Originally published at: Stock photo sites' abuse of public domain images countered with better copies and a $0 price tag | Boing Boing
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Meanwhile, is Getty going after people who use the public domain images from non-Getty sources?
From what turns up in Google image searches, I have the feeling that those image companies are grabbing up all kinds on images from the Internet, not just old books, and then claiming copyright on them.
Cory Doctorow…
The source tag in this record
leads to a broken link.
403. That’s an error.
Your client does not have permission to get URL /books/content?req=AKW5QafQ0XXLYORV8UrCO9LKk4Ro_N6ffYuGHL1bF5D6xYqK-i9bhiWv0Oep-KgLQWGF-UVgOwzLTOJCCij1EO4Gd_9YWGU8CicEGoDsiVErMnWB0noDF3b7SUNueF-b-6ReOLfIoMVVI0nWN93HPDXGUh7TGPxJh5Y13_-ozZ24TeP8q_giAdOmKl6K6FGrhF_8GfmcU6f0Rq4y84ei9S5muUmAvcC44pG3fCfOyiHZKuj-STmvhDWW2rc2_Vxf38oobtwIEcv9QapafROwxS34OYL4K1FVUqhXo2auxhtQvZRaMY_Vqws
from this server. That’s all we know.
Funny picture of a robot, though.
Ideally, these images would retain some of their original quality as black and white engravings, but that would require some specialized image capture devices.
Part of the problem seems to be that individual contributors can assign their copyright to these companies. That could be useful for news photographers, for example, where the company takes care of organizing, archiving, making them available and collecting licence fees.
The trouble is that some contributors are submitting large amounts of stuff from what seem to be public domain sources, and it’s unclear what their contribution to the derivative work was. Did they contribute by photographing or scanning a copy of the original work, or did they just grab an image and submit it?
Good on ya, Cory D.
Happy Cakeday, Melz!!’n
Grazie, KP!
doesn’t generate a fresh copyright. You know Disney would have milked that loophole if it existed!
Good point.
So this guy is slapping a bogus copyright on loads of public domain material, and companies like Alamy will hound anyone else using those images. And to fight it, someone would have to lawyer-up at heavy expense, and then the company would say “Oops, our bad. Never mind!” (And then hound someone else.)
Hey, @doctorow!
Thanks for all you do!
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