Copyright & Legal
Judge Forrest of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in
Goldman v. Breitbart News, LLC has ruled in favor of photographer Justin Goldman that embedding a tweet that contains a copyright protected photo
does, in fact, constitute a copyright violation. If the ruling is upheld, it could have a major impact on the way media and many other Internet users get some of their imagery.
After I published my article proposing the development of an
Image Creator Locator or ICL, several readers pointed out that the
Plus Registry is designed to accomplish the same goal. See here for how ICL differs from Plus in its aims.
Getty Images and Google have announced an agreement that includes a multi-year global licensing partnership, enabling Google to use Getty Images’ content within its various products and services. “This agreement between Getty Images and Google sets the stage for a very productive, collaborative relationship between our companies,” said Dawn Airey, CEO, Getty Images. “We will license our market leading content to Google, working closely with them to improve attribution of our contributors’ work and thereby growing the ecosystem.”
If you’re an image creator, or a stock photography customer and you’ve been thinking about getting involved with the new
KodakOne you might want to think again. The initial coin offering (ICO) of KodakCoin, that was supposed to launch on January 31st, has been delayed several weeks. In order to eventually license rights to images it will be necessary to use KodakCoins.
One of the biggest problems in the stock image business is unauthorized use. Many of those making unauthorized uses would be happy to ask permission and compensate the creator,
if they could just find them. When they find an image on a website other than the creators there is usually no information about who the creator is or how to locate him/her.
If you want to earn more for the images you produce, and for there to be less unauthorized use, maybe you should be praying that your images won’t get used by customers online. For many this may sound like heresy, or at the very least, ridiculous. Doesn’t everyone want more people to see and use their images? Consider this analysis.
In support of #SmallClaimsDay all U.S. image creators, stock agents (and friends of the creative community) are being asked to write their Congresspersons before January 17, 2018 and request that they co-sponsor H.R. 3945. By using this site (
http://copyrightalliance.org/get-involved/add-your-voice/ ) sending letters is quick and easy to do!
When I first heard about a blockchain based strategy for licensing stock images it sounded like it might have some potential. What photographer wouldn’t like to be able set the price for the licensing of his/her images, have customers pay those prices, and have most of the price the customer pays immediately credited to the photographer’s account. Sounds great.
IPStock, run by Geneva based company Intellectual Property Depository and Management (IPDM) that develops a unique fintech platform for visual digital assets, has announced the launch of pre-ICO for its blockchain registry of visual digital content copyrights.
Kodak have just started their new project “KodakOne” and already their shares have skyrocketed. In 2012 it was a different story as they were on the verge of bankruptcy, but they are slowly fighting their way back with their new idea. But what’s all the hype around the new project “KodakOne”?
Kodak and
WENN Digital, in a licensing partnership, have announced the launch of the KODAKOne image rights management platform utilizing blockchain technology and KODAKCoin, a photo-centric cryptocurrency to empower photographers and agencies to take greater control in image rights management.
Copytrack, the German organization that tracks use of images on the Internet and then pursues infringers when an unauthorized use is discovered has announced that its “blockchain powered copyright registry and enforcement platform is preparing the enter the second round of the crowdsale” as a way of raising revenue for future expansion.
Most commercial users want to be honest. They don’t set out to steal. They certainly don’t want to be chased by a photographer and his/her legal team once it is discovered that they have used an image without permission. If photographers want to license more images to professional users – and get better prices – then they must make it easier for customers to find them once the customers finds an image they would like to use. The process is easy enough if the customer finds the image on a stock agency website, but more and more customers are finding the images they would like to use by searching Google, Bing, Flickr or by randomly searching Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, other social media sites or various publications.
The European Parliament is debating new legislation that could require Facebook, Google, Twitter and other major players to share some of the advertising revenue they earn from making the information produced and supplied by major European press agencies available to readers for free.
A judge published a verdict on November 28, 2017 in the District Court of North Hoilland that could dramatically change the meaning of copyright in the Netherlands, if it is upheld. Masterfile and Mediapro, its representative in the Netherlands, had brought a case against a website operator who had used a Masterfile distributed photo of a “clear close-up of a temperature gauge of a car.” The photo was used without permission and no payment was made by the website operator to Masterfile
When potential customers see one of your images they would like to use can they find you or your representative. More and more image users are finding the images they would like to use by searching Google or Bing. They also stumble on images that would be perfect for their next project while searching Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter and other social media sites.
There have been many articles published about how the Copyright Small Claims Bill, H.R. 3945, entitled, the “Copyright Alternative in Small-Claims Enforcement Act of 2017” (the “CASE Act”) will benefit image creators. Here is a
link to an excellent article that may make it easier for photographers to understand exactly how the Act will benefit them.
A bipartisan solution to help artists, photographers, filmmakers, musicians, songwriters, authors and other creators protect their life’s work from unauthorized reproduction has been introduced by U.S. Representative Hakeem Jeffries (NY-08), a Democrat, and U.S. Representative Tom Marino (PA-10), a Republican, both members of the members of the House Judiciary Committee.
Effective October 1, 2017 a new French law obliges clients who use commercial images in France to disclose whether the body shape of a model has been retouched to make the individual look thinner or larger.
ImageRights International, the global leader in copyright enforcement services for photo agencies and professional photographers has launched a dedicated
copyright registration service. For the first time, any photographer or agency can register their images with the United States Copyright Office through ImageRights highly efficient and precise copyright service. Previously, only ImageRights members had access to the service.
The District Court of the Southern District of New York, in the case of
Archie MD, Inc. v. Elsevier, Inc., recently clarified the standard by which a copyright registration may be considered valid despite containing inaccurate information.
It is no longer necessary to take pictures in order to win photo contest. Photographers who share their images on public domain sites are sometimes surprised to learn that others have taken their images, entered them in photo contests and won awards.
Everyday Copytrack is confronted with the question from their users of how they can protect their images. Despite there being no one method that completely protects image online, we suggest other tools and ways that reduce the chances of image theft. Here are the simplest to the most complex methods for image protection as presented by
Copytrack.
A couple weeks ago
we reported that Google researchers had found a way to remove the watermarks used by most stock photographer and stock photography sites. To protect their watermarks Shutterstock engineers have designed a “watermark randomizer” that adds subtle inconsistencies to its marks, ensuring each one is a little different and making them difficult for Google to remove.
Researchers at Google have found a vulnerability in the way watermarks are used by stock imagery sites like Adobe Stock that makes it possible to remove the opaque stamp used to protect copyright.