President Donald Trump’s most recent financial disclosure has revealed an unusual agreement involving Getty Images and Melania Trump. In 2017, the First Lady has reportedly earned at least $100,000 in an agreement with Getty for the use of photos of the Trump family. But there’s a catch: the media are only allowed to use each of the 187 photos in “positive stories.”
Starting today, 500px no longer have a Creative Commons license option
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Remember that a month ago image sharing platform 500px announced that they will shut their marketplace down? A closer look at the announcement by Redditor Ricky_Lee_Hasselhoff reveals that 500px are also killing their Creative Commons licensing option.
If you are unfamiliar with Creative Commons, you can read about it here, but in a nutshell, it’s a licensing scheme that allows others to use your photos without monetary compensation. Here is the nice thing about creative commons: it allows putting restrictions on usage. Things like an obligation to credit the artist or restricting from commercial use. Basically Creative Commons is a licensing platform that encourages sharing.
500px Marketplace shuts down, Getty Images will soon take over
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Getty Images has announced an exclusive distribution partnership with 500px. Starting from late June 2018, 500px Marketplace will quit direct sales and e-commerce. Instead, Getty Images customers will be able to access royalty-free content from 500px, along with over 300 million images already available on Getty.
Community fights against removing View Image button from Google search
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You’ve probably noticed by now that Google has removed the “View Image” button from its Image Search. The decision helped Google to settle its dispute with Getty, but it has made many users unhappy. The community, then, is finding ways to reclaim the View Image button, somehow or another.
“View Image” button is now removed from Google Image Search
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A few days ago, Getty and Google announced the upcoming changes as a result of a licensing deal. The announced changes have arrived, and now you can’t see the “View Image” button on Google any longer. Instead, if you want to see the photo, you’ll have to go directly to the website where it’s hosted.
Google changes Image Search to protect copyright of Getty photographers
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It’s been almost two years since Getty Images filed a lawsuit against Google. But today, Getty has announced that the two companies have reached an agreement. As a result, Google will soon change the Image Search so it’s more protective of Getty contributors’ copyright.
Getty changes regulations for photoshopping female bodies
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Photoshopping female bodies has been a question of many debates. Getty Images, one of the largest stock photo agencies in the world, has just changed their rules concerning this issue.
According to their new rules, along with the submission of the images, you’ll also need to declare whether the model’s body size and shape have been digitally manipulated or not. If they have, you shouldn’t submit the images.
Getty responds to $1 Billion lawsuit: If you put your photos in public domain, don’t come whining to us
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OK, those are not the exact words of Getty, but this is what their response feels like. As you may recall we reported this 1 Billion dollars lawsuit back in July. If you want the background, Getty sent an infringement notice to one Carol M. Highsmith. Here is the funny thing. Carol M. Highsmith was the photographer who took the photo in the first place.
In response, Carol sued Getty for 1 billion dollars for “gross misuse” of 18,755 of her photographs, she claims that Getty “falsely and fraudulently holding themselves out as the exclusive copyright owner” (The amount comes from $25K per image in statutory damages times three).
Now it’s Getty’s time to respond (and they did file a response on September 6th) and here is what they are saying:
Getty asks photographer to pay for her own photo, photographer responds with $1 billion lawsuit
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Getty can be pretty quick to send out infringement letters, as well they should. In the case of a real infringement, they absolutely must be protecting the rights of their contributors. But what happens when Getty screws up and sends an infringement notice to the creator of the photograph?
What then happens if Getty also try to sell almost 19,000 of the same photographer’s images without permission? Well, that’s what happened to photographer Carol M. Highsmith and she’s suing Getty for the maximum available under the law.
Bing Takes Small Step To Protect Photographers From Copyright Infringement; Improve Image Search
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It appears internet search engine Bing and Getty Images have come a long way since Getty filed a lawsuit against Bing last year, accusing Bing of a “massive infringement”. Now, seven months later, the two have announced a partnership which both companies hope will provide Bing users with “image rich” content and internet browsing. In a press release relating to the partnership, Getty Images Senior VP of Business Development Craig Peters explained:
“With our new partnership, Microsoft will use Getty Images’ latest API innovations and our award-winning visual content to take search experiences to a new level. Our technology teams will work together to create beautiful, engaging applications and services for Microsoft users with licensed content and attribution for photographers and other content creators.”
Stemming from the partnership, Bing has also announced several improvements in the search engine’s image search capabilities. These improvements are aimed at raising awareness to copyright and Creative Common laws, with the hopes they will reduce infringement cases.[Read More…]
