This not a direct Pan-related story, but it has critical information and learning points that Pan organizations and players must be cognizant of, as the many aspects of the entertainment industry continue to overlap. Beyond the Forbes article posted below, When Steel Talks has included two additional links immediately following, for some required reading to get a feel for both the human and legal toll on the person(s) whose livelihood is impacted.
a) Related Haiti-Earthquake 'stolen' Photos story
b) Successful lawsuit brought by affected Photographer
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Forbes - Legal Entertainment
Post written by Bryan Sullivan
Getty Images was perhaps a bit overzealous when it attempted to collect money from prolific photographer Carol Highsmith for using her own photograph without Getty’s permission.
Highsmith’s work has been the centerpiece of many important books about U.S. cities, states, religion and historical renovations nationwide. Her donated collection, Carol M. Highsmith Collection, at the Library of Congress, is featured in the top six collections out of 15 million images in the Library’s Prints & Photographs archive. Her work has been published in Smithsonian, Time, New York Times, Architecture, The Washington Post Magazine and other national publications. In addition, her images at the Library of Congress were featured in an inside spread in Life magazine.
So it came as a surprise to Highsmith when, in December 2015, she received a letter from License Compliance Services (LCS), on behalf of Getty-affiliated Alamy Limited, accusing her of copyright infringement for using one of her own photographs on her website. LCS and another defendant, Picscout, “scrape” the internet to find images that are being used without proper licenses. Both companies are wholly-owned subsidiaries/alter-egos of Getty.
LCS warned Highsmith that this was a breach of Getty’s licensing terms for the content, and the letter went on to say that the matter could be settled for a mere $120. Fortunately for Highsmith (and unfortunately for Getty), this is how the photographer learned that stock photo agencies Getty and Alamy had been charging people for her images, which she donated to the Library of Congress for public use at no charge. (Public use, yes, but Highsmith still retains the copyrights to all of her photos). In addition, Getty and Alamy had been selling thousands of Highsmith’s photographs without her name attached to them and many are stamped with “false watermarks.”
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