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It's now legal to steal photographs

Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2018 6:44 pm
by Jeff Colburn
How many of you photographers are going to pull your photographs, and not post new ones, on the Internet after reading this?
https://petapixel.com/…/court-rules-copying-photos-found-o…/

There are 3 options photographers have:

1 - Don't post images online.
2 - Have a watermark that covers the entire image. However, there is software that will remove almost any watermark. https://www.theverge.com/.../google-research-algorithm...
3 - Post images that are so small, that they can't be used for anything. But there is software for this too that will make tiny images into much larger ones, and look great.

Good luck everyone.

Have Fun,
Jeff

Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2018 6:59 pm
by SantaFeJoe
Wow!!! Amazing ruling!!!

Joe

Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2018 7:19 pm
by Mike in O
It is district court, no precedent has been set. Stay tuned folks

Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2018 7:52 pm
by E.J. Peiker
We must hope that this will be overturned. It's pretty clear, based on numerous sources, that this judge did not understand copyright law.

Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2018 10:52 pm
by SantaFeJoe
Here’s a link to the Memorandum Opinion:

https://www.scribd.com/document/3830509 ... roductions

For some reason, the second count was not followed up on and pursued by the photographer. I’m curious about the back story on that count. Was a copyright notice ever attached to the source photo? It may have helped his case.

Not related to this case, but an current example of copyright infringement by the USPS on a stamp that was won by the artist is this:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/05/arts/statue-of-liberty-stamp-copyright-las-vegas.html

The artist originally earned $233,000 from the artwork, but gained $3.5 million from the infringement! A really ridiculous mistake by the USPS.

Joe

Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2018 11:46 pm
by DOglesby
Good Lord. The judge should be impeached for ignorance.