If you're wondering why copyright infringement is so widespread on the Web and why wealthy artists like Richard Prince can test the boundaries of copyright law without much worry, consider this: by the time photographer Daniel Morel won $1.2 million in 2013 after a 5-year copyright battle, his law firm had racked up a staggering $2.5 million in legal fees and costs -- most of which won't be paid.
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.
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.
The Daniel Morel vs AFP/Getty Images saga has been going on since 2010 when the agencies first pulled his photos off of Twitter and distributed them without permission to several major publications. Now the saga has finally ended, and ended on very happy terms for Morel, who is walking away from the deal $1.2 million richer.
In one of the first major tests of intellectual property law involving social media services, a judge has ruled that news agencies cannot freely publish photographs posted to Twitter without the photographer's permission.
Earlier this year photographer Daniel Morel was shocked when a photograph he captured during the devastating earthquake in Haiti and posted to TwitPic was distributed by Agency France Presse (AFP) and published on the front page of newspapers around the world -- all without his permission.
To add insult to injury, he was then sued by AFP when he sent cease and desist letters in response to the copyright infringement. The dispute has turned into a legal battle over whether images uploaded to TwitPic and shared on Twitter can be freely republished by third parties. In what might be an indication of things to come, a federal court has denied AFP's pre-trial request to have the case thrown out.
Earlier this month, the Daily Mail published some photos taken at a Dalston …
Photojournalist Daniel Morel shot an iconic image of a shocked woman looking out from the rubble moments after last …