. The idea of a public copyright is a legal contradiction in terms. So it's perfectly legal to take PDFs of official government publications and republish them if you think there's a market for it.
ChrisLomont 7y ago
>Getty took public domain images and added arbitrary usage limits on them by (fraudulently) claiming to be the sole copyright holder. The article states this is not the case. "It acknowledges that the images are in the public domain, but still maintains that it has the right to charge a fee for distributing the material. “Distributing and providing access to public domain content is different to asserting copyright ownership of it,” Getty says."
- diffeomorphism 7y ago
  That is misleading. They are perfectly within their rights to charge for distributing their copy of the material. Nobody claimed they weren't. What they did instead is claim exclusive rights of distribution over the the other public domain works as well. So, yes what they say is perfectly true, but also entirely irrelevant.
  - ChrisLomont 7y ago
    Your name is diffeomorphism, so I assume you like math, and care about accuracy. You started with this: >>Getty took public domain images and added arbitrary usage limits on them by (fraudulently) claiming to be the sole copyright holder. They did not claim copyright as you stated. Now you've changed to this: >What they did instead is claim exclusive rights of distribution over the the other public domain works as well. You originally stated they claimed they were the sole copyright holder. They did not. Moving the goalposts or downvoting does not change your original claim is incorrect. Accuracy matters, in math and in public discourse.
    - diffeomorphism 7y ago
      I still don't understand what your point is. Fine, they claimed they were the exclusive "distribution rights holder". And then argued that you don't need to claim copyright to distribute and sublicense PD works. Yeah, fine. But that is irrelevant. The "exclusive" is what is the issue and their comment does not address that at all.

blowski 7y ago

I know pretty much nothing about copyright law. Are you saying that the US Library of Congress or the photographer released them under the wrong kind of license?

chrismcb 7y ago
No. The photos were placed into public domain, copyright free. Anyone can copy them # but it also means anyone can sell them.
- TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
  I'm still not clear how being able to sell them seems to mean they can demand licensing fees from anyone who uses the image - effectively claiming they are the sole and exclusive rights holder. I understand that Getty can license PD images through their own site. Legally this seems to be covered by caveat emptor and by the fact that Getty provide search and indexing services to users. But trying to demand licensing rights for a PD image from users who have found the image through another channel[1] is a whole other thing, and seems more like a plain old monopolistic land grab, bordering on extortion. I'm surprised - although not entirely, for cynical reasons - that the court didn't pursue this argument. "Mistakes were made" isn't really a mitigation here. Besides, I'm not sure it's even possible to place work into the public domain under US law without a formal written waiver of moral rights. [1] Including their own camera.
  - smaryjerry 7y ago
    My guess why Getty won the lawsuit is because lawsuits are in order to grant damages and she wasn't able to prove monetary damages to herself as it was already in the public domain. Unfortunately there is very much law enforcement against entities falsely claiming copyrights, especially those that technically have no owner. It seems hard enough for you tubers who get claimed by copyright troll companies constantly and steal their advertising revenue.. or YouTube technically steals and res distributes to the copyright troll. Even those cases you won't see criminal charges or even civil or monetary charges unless the copyright holder wants to go to court. It's basic time scamming. Copyright trolls can claim 100 million videos in the time it takes one person to defend one of those claims. Basically every day these companies make claims that would take the combined lifespan of the entire world to defend against.

dredmorbius 7y ago

I'm not entirely sure how moral rights of authors operates under US law, when or whether such rights extinguish, or what the penalties for infringement are. Under EU copyright, this is a quite strong provision. US governing law would seem to be 17 USC 106A, noting it applies specifically to visual work (as in this case): Rights of Attribution and Integrity.—Subject to section 107 and independent of the exclusive rights provided in section 106, the author of a work of visual art— (1)shall have the right— (A)to claim authorship of that work, and (B)to prevent the use of his or her name as the author of any work of visual art which he or she did not create; https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/106A https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/106A Under 17USC106A(d)(1) the rights "shall endure for a term consisting of the life of the author.* The 107 exemptions are for fair use, which would not apply to Getty's usage claiming exclusive rights. The broader problem would seem to be that releasing works to the public domain cedes critical rights, most especially of enforcement against misappropriation or unsupported claims of copyright. Getty clearly might be (and per some comments on this thread are) engaging in little more than shake-down rackets based on specious copyright claims. An attention-grabbing penalty for such behaviour seems warranted. Apparently US courts see the sanctity of privately or corporately-owned property, but not the property of the public as a whole (public domain).

Meph504 7y ago
When she donated the works, she relinquished all copyright, and the works moved into public domain. These images are for all intensive purposes not owned by anyone, and anyone can do what they see fit with them. (this is where the Getty lawsuit should have focused, as they don't have the right to make claims to the images either, unless the work she published was copied from getty's servers which have lisc restrictions on them [which is a loophole that should be closed]) its unfortunate for the artist, but as others have said, she gave up all rights to the works by placing them in the public domain. You can see the documentation stating she gave those rights up on the LOCs website (https://www.loc.gov/rr/print/res/482_high.html https://www.loc.gov/rr/print/res/482_high.html)
- sokoloff 7y ago
  “intents and purposes” not “intensive purposes”

foobarbecue 7y ago

Ok for them to sell it. Not ok for them to send threats to others for using it.

anigbrowl 7y ago

What about the bad precedent of companies like Getty trying to collect rents on public domain works? It's a two way street. Please don't tell me the solution is better consumer education while corporations are allowed to keep lying about owning IP - that's just shifting the burden to those least well equipped to handle it and treating individuals like the aggregate of all consumers who are presumed to be fully informed about market conditions, a fallacy of division.