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
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
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
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.
Bill Gates sells image licensing company Corbis to Visual Group China
Seattle-based Corbis Corporation has announced that its massive collection of over 100 million images and 800,000 video clips has been sold to Visual China Group, a Chinese investment company whose majority owner is Getty Images.[Read More…]
Bing Takes Small Step To Protect Photographers From Copyright Infringement; Improve Image Search
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…]
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