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Comment by baldfat | Hacker News Reader

I don't see the photographer having an open and shut case especially for $150,000 for photography.

1) The player gave the photo to the writer claiming it was his property

2) The writer gave credit (Which doesn't allow for use and they should have contacted for use), but normally if there would be a cost a different photo will be used

These crazy copyright claims are the issue. The photographer suing for $150,000 is wrong and the CBS is wrong for the same $150,000 claim. It should be market value of a photo and legal fees. This would make it easy for a photographer to get his money since the company would not want the added legal fee charge. Instead in US it is a all or nothing and usually both parties lose.

Per Image Fee is the best way to move forward.

http://www.roshsillars.com/2017/02/15/much-photographers-cha...

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I'm certainly not a lawyer, but my experience is that in copyright law - for better or worse - it generally doesn't matter if you believe you have rights to use some property, the only thing that really matters is if you actually have those rights. Applying that perspective CBS is absolutely in the wrong corner in that regard.

As for the photographer, we don't know the circumstances of his use, but as the article noted, it's not unlikely to be considered fair use. A single frame from a movie/series can reasonably be seen as a quote, whereas their wholesale use of the photographers entire picture clearly is not.

But whatever the circumstances in either case, CBS suing for a screenshot of an old movie/series seems to be a perfect way to get bad publicity, and no pity whatsoever if they would loose in court. Almost nobody wants it to be illegal/fineable to post screens and clips from TV-series, and pushing it that way is trying to get the cat back into the bag. It's part of our culture now, and that cat isn't going back anytime soon.

The problem with that though is that it becomes a precedent (not in legal sense) and it might be tempting to just use images without paying the copyright owner, since you just need to settle for market value or a little more at the time that you're sued. It is a huge effort to go through media to make sure that your content is not being used without your consent and most independent people won't be checking it vigorously since they need the time to actually work.

They would be paid for the picture at a fair market value and if not and found out some lawyer is going to get rich off of enforcing this rule. I am sure lawyers would turn this into the new ambulance chaser.

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