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Comment by eli | Hacker News Reader

Unfortunately you can't really be sure that an image with metadata claiming it is CC licensed is actually CC licensed or that the website offering it has the permission of the author. I have been burned by this.

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You can say the same about anything. I am guessing you don't use anything that is open source in any capacity and don't buy any proprietary software and libraries in case they are lying and they can't actually distribute them?

True. Although an additional wrinkle with Creative Commons is that, depending upon how conservative you want to be and how the copyright owner interprets terms like non-commercial and what constitutes appropriate attribution, there are all sorts of variations that may or may not be suitable for a given use.

Of course, for many casual purposes it's widely ignored and for photos of people used for advertising and marketing, you need a model release anyway.

Sure. But this actually happened. I've been twice bitten by using images that claimed to be CC and then an apparent copyright owner appeared and said otherwise. I've never had that happen with open source software.

I think copyright trolling is more prevalent with images, and I think it's generally easier to determine the canonical origin of software. But yes, it's absolutely a risk and a reason why many companies have a legal review process before any new libraries can be used.

To add what others are saying. I CC-BY all my photos but just because the photo is CC-BY doesn't mean it's safe to use. I don't know all the other "rights" but for example a photo I took of Mickey Mouse, or a movie poster, or a photo I took of some art in a museum may have additional rights issues. Even pictures of buildings

https://helpx.adobe.com/stock/contributor/help/known-image-r...

Note: I get that adobe might be wrong here. Whether they are right or wrong on particulars is beside the point. I just linked there because it was clearer than most other search results I found.

Here's another

https://mymodernmet.com/eiffel-tower-copyright-law/

100% this. I run a decent sized publisher, and have to make sure images are licensed properly, and even with proper training, we still get the robo-lawyers shakedowns at least once a quarter. It's between $400-$1000 per "settlement", so still less than Getty licensing costs. Cost of doing business :shrug:

I can't prove it, but my theory for one of the images I got bitten for is that either the photographer or a coconspirator posted the photo to WikiCommons as CC licensed, then later the photographer sends a takedown saying it was posted by an imposter and isn't authorized. It's deleted from Wiki but then they get to hunt down everyone who copied that image and send them a bill of $1000. Quite a scam.

There was an article that trended a few months back too about CC "Attribution trolls". (I can't find it in a quick search, sorry, but I can paraphrase.) There's a legal "bug" in the Attribution clauses of early CC licenses that basically says that the copyright owner gets to dictate how the Attribution must read down to detailed specifics in wording and formatting. They post to WikiCommons as CC licensed under specific old versions of CC and rely on the fact that most people don't copy and paste the attribution strings verbatim to troll for licensing fees.

(So, watch out for CC licenses older than 4.0 for that.)

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