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You're breathing air. I own all the air. Pay me. Now, if I claimed this seriously, most people would laugh me out of the room. But some might not and actually

You're breathing air. I own all the air. Pay me. Now, if I claimed this seriously, most people would laugh me out of the room. But some might not and actually pay up. Especially if I threatened to sue them if they didn't pay up and the "I" was a big, well-known company. What Getty does is not just muddy grey misrepresentation, it's outright fraudulent. - They say it's copyright infringement in their letter. It is not. - They say you need a valid license to use the image. You do not. - They demand a license fee. Not a "you used our service to find and download this public domain work" fee. A license fee. - There is no indication whatsoever Getty/Alamy had any role in how the photograph got onto the website of Highsmith's foundation. Given it's her own photograph, it's unlikely she used Getty at all. But they do not claim a fee for using their services anyway, they claim a license fee based on copyright law, which they cannot. Highsmith gave up her copyright and cannot demand attribution or damages under the copyright law, so I agree with the court there. What she instead should have done is file a criminal complaint and a civil suit regarding the attempt to defraud her.

oliwarner 7y ago
I take an amazing photo and give it to you with all rights to redistribute and sublicense it as you wish. You choose to redistribute it under a restrictive license for cash. As far as you know you're the only person selling this photo. You see my photo being used in a national advert. The advertiser is not your customer. Again, you think you're the only person with the right to redistribute this photo, and infer that your rights to a licensing fee is being infringed. As I say, they were stupid to treat this as if they had an exclusive license, but they had every right to redistribute under their license and ask for a license fee. Just as the recipient of that demand had the right to tell them go away.
- rndgermandude 7y ago
  >I take an amazing photo and give it to you with all rights to redistribute and sublicense it as you wish. This is not what happened. They never were granted the rights to sublicense it. It is in the public domain. They can use it, redistribute it, or charge you if you somehow use their services to do things with it, or even create derivative works which they then own. But they cannot relicense it or claim they own it, or represent the owner. Now, the only thing I would let them bring forward as their argument is if they themselves were defrauded by somebody claiming ownership of the photograph. I see no indication that this is what had happened, tho.
  - foo101 7y ago
    > This is not what happened. They never were granted the rights to sublicense it. This is not what happened. They were granted the rights to sublicense it. Placing a piece of work in public domain automatically grants others to do whatever they want with it including sublicensing it.
    - Marazan 7y ago
      They were not granted the exclusive right to sub licence it. Happy now?
      - foo101 7y ago
        The image was put in public domain. No further exclusive rights are required to sublicense it. You are allowed to pick work from public domain and sublicense it if you want to.
        bonzini 7y ago
        Since they were not given exclusive rights, how could they know that whoever used the picture was infringing their rights and had to pay them a license fee? They didn't.
        bcrosby95 7y ago
        The whole example was about having exclusive rights so anyone that had the image must be infringing. That presumption is gone once the image is in the public domain. The problem isn't that Getty is trying to license an image, the problem is Getty is contacting people already using a public domain image and trying to get them to pay them money to use it.
        lonelappde 7y ago
        What "license" was sub-licensed?
        anigbrowl 7y ago
        You can't have a sublicense for something in which no licensing rights inhere to begin with. I think you understand this very well and are choosing to pretend otherwise.
- deleted 7y ago
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oliwarner 7y ago

I take an amazing photo and give it to you with all rights to redistribute and sublicense it as you wish. You choose to redistribute it under a restrictive license for cash. As far as you know you're the only person selling this photo. You see my photo being used in a national advert. The advertiser is not your customer. Again, you think you're the only person with the right to redistribute this photo, and infer that your rights to a licensing fee is being infringed. As I say, they were stupid to treat this as if they had an exclusive license, but they had every right to redistribute under their license and ask for a license fee. Just as the recipient of that demand had the right to tell them go away.

rndgermandude 7y ago
>I take an amazing photo and give it to you with all rights to redistribute and sublicense it as you wish. This is not what happened. They never were granted the rights to sublicense it. It is in the public domain. They can use it, redistribute it, or charge you if you somehow use their services to do things with it, or even create derivative works which they then own. But they cannot relicense it or claim they own it, or represent the owner. Now, the only thing I would let them bring forward as their argument is if they themselves were defrauded by somebody claiming ownership of the photograph. I see no indication that this is what had happened, tho.
- foo101 7y ago
  > This is not what happened. They never were granted the rights to sublicense it. This is not what happened. They were granted the rights to sublicense it. Placing a piece of work in public domain automatically grants others to do whatever they want with it including sublicensing it.
  - Marazan 7y ago
    They were not granted the exclusive right to sub licence it. Happy now?
    - foo101 7y ago
      The image was put in public domain. No further exclusive rights are required to sublicense it. You are allowed to pick work from public domain and sublicense it if you want to.
      - bonzini 7y ago
        Since they were not given exclusive rights, how could they know that whoever used the picture was infringing their rights and had to pay them a license fee? They didn't.
      - bcrosby95 7y ago
        The whole example was about having exclusive rights so anyone that had the image must be infringing. That presumption is gone once the image is in the public domain. The problem isn't that Getty is trying to license an image, the problem is Getty is contacting people already using a public domain image and trying to get them to pay them money to use it.
      - lonelappde 7y ago
        What "license" was sub-licensed?
      - anigbrowl 7y ago
        You can't have a sublicense for something in which no licensing rights inhere to begin with. I think you understand this very well and are choosing to pretend otherwise.
deleted 7y ago
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