Copyright & Legal
The American Photographic Artists (APA) association has joined 15 plaintiffs in a copyright infringement lawsuit against Google that alleges the “Google Book Search” program violates the copyrights of numerous photographers and other visual artists.
There is a battle brewing in courts that everyone in the photo industry should pay very close attention to. A company called ReDigi (
https://www.redigi.com/) is in the business of allowing anyone to resell “used” digital files. In other words, allowing anyone to sell, for example, an MP3 file they legally purchased. They claim rightful business practice under the first sale doctrine, the same rule that allows you to resell your used books.
Last month the U.S. Supreme Court in a 6-to-3 decision in the case of
Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons found that Supap Kirtsaeng had the right to resell, in the United States, textbooks that his friends and relatives purchased in Thailand. The Thai math student at Cornell University generated roughly $900,000 in revenue by reselling books that can be purchased at a much lower price in Thailand than in the U.S.
PhotoShelter and ASMP have partnered to produce and distribute a
new guide that discusses photographer’s rights under the U.S. copyright law and explains what they must do to protect their work.
Anyone who reads the comments on Selling Stock knows that travel photographer Bill Bachmann is a strong advocate of Rights Managed licensing and adamantly opposed to ever making any of his images available as Royalty Free. Imagine his surprise when he discovered that someone had found one of his images on Bing, grabbed it and used it as a background for another photo. And the other photographer was so proud of what he had done that he explained that the image he created was a "Bing Royalty Free background with model added."
Stock agency bankruptcies are becoming more frequent. In some cases
photographers receive notices from a bankruptcy administrator saying
that they are owed a certain amount of money. The administrator asks
them to confirm, or prove, that is what they are owed.
Many of the countries leading brands are placing their advertising messages on the more than 150,000 pirate entertainment sites that distribute content without any compensation going to creators according to the
USC Annenberg Ad Transparency Report.
Serban Enache, CEO of Dreamstime has explained in a
blog post how Google’s new image search techniques make it more likely that unauthorized use of your images will increase. Every image producer should read this story.
The Copyright Alliance has supplied a
list of copyright related issues that are likely to be considered the the 113th Congress during 2013.
Instagram has taken another shot at updating their Terms of Service. Peter Krogh, author of the DAM (Digital Assets Management) Book and Chair of ASMP’s Digital Standards Committee has reviewed the new terms and concluded that for the professional photographer trying to earn a living they are “still terrible.” Read his very thorough analysis
here.
This is the third in a series of articles on the image collection that is available to Google Drive users. (It looks like there may be many more articles as more details unfold.) To see the first two articles go
here and
here. This is not just a microstock issue. Hundreds of traditionally priced RF images are involved.
As a specialist in model released military photography (
http://www.photoshelter.com/c/militarystockphoto) for more than 30 years Hans Halberstadt has always actively pursued infringements of his work. Over the years he has recovered in excess of $200,000, often a few thousand dollars at a time, for various unauthorized uses.
The New York Times reports that late Thursday Kevin Systrom, Instagram’s co-founder said, that where advertising was concerned, the company would revert to its previous terms of service that have been in effect since October 2010.
The leading trade associations representing professional photographers have sent the following letter to Kevin Systrom, CEO of Instagram protesting Instagram’s new “terms of use.”
Uniloc USA and Uniloc Luxenburg has sued
DepositPhotos,
Dreamstime and other stock photo licensors alleging that their business models infringe Uniloc’s U.S. patent number 7,099,848 filed by Russell P. Reeder and Raymond M. Haynes on December 28, 2001 and granted on August 29, 2006.
For several years there have been discussions about the possibility of developing a simplified, less costly, less burdensome process for making a legal claim for unauthorized use of images. Currently all copyright infringement claims in the U.S. must be brought in Federal Court. Is a small claims system the answer?
Stock photo professionals in the UK and across Europe are deeply concerned about the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill that is working its way through Parliament. As currently proposed it represent a serious threat to the ability of rightsholders to generate income from copyrighted works.
Axiom Photographic Agency Limited ceased trading on September 20, 2012, and was subsequently placed into Voluntary Liquidation at a meeting of the shareholders on October 23, 2012 due to its inability to meet its obligations to creditors. The Liquidator subsequently accepted an offer presented by
Design Pics Inc., to purchase the assets of Axiom Photographic, which became effective October 25, 2012.
At the Picture Archive Council of America (PACA) international conference in Chicago over the weekend PACA and CCC (Copyright Clearance Center) offered a proposal for collecting revenue for the unlicensed use of images on social media sites and distributing a share of that revenue to the creators whose images were used
Last year a positive partnership between content creators and internet service providers (ISPs) was created to better educate internet users on legal options for receiving entertainment content online and to inform consumers who repeatedly engage in infringement that their actions are inappropriate. Now they are ready to launch the Copyright Alert System.
The Association of American Publishers (AAP) and Google have announced a settlement agreement that will provide the Google Library Project with access to books and journals that are still protected by copyright. Now, Google may digitize new books as well as make the contents of books already scanned available online.
Dreamstime has become the latest professional photography service to resolve its legal issues regarding the pinning of copyright-protected, watermarked images shared on
Pinterest. The solution incorporates an attribution line, which now appears beneath the photo in question and links back to the photo’s page on Dreamstime.com. This is the same solution that Pinterest offers to other members of its “attribution program,” including Flickr, YouTube, 500px, Etsy, and others.
The Berlin based news agency group DAPD filed for insolvency on October 2, 2012. However, this action only affects six companies within the dapd media holding group AG including two photo services – dfd Foto Service GmbH and dapd video GmbH.
The Patents County Court (PCC) system in the UK has revised its intellectual property laws for England and Wales and simplified the procedure for claims valued at £5,000 or less. Copyright holders will have the option of sorting out disputes through an informal hearing without legal representation. The government plans to increase this limit to £10,000, although when this will happen is currently unclear.
Last weeks
announcement that PACA, ASMP and CCC are considering some type of arrangement that would compensate image creators for the unauthorized web usage of their images on sites like Pinterest, Facebook, YouTube, etc. needs careful examination by all photographers and distributors before anything is formalized.