My new hobby: finding public domain images that Getty sells for $500 | Hacker News Reader

My new hobby: finding public domain images that Getty sells for $500

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253 pointsapp4soft54 comments

Reminds me of something that happened to me... I take nature photos for fun and post them on my website and various photo websites over the years. A biologist for a National Park asked if he could use one of my photos on the cover of an internal publication. I thought that was cool, and sent him a high res file to use. Years later, I was googling something related and surprisingly one of the first links I click on was using my photo. I emailed that company and politely asked them to remove my photo, as I never gave them permission. I do more googling / image search, and find that the National Park put this photo on their Flickr page in a photo collection that said "these are all public domain images and feel free to use them anywhere." Alamy (stock photo website) now shows my photo covered with their watermarks and has it for sale ($20 for personal use and $199 for marketing). Sent a message to the NPS asking them to remove my photo from their Flickr public domain page, and never got a response. Oh well.

It really is true - no good deed ever goes unpunished.

This would be a valid case for sending a DMCA takedown, if you wanted to pursue it!

This is the correct answer. (My org at least) routes these legal requests quite differently and they are all handled promptly

Sue for back royalties ?

I had a similar issue here in europa, where a travel agency used my photos from flickr in their catalogues.

Killed my desire to take pictures for a while and also to post them.

I got my desire to take pictures slowly back, but I still don't post anything worth while online or even share it with friends or family if I can avoid it, in fears that it somehow gets put on facebook or similiar and from there used for someone else to make money off.

I'm not defending all of Getty's business practices, obviously. But my understanding of what Getty is selling is both convenience and a degree of legal protection for media buyers. If you buy an image from them, they will, in writing, guarantee you that it is legally permissible to use, provided you follow the terms of the agreement.

https://www.gettyimages.com.au/eula [Australian terms], Section 9 reads in part:

Representations and Warranties. Getty Images makes the following representations and warranties:

Warranty of Non-Infringement. For all licensed content (excluding content marked “access only”), Getty Images warrants that your use of such content in accordance with this agreement and in the form delivered by Getty Images (that is, excluding any modifications, overlays or refocusing done by you) will not infringe on any copyrights or moral rights of the content owner/creator. Additional Warranties for Certain Content.

RF: For licensed royalty-free content (excluding content marked “editorial” or “intended for editorial”), Getty Images warrants that your use of such content in accordance with this agreement and in the form delivered by Getty Images (that is, excluding any modifications, overlays or refocusing done by you) will not infringe on any trademark or other intellectual property right, and will not violate any right of privacy or right of publicity.

RM/RR: For licensed rights-managed and rights-ready content where Getty Images specifically notifies you that a model and/or property release has been obtained, Getty Images warrants that your use of such content in accordance with this agreement and in the form delivered by Getty Images (that is, excluding any modifications, overlays or refocusing done by you) will not, where a property release has been obtained, infringe on any trademark or other intellectual property right and/or will not, where a model release has been obtained, violate any right of privacy or right of publicity.

I don't mind them selling something that is free for $500.

The problem is when they sue people for using public domain images, claiming that they own the picture.

it gets sticky when you sell your product of work based on a public domain image. maybe the original image that is available in the public domain is dirty, scratches, faded, or any other thing that happens with old images. if they paid to have it restored and are selling the restored image, then that image is not part of the public domain. it's a big bit of spin on this being a possible misunderstanding of what they are doing.

however, with all of the other stories about the original photographer getting served notices of infringement when they have their image on their own site or socials and similar type of just unchecked automation, then yeah, it's hard to be able to give any benefit of the doubt

I don't think that this is accurate, in general. If it is true, it certainly varies by jurisdiction. Here's an interesting read: https://jcms-journal.com/articles/10.5334/jcms.1021217

Restorations are not eligible for copyright protection.

then something else can be done to it that does grant them copyright on the work product. similar to modifying the mouse to extend/grant new copyrights

Link two such lawsuits.

> But my understanding of what Getty is selling is both convenience and a degree of legal protection for media buyers.

I don't know if this is still the case (given Spotify/Amazon Music etc) but with regards to convenience:

I remember reading a few years ago that it was almost impossible to find the holder of music copyright for a large portion of the existing catalogue of published music.

This was due to a combination of:

- no central database of ownership

- a LOT of music is produced by small labels

- music copyright ownership tends to change hands for various reasons

I can see how in this domain (and therefore similar domains), having a quick and easy way to say "I need X and I need to know no one is going to sue me for using it" has got to be a service that large corporations are willing to pay for.

I seriously doubt this is true. Solving this problem is basically why BMI and ASCAP exist.

Where it gets tricky is that with a piece of music, there are at least 3 or 4 different elements that are separately copy written.

You have the basic tune, the specific arrangement, the physical layout and content of the sheet music, the basic copyright of a particular recording, and finally (and most relevant to your example), what are called the synch rights, which are the rights to use a song as a synchronized part of a larger work, like a movie or commercial.

It's probably both - finding the holders for a lot of music is impossible, but by using BMI or ASCAP you may be able to shift the responsibility to do so to them in their role as PROs.

Not an area I keep up on, but this is interesting regarding how things worked in 2016 and possible recommended changes. https://www.copyright.gov/policy/pro-licensing.pdf Note that it's about Performing Rights Organizations not about Professionals. Of particular interest is the discussion of 100% licensing vs fractional licensing.

These both appear to be American businesses serving American users. 95% of the worlds population don't live there. Both copyright laws and rights holders vary significantly around the world. This is far from a solved issue.

The idea that getty is some sort of RPX is total nonsense.

Another example...

$499 image from Getty: https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/floyd-burrough...

Free from the Library of Congress: https://www.loc.gov/item/00651772/ (including the 50MB tiff that appears to be the highest resolution available)

They're also reselling photos[1] from the EPA's DOCUMERICA[2] program, which is entirely available via the National Archives.

[1]: https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/close-up-of-yo...

[2]: https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2009/spring/d...

Someone is selling girl with a pearl earring: https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/also-known-as-...

Isn't it fraud to sell copyright licenses for things that you don't own the copyright to? If so, then why isn't the CEO of Getty in prison? If not, why not?

These are public domain so out of copyright.

Because public domain means you can sell it in any form you like, modified or original?

Claiming it's an entirely original work would be lying. Not sure it would be a crime.

> would be lying. Not sure it would be a crime.

Doesn't fraud basically mean lying for financial gain?

Yeah, but also that's not what Getty is doing. They aren't claiming to be the creators, they're just selling something from the public domain, which is legal.

They could argue that it's derivative work based on public domain resources. Getty cropped the picture from the public domain scans and cleaned it up a bit.

You don’t need to. They’re public domain.

It might be fraud/criminal to sell a license to something that someone else holds the copyright to.

> why isn't the CEO of Getty in prison?

CEOs usually won't even be charged for their (what we would call) "crimes", it wouldn't be fair given the sacrifices they make. Of course, it's also part of the treaty between our kind and theirs. In exchange for them saving humanity and the planet, humanity looks the other way from time to time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyfraud has a pretty good overview of the situation. If they claim copyright falsely, that’s illegal in at least AU and US, but in general only the government can prosecute, and they never do, and the fines are pathetically trivial anyway. But that’s mostly not what Getty actually does. You’ll find Getty featuring in the article.

As per the EULA as quoted by hncommenter13 above, they're not actually claiming they own copyright, just guaranteeing you can use it without violating copywright.

As is always the case with such things, they are not selling the image but the convenience.

The one linked in their example is on the first page of Getty search results for "old telephone sketch", along with dozens of other similar options. Being able to pick one I like in 3 clicks is easily worth the $500 when compared to having to go to the library (or Google Books or wherever else), digging up old books that may or may not match the subject, finding appropriate illustrations, hi-res scanning, editing in Gimp...

I enjoy the public service Cory is performing here. If more people want to spend time doing so and contributing back to the Wiki Commons, I think that’s an objectively good thing. A rising tide and all that. Might even be able to automate the workflow using TinEye (to fingerprint stock photos and then find the public domain source for optimization and upload).

With regards to stock photos in general, it looks like Deep Learning like Stable Diffusion (and the resulting public domains images [1]) are the future.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35191206

Yeah, as long as they aren't threatening legal action for the image, I think this is fine. I'd like to think they wouldn't be so dumb as to try to bring litigation for an image like this, but then again, if they think they can get away with it...

The most upstanding thing to do would be to put source information in the listing. They don't need to proclaim it public domain up front, but it would be ethical to provide that detail if one were interested in inquiring.

> Yeah, as long as they aren't threatening legal action for the image…

They would never do that…

https://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-getty...

Seven years later, what happened?

> they are not selling the image but the convenience.

Don't forget the peace of mind they're selling. By paying a relatively small amount (relative to the costs of doing the research yourself), you're (mostly) ensured of having the right to use the image.

So does this mean that Getty is essentially selling...NFTs?

There's at least one other person with the same hobby, because they made a short documentary about it, thereby 'liberating' the source material (in a really unpractical way): "A History of the World According to Getty Images" [1] [2] [3]

[1] https://www.idfa.nl/en/film/f2e29b37-216a-4899-ae67-c4367b8b...

[2] https://www.ahistoryoftheworldaccordingtogettyimages.com/ (which can't be downloaded)

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIinx95rFxg

Thats why I always downscale the 16M photo and squirrel-away that larger original and release the "slightly grainer" and "slightly-cropped" photo because no one can then easily claim copyright with a lousier resolution.

You then announce DMCA takedown and having failed that, mention you have the original, then having failed to secure back royalty, file a lawsuit.

Only upon legal demand, you would release a even smaller cropped, slightly grainer of your original photo as digital evidence, but never your original 16M over the Internet.

Of course, you would be able to release your pristine 16M photo only in court lest you lose your digital advantage.

Problem these days is that someone can release ML upscaled and/or "less grainier" version of your photo.

Case in point Samsung "moon" pictures that were making the rounds here a few weeks ago.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/11nzrb0/samsung_sp...

In defense against upscaling, your original will trounce on the grainy part due to offender's attempt at 2:2 or 3:3 matrix being the duller ones than the original.

The woman's face is much less flattering in the original, would say the touchup from getty was pretty dang good.

The cleaning up on the Wikimedia Commons one is not that great either, and the contrast is worse than the one from getty. I would say neither is great.

Not quite following what this achieves?

Is the purpose that people find the wikimedia image instead thus denying getty the revenue?

Getty is very litigious about "their" images, even when they seemingly don't own them, or even have the rights to sell them.

Saving a fellow human from paying a substantial sum of money for something they can get for free seems reason enough.

It's not about denying anyone revenue. The goal is to make easily accessible artwork that apparently has enough value to be sold commercially.

> Is the purpose that people find the wikimedia image instead thus denying getty the revenue?

Yes.

So CC-BY

With the rise of AI copyrighted image infringements will belong to the past since you can simply generate every single image and nobody will know for sure where it comes from. Getty like sites will vanish.

By the way, you're missing a comma between "AI" and "copyrighted". It really confused me because I was expecting a comment about the rise of AI copyrighted image infringements

I hope you're right. For this to become reality, we need to be able to run AI models on our own computers with no restrictions.

A lot of AI's promises seem to be reliant on the "you can easily" bit.

You can easily get the images you need from a Canva.com paid plan right now, as you can with Adobe Stock, iStockPhoto and many others.

AI cannot generate a real picture of a historical figure or celebrity, which is what Getty derives its real value from.

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