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The Picture Archive Council of America (PACA) has named its Copyright Education Program in honor of Jane Kinne who dedicated her entire professional career – over 50 years – to the stock photo industry. By this gesture, PACA honors her memory in recognition of particular devotion she gave to the cause of photographers’ rights.
Continue reading "PACA honors Jane Kinne, photographers’ rights pioneer" »
According to a posting on the company blog, Alamy has terminated the contract of a contributor for falsely stating that an image had a model release. Alamy claims that it acted after the agency was contacted by a a person who was the subject of an image marked as released but was confident he had never signed one. When asked to supply proof of the model release the contributing photographer admitted having not received a release but was maybe hoping to track the person down later.
Continue reading "Alamy terminates contributor contract over model release issue" »
RightsAgent, a new company headquartered in Cambridge, MA, has launched an online platform to allow users to license and monetize content including text, pictures, and videos. The company´s Internet-based free service allows users to consolidate the work they publish across the web into a unified feed, license their work with both Creative Commons and for-profit options, and build reputation based upon the value of the content they create.
We at abouttheimage send our best wishes and congratulations to Nancy Wolff, great friend to anyone in the photography business and an exceptional attorney, on the news that the American Society of Picture Professionals (ASPP) has named her Picture Professional of the Year for 2007.
Continue reading "News Brief: Nancy Wolff named Picture Professional of the Year 2007 by ASPP" »
On September 26 in Chicago and September 27 in Minneapolis, Nancy Wolff, legal counsel to the Picture Archive Council of America and an expert in copyright law, especially as it pertains to photography, will be the featured guest speaker at the Midwest chapter meetings of the American Society of Picture Professionals (ASPP.) Wolff will address the theme for the meetings, “Laying Down the Law: What Every Picture Professional Needs to Know.”
Continue reading "News Brief: Nancy Wolff to Speak at ASPP Midwest Chapter Meetings" »
In July 2007, the District Court of New York ruled in favor of Masterfile in its suit against J.V. Trading, a dealer in Asian food products whose promotional website displayed eight of Masterfile’s copyrighted photographs from 2002 to 2005, all without license. The court granted the full extent of damages requested, including statutory damages, attorney’s fees, and other costs incurred in prosecuting this action, for a total of $ 46,816.91. This result is an example of following an infringement claim, initially discovered through PicScout’s image recognition technology, all the way through to the end. The defendant refused to respond throughout the process, and placed the usual blame on the web designer, taking the tactic of “if we remove the images and don’t answer, you will give up and go away”. The next step is to collect the award, but even if full recovery was not achieved, the decision is an important example of how to pursue a copyright infringement claim where the defendant refuses to answer and defaults.Continue reading "Masterfile wins $46,816.91 in internet copright infringement suit" »
The Stock Artists Alliance (SAA) a not-for-profit photographer advocacy organization, has released a comprehensive study of the issue of unauthorized or infringing use of stock images on the world-wide web. The study, which SAA performed in partnership with the usage tracking technology company, PicScout, examines and analyzes the results of tracking 20,000 rights managed images from Getty Images and Corbis for four months in 2005. The results show a startling rate of unauthorized use, both by inadvertent additional use to legally licensed rights and by simple theft of intellectual property.
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The Picture Archive Council of America (PACA) has placed on its web-site, a valuable resource to any creator or user of photography – a PowerPoint presentation that provides a thorough review of copyright law in the United States and how it applies to the use of imagery in advertising, the news media and fine art. The presentation includes real-world cases with images and detailed explanations of how the parties viewed the claimed infringements and how the courts assessed them.
Continue reading "PACA releases free PowerPoint on copyright education" »
PicScout, a provider of internet tracking and monitoring solutions to the digital content industry, has announced that it will begin monitoring possible infringements in Australia. Until now the Israel based company has monitored North American and European markets for possible infringements on the internet reporting back to its content providers.
Continue reading "PicScout now monitoring copyright in Australia" »
It was bound to happen. The moment we old-timers in the stock photo industry have all been waiting for has finally arrived. A high profile client got burned by using down-market images that, it turns out, had no model releases. I and, I suspect, many colleagues got more than a little satisfaction out of the news.
Continue reading "Editorial: Virgin Mobile gets burned with Creative Commons photo from Flickr" »
US Copyright Office begins beta testing for online registration
Copyright association formed in Washington DC
PACA announces publication of Nancy Wolff’s Legal Handbook for Photographers
German photo agency raided prior to G8 meetings
AFP signs content deal with Google ending copyright lawsuit
Silicon Valley start-up launches Attributor to address online copyright infringement
Orphan Works bill dies (at least for now)
Natalie Pinkham to sue Daily Mail over stolen Prince Harry photos
US Copyright office raises registration fees
ASMP lobbies copyright office for simplified registration
PACA and ASMP leading the charge on Orphan Works
AP contract encourages photographers to create stock photography
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