Hacking Photography - one Picture at a time
Getty Images, one of the biggest stock image platforms, has banned AI-generated images. If you want to upload and sell work you created through DALL-E, Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, or any other text-to-image tool, you won’t be able to do it there.
The reason? Potential copyright issues. Getty is concerned about the legality of such content, so they want to protect the site’s customers from unwanted copyright claims.
The Association of Photographers (AOP) have raised their concerns over a new exception to the UK’s data mining law which could have significant consequences for photographers. The new exemption proposes to freely allow the machine mining of all imagery published online for any use by anyone, including AI developers. It would cover both copyright works and those protected by the UK Database Right.
Currently, the Text and Data Mining (TDM) exception to copyright protection permits non-commercial purpose machine analysis of online content, provided that there is lawful access (such as a subscription). It is also limited to prevent the resale or reuse for other purposes and must be accompanied by acknowledgement of the source.
Earlier this year, RED filed a lawsuit against Nikon blaming them for illegally copying their video compression patent. Nikon announced the new version 2.0 firmware for the Nikon Z9, and RED claimed that Nikon illegally infringed on seven patents that deal with “a video camera that can be configured to highly compress video data in a visually lossless manner.”
However, Nikon isn’t ready to give in without a fight. The company recently answered to RED’s accusations, claiming that they deny every allegation of the infringement. And from Nikon’s statement, it appears that they’re ready to prove their claims in court and challenge RED’s lawsuit.
Photographer Clancy Gebler Davies won the British Journal of Photography (BJP) Female in Focus Award last year. However, her winning sparked some controversy after another photographer accused her of, well, basically stealing the photo. He claimed that it was he who actually took the shot, and it resulted in the winning image being withdrawn from the Awards completely.
It’s like this case is never going to end, although it’s scheduled to do exactly that in October of this year when the Andy Warhol Foundation v. Goldsmith case is going to be heard by the US Supreme Court. At least, we hope that’ll be the end. Whatever the outcome, it’ll have a far-reaching impact on how fair use applies in copyright today.
The United States Copyright Office themselves have now weighed in on the case by submitting an amicus brief ahead of the hearing backing up the beliefs of others that the “inspiration” does not fall under fair use and is in fact copyright infringement.
Chi Modu captured some of the most iconic photos of the 1990s hip-hop stars. The late photographer’s estate recently got in another legal battle, this time against Universal Music Group (UMG).
UMG allegedly used one of Modu’s iconic images of Tupac Shakur in a 2019 blog post. The estate claims that the copyright info was removed and they’re now suing UMG for copyright infringement.
After so many cases of celebrities being sued for sharing photos without permission, you’d think at least some of them would learn a lesson. But I guess that’s not the case. After already ending up in court for sharing a photo of herself, singer Dua Lipa has done it again.
The British singer shared a photo on Instagram without licensing it or asking the photographer for permission. In return, the photographer filed a copyright infringement lawsuit. And while this is not the first time for Dua Lipa, this photographer also fought legal battles over the same issue before.
Biggie Smalls estate (Notorious B.I.G., LLC) has filed a lawsuit against the wife of the famous hip hop photographer Chi Modu. According to Biggie’s estate, the late photographer’s wife should stop selling merchandise with the famous rapper photos. They claim it violates their right to publicity, even calling Chi Modu “a parasite.”
There’s a joke saying that the most common lie in the world is “I have read and understood Terms and Conditions.” Well, misunderstanding terms and conditions could cost a student newspaper team thousands of dollars.
A student media group reportedly used a photo from a popular Creative Commons website to illustrate their article. However, the photographer who took the image claims it was copyright infringement and is suing the newspaper for over $5,000.
Pinterest is a place where we can find inspiration for all kinds of creative endeavors. For me, it’s usually seeing the picture, then clicking on it to read the article behind it and learn something new I can apply to my creative work.
However, a photographer from Princeton, New Jersey sued Pinterest over those photos pinned on people’s boards. He claimed that Pinterest shared over 50 of his photos without permission and sued them for copyright infringement. But the judge disagreed and ruled in favor of Pinterest in this unusual case.
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