"Re-Photographer" Richard Prince is back in the spotlight again -- this time hopefully for the final time -- after a final settlement was reached in his five-year-long legal back-and-forth with photographer Patrick Cariou.
In a world where viral photo sharing accounts (such as HistoryInPics) are popping up at an insane pace, it's a necessity that there be counterparts that do their best to verify, fact-check, and credit the images these accounts share.
This increasingly necessary job has recently been taken over by a small group of accounts dedicated to doing exactly that: verifying the legitimacy of the images being shared, and making sure the original creator of the images is being properly credited.
Update: It looks like it's already been fixed. Kudos to Getty for the quick response.
Getty's embed tool has been live for less than 24 hours and ALREADY somebody has figured out how it can be taken advantage of. It turns out that all it takes is some extremely simple code to remove attribution entirely.
So Getty Images has made some waves with the announcement of its embedding "feature" to allow non-commercial use of their images without a watermark. This move is bound to kick off some interesting discussions on the state of photography in a digital sharing age.
Last night, Getty Images made a huge announcement that could forever change the way high quality images are shared on the Internet. Like Flickr before it, Getty is introducing an embed feature, essentially creating an "easy, legal, and free" way for people to share the majority of the agency's images in a non-commercial context.
Buckle up, because this is a copyright battle that has hit rock bottom and started digging with gusto. How much gusto? Lets just say that the he-said-she-said nature of this ferocious back-and-forth between a photographer and a magazine that used her photo without permission makes the whole Color Run debacle look tame.
Update: The Color Run has responded to our request for comment. Read their side of the story at the bottom.
Update #2: It seems The Color Run and Maxwell Jackson have reached an agreement. You can read the full update at the bottom.
A young Florida college student photographer is receiving an outpouring of support from the photo community over what may turn out to be one of the more ridiculous copyright lawsuits we've ever run across -- a suit in which the Color Run (you know, "The Best, the Biggest...The Happiest 5K on the Planet") is allegedly suing HIM over a photo of his that they used.
As it turns out, we all might have some skin in the Daniel Morel vs. AFP/Getty Images copyright game; and we're not just talking about emotional investment here, there are serious precedents being set.
At first, The Atlantic's profile of the duo behind the mega-popular @HistoryInPics Twitter feed reads like your standard "young geniuses find lucrative economic niche in this crazy new media world" piece.
Dear Photography Thieves,
I’ve always known you were out there, even in the days of film. In a photography world filled with negatives and prints, you crept quietly in the shadows and, let’s face it, it was harder then, wasn’t it? But now, with the digital age and that glorious thing called social media, it’s so much easier. It’s really a boom time for you. It’s like you hit pay dirt. And, after reading a month’s worth of Photo Stealer’s entries, all I can say is: You. Must. Be. Exhausted.
Purloining somebody else's photos to promote your photography business has become depressingly common lately, but occasionally a new cretin comes forward to push the practice to a new level of sadness.
Getty Images and Agence France Presse are avid protectors of their own copyright privileges. But when the chaussure is on the other foot?
Haitian photographer Daniel Morel continues to find out that it's a whole different ball game, as the agencies try to evade the $1.22 million penalty levied against them for stealing eight of Morel's images of the aftermath of his country's devastating 2010 earthquake.
Many of you are familiar with the website PhotoStealers, which acts as "a wall of shame... dedicated to photographers that feel that it's okay to steal others work and post it as their own." Photo theft is expertly weeded out and exposed by the site's creator, who has taken on some big names including Jasmine Star and Doug Gordon.
The most recent PhotoStealers post, however, might reach even more epic proportions than the Star/Gordon shame-fest. It involves one Christopher Jones of CJ Photography and, before long, might involve a defamation lawsuit as well.
(Private Video -- Use password "stolen")
Often there's a fine line between inspiration and theft. But watching side-by-side comparisons of wedding workshops conducted by videographers Adam Forgione and Rob Adams, it's hard not to conclude there's wholesale plagiarism going on.
A strongly worded letter has gotten a surprising amount of attention in photograpy circles recently.
It was written by UK musician Whitey (aka. NJ White) in response to a TV producer who requested to use his work for free, and it's gotten popular because, even though it was written by a musician, photographers really seem to love Whitey's no BS response to a request many of them are familiar with.
It's always nice when we stumble across a copyright case that doesn't lead to wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth, rare as that might be. So when we ran across the news that a photographer pulled in $1.6 million in a copyright lawsuit, we just had to share it.
When it comes to images, Pinterest is a bit of a copyright nightmare. It's not unusual for people to pin photos without any information or attribution, which inevitably leads to others using or sharing the photo without permission.
Still, you have to give the company credit, it's trying to "wake up" so to speak. In addition to a deal struck up with Flickr last year, Pinterest has just announced a new arrangement with GettyImages, in which Pinterest will pay Getty so that images from the service might be given proper MetaData.
Seven sports photographers are suing the National Football League, Getty Images and the Associated Press in a complex case that argues the agencies went too far in allowing their images to be freely used for promotions by the league.
New York Republican mayoral candidate Joe Lhota may be running as a law and order guy, but apparently the "law" part doesn't cover intellectual property.
Turns out nine of the images used in a recent Lhota campaign ad -- an ad meant to illustrate what a mess the Big Apple used to be -- were taken without permission from Flickr users, several of whom are not too happy about it.
Last Friday, WPPI Director Jason Groupp announced that Jasmine Star and Doug Gordon withdrew from next year’s conference in light of all the controversy surrounding allegations of plagiarism.
I advocated for this move with many others who saw their transgressions as a violation of trust that affected the entire industry. The outcome seemed proportional to the infraction, and I saw no reason to urge further action. I have no vitriol against either Jasmine or Doug, I just think we all have to own up to our mistakes, pay the piper, and move on.
Normally, we wouldn't give much attention to the thoughts of an editor/publisher for a small community newspaper. But the response to photographer Kristen Pierson's notice of copyright infringement and invoice for payment is such a classic compendium of bad thinking on intellectual property that it would be a disservice not to share it ... just so you know what you're up against.
Prestigious agency Magnum Photos says it is about to roll out a paid membership system in hopes of turning illegal downloaders into paying customers. The move comes a little more than a year after the agency did away with watermarks on its main site, reasoning that they did little to discourage determined downloaders.
British photographer Jason Sheldon has won a settlement of £20,000 (about $32,300 US) over a stolen image of his (seen above), after initially being offered less than one percent of that.
It's one thing to swipe a photo and slap it on your website, and quite another to enter that stolen image into a high-profile photo contest passed off as your own work.
That is exactly what Mark Joseph Solis, a graduate student at the University of the Philippines, is discovering as he becomes a subject of international ridicule for winning several thousand dollars worth of prizes with a purloined portrait.
Be careful when photographing sculptures for commercial purposes -- you could quickly find yourself on the losing end of a copyright infringement case and being forced to pay a lot of money.
This happened back in 2011, when photographer Mike Hipple was forced to pay up after shooting stock photos of a public art installation in Seattle. Now it has happened again: a court has ordered the United States Postal Service to pay a whopping $684,844 to sculptor Frank Gaylord for using a photograph of the Korean War Veterans Memorial on a stamp.
As copyright disputes go, this one sits squarely on the border between strange and stranger. We've seen plenty of people have their photography rights infringed upon, and it wasn't even that long ago we saw it happen over Instagram, but we've never seen the president of an entirely republic make that mistake.
It's rare that we get to report happy news from the intellectual property side of the photography business, so let's take heart from a win-win settlement achieved between a wronged photographer and viral media site BuzzFeed.
We recently spoke to PhotoAttorney.com’s Carolyn Wright and former ASMP President Richard Kelly about the importance of registering your copyright regularly. In that vein, A Photo Editor recently updated us on the Richard Reinsdorf v. Skechers case, which illustrates the complexity of copyright violation cases and re-emphasizes the necessity of copyright registration.
The dust has barely settled from the Instagram policy fumble, but it looks like parent company Facebook might be in for a similar upheaval.
The company's recently proposed changes to its Statement of Rights and Responsibilities and Data Use Policy -- which were supposed to take effect on the 5th -- have been delayed after users and privacy groups alike have voiced serious concerns.
A Malaysian researcher may have dealt a major blow to image thieves by using the mathematical formulas behind Sudoku puzzles to create hidden, super-strong watermarks.
Earlier this month, the Syfy channel -- which is owned by NBC Universal -- debuted a new show called Heroes of Cosplay. The show pits nine big-time cosplayers against one another as they try to make a name for themselves in this world of fantasy costume play.
It's a big show on a popular network that is backed by an even bigger company, so you can imagine how surprised photographer Bryan Humphrey was when he saw that the show has used his photos of some of these cosplayers without so much as asking permission or even notifying him -- and forget about payment.
Earlier this month, Photoshelter did a live webinar with Carolyn E. Wright, AKA The Photo Attorney. Carolyn is a full-time attorney whose practice is aimed squarely at the legal needs of photographers. During the webinar talked extensively about copyright infringement, and what photographers need to know when they think their copyright has been infringed (you can watch a video recording here).
Sob alert: Fashion/celebrity photographer Terry Richardson says he's likely to lose hundreds of thousands of dollars due to a recent ruling in a suit against Lady Gaga.
Today's award for taking copyright seriously goes to Philadelphia photographer/blooger R. Bradley Maule, who's suing the city's district attorney for allegedly misappropriating one of Maule's images as the background for his Twitter page.
Maule specializes in writing and photography about urban architecture, especially that of Philadelphia, as chronicled on his Philly Skyline blog. Maule says in his suit that he discovered this April that one of the images posted on his blog, a 2005 shot of the Philadelphia skyline manipulated to look more or less as it does now, was decorating the Twitter page for District Attorney R. Seth Williams.
So you think you have a good reason or excuse to use a photo you found on the Internet without asking the photographer who took it? Let’s see if it can stand the test.
Finnish lawmakers could soon rewrite the nation's copyright laws, as a citizen-originated initiative aimed at easing piracy penalties and protecting consumer rights makes it way to Parliament.
There's a brand new service in town that's looking to help out those photographers who choose to share their images for free with the online community. Powered by Creative Commons, the new website Dotspin uses a hashtag and voting system to determine a photo's quality and give the photographer a chance to earn credits towards rewards such as restaurant gift cards.
A trove of 3,700 unpublished photos of iconic movie star Marilyn Monroe, each with full copyright included, will go up for sale at a Los Angeles auction late this month.
Finding a website using your photographs without your authorization can be a distressing situation. Luckily, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) of 1998 helps to protect individuals who have had their intellectual properties stolen on the web. This article is a guide to detecting and enforcing copyright by filing DMCA takedown notices with hosting providers that harbor copyright infringement.
Freelance photographer Robert Caplin filed a copyright infringement and DMCA violation complaint on June 26, 2013 against Mario Armando Lavandeira, Jr., aka Perez Hilton. Hilton is best described as an Internet gossip blogger, who has been known to appropriate copyrighted images and then “transform” them by drawing captions, tears, or other scribbles, and thereby claiming “fair use.”
His well-trafficked entertainment blog sells advertising to support itself. Caplin is a regular contributor to the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times. He also runs The Photo Brigade, is a prolific Instagrammer, and is an all around great guy. And I don’t like to see Perez Hilton stick it to great guys.