Copyright & Legal
The Internet is a great place for selling things if the finished product must be delivered by FedEx or UPS. But if you’re trying to sell is a digital version of what you’re showing,
then long range your business model doesn’t have much future. It’s too easy to “steal,” “appropriate” or whatever you want to call it.
All the people who love to grab photos they find on the Internet and use them however they please are now mobilizing to stop the U.S. Congress from passing the CASE Act that would establish a small claims court system. These
millions of photo users believe they should not be restricted in any way from doing whatever they want with the property of others. Photographers need to
ACT NOW.
Robert Kneschke’s story on
Unsplash last week got me thinking about trademarks and logos. Professional photographers tell me that the inspectors for the major stock agencies – Getty, Shutterstock, AdobeStock and iStock – are increasingly rejecting photos with any identifying brand marks for fear of legal action by the brands.
The Copyright Alliance needs all image creators to help push the CASE Act – the bill to create a copyright small claims court for creators and small business owners – through Congress. On May 1, the
Copyright Alternative in Small-Claims Enforcement Act (CASE Act) of 2019 (H.R. 2426 and S. 1273) was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate.
The Texas Appeals court has ruled that the state can infringe upon copyright without risking punishment under the state’s or federal government’s “takings” clause. More than two years ago, photographer Jim Olive discovered that his aerial photo of the Houston skyline (titled “The Cityscape”) was being used by the University of Houston, a public university, on its website to promote its C.T. Bauer College of Business without requesting permission or making payment.
A reader asked about un-vetted contributions to microstock sites. She has discovered that her work is widely copied on the Internet and says she was unaware that microstock sites allow people to post images that are not their own. She asked if I could provide a list of microstock sites that don’t follow up to determine if the person submitting images or footage really created what they are submitting. Finally, who should she chase up if there is an infringement?
In an opinion issued June 5th federal Judge William Alsup of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California granted only one part of Google’s motion for partial final judgment on the pleadings regarding the breach of contract and breach of implied covenant claims by
Dreamstime.com that relate to a Google Play agreement.
PicRights, a global leader in copyright enforcement, has added a new partner in Johannesburg, South Africa to monetize copyright infringements for the world’s leading news agencies, stock image agencies and independent photographers. No other copyright compliance service offers its clients as much geographical coverage of key markets around the world.
The photo news agency
MAXPPP has selected two partner companies to monitor, recover and prosecute the use of its content on the internet, the newspapers and the magazines. The goal of the partnership: to increase by at least 50% its revenues related to fraudulent uses.
There are often two sides to an industry. The side the customer sees, and the "inside" that industry people see. This article is about the inside of the stock image industry and how Microstock has changed. It also offers photographers and videographers some ideas how to deal with the issues.
The CASE Act (Copyright Alternative in Small-Claims Enforcement) was first introduced in 2017, but the bill expired without being passed at the end of the last Congress, as is the normal process for all bills not passed. On May 1, 2019 the bill was re-introduced in both the House and the Senate.
Selling-Stock has managed to gather more information about what has been happening at VCG. According to sources sometime after the Corbis acquisition VCG decided to copy Getty’s Premium Access strategy and launch a PA plan of its own. In addition to all the Getty and Corbis creative and editorial images, the iStock images are also available to the customers who purchase a PA plan.
On April 26, 2019, the Fourth Circuit Court overturned a Northern Virginia District Court decision that allowed Violent Hues Productions, LLC’s to use a cropped version of a photo to promote a Film and Music Festival without compensation to the creator. Violent Hues had made no effort to request permission or compensate photographer Russell Brammer for the use and claimed “Fair Use” in court. (See
July 2018 story.)
On April 8, 2019 there was a roundtable discussion at the Copyright Office’s with regard to the immunity Internet Service Providers are entitled to under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act if they comply with various provisions. The content creator community has been hoping that the U.S. might follow the lead of the
European Parliament and provide some additional protections for creators.
With its “Copyright in the Digital Single Market”
directive the European Parliament took a giant step last week toward empowering creatives and news publisher to negotiate with the Internet giants for a share of the revenue received as a result of their distribution of creative content they do not own. The new copyright rules also contain safeguards on freedom of expression.
Two unanimous opinions of the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday, March 4, make winning a copyright infringement case more difficult. See a full report on the Digital Media Licensing Association website
here.
CEPIC expresses its extreme disappointment at the EU copyright Directive as we see that last minute compromises were reached that will directly hurt CEPIC members specialized in fine art, history and vintage photography. Some of these libraries are attached to cultural institutions and contribute to their financing – this not only by “selling postcards” as the agreed compromise text implies.
The European Parliament, the Council of the EU and the Commission have come to a political agreement to make the copyright rules fit for digital era in Europe. This will bring tangible benefits to all creative sectors including the press, researchers, educators, cultural heritage institutions, and citizens.
U.S. District Judge William Alsup of the Northern District of California recently granted Google's motion to dismiss the antitrust claim filed by
Dreamstime.com LLC but allowed claims of breach of contract and breach of covenant of good faith and fair dealing to move forward.
The U.S. Copyright Office has submitted a letter to Congress detailing the results of the Office’s public inquiry on how certain visual works, particularly photographs, graphic artworks, and illustrations, are registered, monetized, and enforced under the Copyright Act of 1976. The document is entitled, “Copyright and Visual Works: The Legal Landscape of Opportunities and Challenges.”
A reader called my attention to an article
I wrote in 2010 where the “The U.S. Chamber of Commerce estimates that online rights infringements costs the U.S. economy roughly $58 billion in total output every year.” The reader wanted to know how much that might be today.
In the case of Jonathan Otto vs. Hearst Communications, Inc. in the Southern District Court of New York, Judge Gregory Woods has found that news organizations may not use personal images posted on social media without permission. In the event that personal images are use the infringer is legally liable to pay damages to the creator.
According to photographers
Masterfile has been unable to make any royalty payments to photographers since January 2018. The company
filed for bankruptcy in 2017. Payments to the bankruptcy lawyer are prioritized ahead of payments to photographers. It appears the company has not been generating enough revenue to cover fixed expenses and still pay royalties.
In late September 2018,
Google announced that it had been working with two photo industry consortiums, CEPIC and IPTC, to integrate some image ownership-related metadata into search results. Now Google images desktop view has a new “Image credits” link below the image. This information is collected from IPTC Creator, Credit and/or Copyright information if it exists.
For the last four years the Australian Government has published an annual "Consumer Survey on online copyright infringement". The
103 page report focuses on the unlicensed use of Music, Video Games, Movies, TV, e-Books and PC software. Unfortunately, it does not deal the unlicensed use of photographs.