Is There A Need For A Publication Like Selling Stock?

Posted on 6/23/2020 by Jim Pickerell | Printable Version | Comments (3)

After reading my story “Copyright Protection For Photos Is Dead” Paul Melcher wrote, “If there is no more copyright, then there is no more licensing. If there is no more photo licensing then there is no more reason for the existence of ‘Selling Stock’"

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Selling Stock is an on-line newsletter that reports on developing trends in the stock photo industry. It is updated at least twice a month. On-line subscribers receive e-mail notification whenever new stories are posted. Archives containing stories going back to late 1995 are fully available to subscribers.

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Copyright © 2020 Jim Pickerell. The above article may not be copied, reproduced, excerpted or distributed in any manner without written permission from the author. All requests should be submitted to Selling Stock at 10319 Westlake Drive, Suite 162, Bethesda, MD 20817, phone 301-461-7627, e-mail: wvz@fpcubgbf.pbz

Comments

Tibor Bognar Posted Jun 27, 2020
This industry has self-destroyed for the benefit of very few individuals and it's a shame. I'm among the few people still trying to hang on, mainly because I enjoy working, but obviously all this will disappear within a very short time and the world will enjoy unlimited free images...
Jim, you have made a very useful contribution to all of us for many years; I hope you too will hang on for a little longer and share your thoughts!
Thank you and best wishes!

John-Paul Kernot Posted Jun 27, 2020
In a world where digital assets are highly priced it seems a copyright should be too. Unfortunately the perception is that photographs are free. Blame that on Facebook.

Penny Gentieu Posted Jun 27, 2020
It is time for “Selling Stock” to go. The Selling Stock Weekly Digest of June 6 did not report the best news photographers have had for a very long time, which was the June 1, 2020 McGucken v. Newsweek decision that there is no apparent license from Instagram to endusers of the Instagram embedding tool that confer rights to use copyrighted photos. Instead, the digest contained two articles that were published by Nancy Wolff, who is Newsweek’s lawyer in the lawsuit!

And then the next week, in the digest dated June 13, after Instagram came out and announced to the world, in a June 4 article by Ars Technica, that Instagram definitely does NOT hand out sublicenses to use copyrighted photos via their embedding tool, Jim Pickerell questioned whether or not that is a correct legal opinion, referring to the “sad case of Stephanie Sinclair,” not even mentioning that the Sinclair v Mashable case was under appeal for the April 13 “dismissal” decision. Hmm….

And then just this week, the “sad” Sinclair v Mashable decision was overturned, as the judge wrote that “in light of the persuasive authority of McGucken, and in order to correct clear error,” the Court overturned the dismissal as there is no evidence of a sublicense. But does Selling Stock report that? NO! It would rather paint the industry dead. Thank goodness for the rejuvenation of justice by a younger generation of artists and lawyers.

And by the way, on May 20, I myself achieved a major victory for photographers. I persuaded SquareSpace, a huge website provider, to change their practice of stripping copyright management information metadata from user’s photographs. Therefore, because SquareSpace changed their policy and will from now on retain CMI metadata, photos will be able to appear on Google with the upcoming Google Licensable Badge. This is a very good thing for photographers and shows that things are turning around.

It’s been a great year for photography with the recent court decisions, the upcoming Google Licensable badge, and the retention of metadata for SquareSpace users. Copyright protection for photos is far from being dead, unlike the Selling Stock newsletter.

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