Hacking Photography - one Picture at a time
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.
Although some quite enjoyed the idea of seeing Getty get a good legal spanking for once, that is not how things are turning out. US District Court Judge Jed S. Rakoff has dismissed all of Carol Highsmith’s federal copyright claims. After the dismissal on October 28th, he left three of Highsmith’s state law claims intact. Those, too, have now been voluntarily dismissed after Highsmith and Getty have reached an agreement to settle the case.
For those who missed it, Highsmith filed suit in July after she discovered that Getty had been charging fees to license images she had created without her consent. She only realised this after they attempted to bill her for the use of one of her own photographs and did a little digging. They had attempted to sell almost 19,000 images she had created.
The technological advancements that can be made in just four short years are amazing. 11 time Olympic photographer Al Bello is taking advantage of that fact this year. He’s covering the swimming events using underwater robot cameras.
Robotic underwater cameras at the Olympics aren’t a new idea. Reuters used similar robots during London 2012. But this is the first time Getty will be giving them a try. With an extra four years of research and development, though, these cameras should get some fantastic and unique shots.
Getty Images seem to be having a tough time lately. After recently being hit with a $1 billion lawsuit by photographer Carol Highsmith, they are being sued again.
The nine page civil complaint was filed by Zuma Press, an independent press agency, on Monady. In the suit, Zuma alleges copyright violations and unauthorised licensing of more than 47,000 images.
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.
Now here’s a treasure trove many of us would love to have access to, regardless of what brand we may normally shoot. This is Getty’s arsenal for the Rio Olympics kicking off in a few days.
The Canon 1DX Mark II seems to be the clear camera of choice for this year’s games. There’s a few original 1DX thrown in for good measure. The display also sports a pair of 5DSR bodies, which appear so small in comparison that they’re almost cute.
Getty Images has filed a copyright infringement suit against Ohio man, Walter A. Kowalczuk for allegedly downloading as many as 3,400 high resolution images from Getty’s servers without permission which he then resold through a private group on Facebook.
According to PDN, Getty’s claim against Kowalczuk, filed June 8th in US District Court in Cleveland, states that he and other members of the group allegedly bought and sold images using codewords for the sources of those images, such as “Spaghetti” for Getty and “Apples” for Associated Press.
This week, Getty have launched the new Getty Images Virtual Reality Group with over 12,000 360° images, as well as gigapixel content from major events and venues.
Getty started on their 360 degree quest in 2012 at the London Olympics and at this year’s Rio Games, the company has said that every Getty photographer will possess a 360° camera.
If you ever needed proof that police photo composites could be pretty accurate, this is it.
In an advert recently put out by Getty, they use facial compositing techniques to make up the faces of religious leaders, politicians and royalty using parts of random people from the millions of images in their archive.
Getty, probably the largest image agency in the world, just picked a fight with the largest… well.. anything in the world – Google. In an open letter, Getty accuses google of depriving sites of their traffic by displaying high-res photo in their image search.
And it does not stop there. Getty also filed a formal complaint with the European Union’s Competition Commission, there are more than just web pages filled with words flying around.
Yoko Miyashita, General Counsel of Getty Images took a pretty wide stance and filed the complaint on behalf of “content creators around the world“. I am just gonna quote the claim here (omitting his forward which includes just about everything that good was ever accused of):
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can change a lens mid-rappel, swap a memory card while treading water, or use a camel as a light stand.
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