As a software engineer with a keen interest in photography, I've been using a method to allow others to benefit from my work, while also enjoying the spread of my photos in various public forums. I upload my pictures to Flickr and tag them with a Creative Commons license. This makes it easy for anyone to search and use these images without worrying about licensing fees; they just need to provide a link back to the original source.
This practice has brought me a lot of joy over the years. My photos have appeared on Wikipedia, in concert promotions, and even in a special Ibiza edition of Monopoly. The Monopoly team didn't have to, but they sent me two copies of the game as a thank-you, which was a lovely touch.
For those of you who are like-minded and have photos that could be of public interest, consider setting a Creative Commons license on platforms like Flickr. Doing so could ease the burden for small publishers like ianVisits, allowing them to use high-quality images without worrying about legal repercussions.
Photographers using these kinds of copyright enforcement services are only hurting themselves in the long run. Most aren’t going to risk multiple thousands of pounds worth of fines for a few content images. They’ll switch to AI-generated content, or won’t use images at all, and licensing revenue will eventually decline.
If these enforcement services were legitimate entities instead of parasitic trolls, they would start by providing the infringer with options to either remove the image or purchase a royalty free license at a reasonable price, and only impose punitive fees if they continued to infringe.
Maybe, but "photographers" aren't really a collective... or too loose a collective to have foresight, interests and such.
The credit industry, traditionally, has a cascade of debt collection tiers. Once one tier fails to collect, they'll sell on the debt. The value of the debt (asset, to the collector) decreases drastically as we travel down the tiers. The "quality" of collectors also decreases. Business models that depend on illegal practices, betting on inadequate enforcement. Trial preparations that depend on 99% certainty of defendant not showing up. Most of the debt might be arbitrarily imposed interest and fines to nonresponsive "clients." The lawyer present may not have paperwork, or even know the companies' originally owed.
Financial assets like bad debt portfolios scale and bundle wonderfully, so there's no floor. There are multi-million dollar packages out there selling for $1000. An enterprising individual might take a blind chance. Apply creative means of collecting 1.3% of total debt. Maybe you offer 90% settlements. Maybe impose 500% fees and sell on. Maybe you specialise in deceased estates, acquire high morbidity debtor lists, and use systemic timing to advantge. Maybe you rebunde such that specialists can have a crack.
Anyway... At the copyright trolling end of this game, I'd make a distinction between "photographers," "rights holders" and the "copyright biz." What some shady lawtech startup does to monetize a copyright portfolio owned by their pay-per-performance client... "Photographer" is not really an active category within this structure.
The daily mail et al will continue to pay them - £150 for the first photo £50 for each additional [1] of "celebrity walking into a party" or "royal shakes hand".
Are people with blogs really paying Getty Images £150-£450 to have one of their images on their blog post? I suspect nobody else was paying the photographers for the images before this and nobody will after, it changes nothing.
My wife received one of these threatening notices. In her case she had simply retweeted someone's tweet that contained the offending image. This enforcement activity is definitely the wrong side of abusive.
I wonder whether Twitter users are really legally liable for copyright violation in tweets they retweet, or whether the enforcers just believe they can get away with it.
I suppose it might differ from one jurisdiction to another. Are enforcers of this kind usually in the same jurisdiction as the supposed infringer?
This is reminiscent of the youtube / twitch music copyright wars - 5 seconds of music gifts the revenue for an 8 hour stream to the copyright holder (or someone claiming to be the copyright holder).
Some observers saw opportunity in these; and there are now more than enough providers of Royalty / DMCA Free Music.
This was the problem I ran across in 2020, which I detailed in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27004892. Public domain hymns were being claimed, and they simply ignored my disputes so that they lapsed in my favour after 30 days, but next time we used the same hymn it still got automatically claimed and I had to dispute it again. They should have lost the ability to claim at least those hymns, and preferably just been booted from the platform for dishonesty (copy fraud).
If you are the target of automated copyright trolling, inspect your server logs whenever you get a notice. Some troll bots will (surprisingly) use an honest HTTP user agent so you can easily block it.
Of course, one can easily argue that knowingly blocking user agents that are entirely legal themselves, in order to prevent being caught violating copyright, is an entirely new crime.
(Remember that this site is considered a publishing business, they don't have the same luxuries when it comes to blocking visitors that individual have)
The problem is that the infringement has already happened and that the fee that is being asked is for not bringing this to small claims court (which would be fee plus court fees).
From TFA: What he did is that he removed the ability for event organizers to provide images to him. The risks involved was simply too big, since many event organizers failed to clear permissions before submitting images to him.
This is one space where I think generative AI would be helpful - generate pictures that look mostly right and fill a thumbnail or something on a webpage that doesn't necessarily provide indispensable information but nevertheless fills a void, and costs little. You could probably describe what was in the original photograph and/or draw a representation of it crappily in Paint and use generative AI to fill in the blanks, such that it wouldn't be considered a derivative work but rather just a representation of facts.
Currently most AI-generated images still have a "not quite right" look to them, that perhaps not everyone will notice, but those who do will be turned away by it, so I don't think that's a good idea.
I feel like we’re in an ever escalating arms war here, with the result being an internet full of vacuous stuff posted just because that’s what everyone else does. Every blog post, tweet, and event listing must now have a bland stock image to go with it, even if that image has only a passing relationship with what’s being communicated.
Why does an event need an image in the first place? Just don’t bother with one if you care so little about what it looks like.
It is "trolling" in the sense of the original metaphor of troll fishing - make small demands from a huge number of small cases and get a decent total payment.
It may also be trolling in that it's not the photographer making the claim, but some company that buys rights specifically to do this kind of bulk demand.
Finally there is a sense that it is a very minor infringement - one where there would never have been a chance of a photographer making money off it in the first place. I don't think this is really a good justification, but might make the site a bit more miffed about the demands.
It’s trolling because the photos are easy to substitute or not use at all. No one is going to knowingly post a blog photo costing them 400 quid. It’s a gotcha.
I really object to using the term ‘trolls’. There are real people on the other end trying to earn an honest living from their chosen profession. Just because it’s ’only’ a blog, or my website is soo useful, doesn’t make it right to infringe on other people’s rights. It’s a good thing that techonology enables photographers to enforce their rights more efficiently.
A good side effects is that it is starting to sink in for website maintainers that, yeah, you cannot just pick the first photo that is convenient for you.
Yes, I used the term troll from my background many years ago writing about patent trolls, so maybe it irks people, but people who complain about one word in a much longer article are maybe... missing the point.
Anyway, as you will probably notice from the article, I am not "picking the first photos that is convenient", but being sent the banner images etc by event organisers to promote their events.
Yes, I can go back with a form for them to fill in and confirm they have copyright clearance etc., and doubtless they'll check, and confirm they have from photo agency X, and maybe I should also check that the photo agency has issued clearance, and that they themselves have validated that the photographer has verified they definetly took the photos... etc etc etc.
You can see that there has to be a point at which you accept that someone in the chain is being honest.
The issue isn't me nicking photos that are convenient, but accepting that a photo sent to me to use in an article/event listing has been cleared by the PR/marketing dept that is sending it to me.
The majority of problems come from small orgs who may seem to lack an awareness of copyright, so to protect myself, I am now taking the decision not to use their images unless I have built up trust in the sender.
However, even large orgs have been caught out - one example was the large theatre that paid for a license to use an image in a marketing poster, only for the stock agency to object to it being used on my website because the license (weirdly) only permitted use in their publications and no where else.
That's a large org trying to do the right thing, and I am trying to do the right thing, and still getting hammered by... well, yes, they're copyright trolls.
I've helped one client who had been targeted by infringement notices for photos they own. In the process of helping them, I did some research into what's going on.
What happens is that Photographers supply their content library to a company that promises to defend their images against unauthorized distribution and collect appropriate licensing fees.
The problem is this:
1) these companies are very aggressive
2) they use some form of image matching search to detect image copies
3) the notices sent out are automated
4) the notices demand fees or legal action will be taken
5) there is no one to talk to or explain anything too
6) it's automated, abusive and often just plain inaccurate
This approach is very stressful for clients who haven't done anything wrong and dont understand what is happening. In some cases they have no control over an image that is published but attributed to them.
So yes, they are Trolls.
This isn't honest creatives defending their work.
In my clients case they had legitimately taken a very similar photo of a very popular public tourist attraction. Fortunately I was able to connect with the original photographer, and eventually, get them to call off their dogs.
There are real photographers enforcing their copyright, but there are also trolls. The trolls are pushing a few Fotos they made to Wikipedia and “free Foto”-sites with missing terms. Then they search for people who stole their images and extract money. Sure the people who used the images are in the wrong legally, but the trolls actually wanted their images to be stolen. Also, for the trolls, this is the only kind of revenue they get. Those images would never be legally bought or licensed anyway
Tfa suggested he was provided the images by a third party - how do I know the image I paid for on a stock image site is authentic and what’s to stop copywrite trolls from assuming it’s not?
Personally, I think image trolls (and most copywrite complaintants in general) can get fucked.
The article says these were images sent by the organisers.
So it's plausible that the organisers did get a license that allows this.
It's also plausible that they thought they were getting a license that allowed this.
Ultimately though, it seems the photographer had been paid at least once.
Further, in this case, it seems to me the onus should be on the organiser sending out the images intended to be used to promote the event, to make sure they have a license to do that, not on the individual websites. How are they supposed to confirm the copyright of an image, other than what they are told by the supplier of that image?
> A good side effects is that it is starting to sink in for website maintainers that, yeah, you cannot just pick the first photo that is convenient for you.
But that's not what he did. He used the artwork his client supplied.
It’s wild to me that these photo copyright trolls are apparently able to make money off the often zero-dollar-value earned from the use of copyrighted photos but nobody can get money out of the thousand t-shirt & merch printing companies claiming the DCMA protects them when actually selling, manufacturing & delivering bootleg products.
Does anyone have an example of a copyright troll like this? I.e. a company that offers this kind of copyright enforcement services?
I'm trying to understand how this works. E.g. what is their business model, is this something that would be used by individual photographers, by agencies or by corporations, etc
[+] [-] ben30|2 years ago|reply
This practice has brought me a lot of joy over the years. My photos have appeared on Wikipedia, in concert promotions, and even in a special Ibiza edition of Monopoly. The Monopoly team didn't have to, but they sent me two copies of the game as a thank-you, which was a lovely touch.
For those of you who are like-minded and have photos that could be of public interest, consider setting a Creative Commons license on platforms like Flickr. Doing so could ease the burden for small publishers like ianVisits, allowing them to use high-quality images without worrying about legal repercussions.
[+] [-] morrbo|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chilmers|2 years ago|reply
If these enforcement services were legitimate entities instead of parasitic trolls, they would start by providing the infringer with options to either remove the image or purchase a royalty free license at a reasonable price, and only impose punitive fees if they continued to infringe.
[+] [-] dalbasal|2 years ago|reply
The credit industry, traditionally, has a cascade of debt collection tiers. Once one tier fails to collect, they'll sell on the debt. The value of the debt (asset, to the collector) decreases drastically as we travel down the tiers. The "quality" of collectors also decreases. Business models that depend on illegal practices, betting on inadequate enforcement. Trial preparations that depend on 99% certainty of defendant not showing up. Most of the debt might be arbitrarily imposed interest and fines to nonresponsive "clients." The lawyer present may not have paperwork, or even know the companies' originally owed.
Financial assets like bad debt portfolios scale and bundle wonderfully, so there's no floor. There are multi-million dollar packages out there selling for $1000. An enterprising individual might take a blind chance. Apply creative means of collecting 1.3% of total debt. Maybe you offer 90% settlements. Maybe impose 500% fees and sell on. Maybe you specialise in deceased estates, acquire high morbidity debtor lists, and use systemic timing to advantge. Maybe you rebunde such that specialists can have a crack.
Anyway... At the copyright trolling end of this game, I'd make a distinction between "photographers," "rights holders" and the "copyright biz." What some shady lawtech startup does to monetize a copyright portfolio owned by their pay-per-performance client... "Photographer" is not really an active category within this structure.
[+] [-] plagiarist|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] blitzar|2 years ago|reply
Are people with blogs really paying Getty Images £150-£450 to have one of their images on their blog post? I suspect nobody else was paying the photographers for the images before this and nobody will after, it changes nothing.
1. http://www.londonfreelance.org/rates/index.php?work=Photogra...
[+] [-] denton-scratch|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mnd999|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mwenge|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lambertsimnel|2 years ago|reply
I wonder whether Twitter users are really legally liable for copyright violation in tweets they retweet, or whether the enforcers just believe they can get away with it.
I suppose it might differ from one jurisdiction to another. Are enforcers of this kind usually in the same jurisdiction as the supposed infringer?
[+] [-] blitzar|2 years ago|reply
Some observers saw opportunity in these; and there are now more than enough providers of Royalty / DMCA Free Music.
[+] [-] chrismorgan|2 years ago|reply
This was the problem I ran across in 2020, which I detailed in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27004892. Public domain hymns were being claimed, and they simply ignored my disputes so that they lapsed in my favour after 30 days, but next time we used the same hymn it still got automatically claimed and I had to dispute it again. They should have lost the ability to claim at least those hymns, and preferably just been booted from the platform for dishonesty (copy fraud).
[+] [-] tothrowaway|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TheRealPomax|2 years ago|reply
(Remember that this site is considered a publishing business, they don't have the same luxuries when it comes to blocking visitors that individual have)
[+] [-] mattl|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gameofcode|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tsak|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cpach|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] liminalsunset|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] userbinator|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jon-wood|2 years ago|reply
Why does an event need an image in the first place? Just don’t bother with one if you care so little about what it looks like.
[+] [-] avereveard|2 years ago|reply
I wonder what people living off selling photos think about that.
[+] [-] advisedwang|2 years ago|reply
It may also be trolling in that it's not the photographer making the claim, but some company that buys rights specifically to do this kind of bulk demand.
Finally there is a sense that it is a very minor infringement - one where there would never have been a chance of a photographer making money off it in the first place. I don't think this is really a good justification, but might make the site a bit more miffed about the demands.
[+] [-] michaelterryio|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] isaacfrond|2 years ago|reply
A good side effects is that it is starting to sink in for website maintainers that, yeah, you cannot just pick the first photo that is convenient for you.
[+] [-] ianvisits|2 years ago|reply
Yes, I used the term troll from my background many years ago writing about patent trolls, so maybe it irks people, but people who complain about one word in a much longer article are maybe... missing the point.
Anyway, as you will probably notice from the article, I am not "picking the first photos that is convenient", but being sent the banner images etc by event organisers to promote their events.
Yes, I can go back with a form for them to fill in and confirm they have copyright clearance etc., and doubtless they'll check, and confirm they have from photo agency X, and maybe I should also check that the photo agency has issued clearance, and that they themselves have validated that the photographer has verified they definetly took the photos... etc etc etc.
You can see that there has to be a point at which you accept that someone in the chain is being honest.
The issue isn't me nicking photos that are convenient, but accepting that a photo sent to me to use in an article/event listing has been cleared by the PR/marketing dept that is sending it to me.
The majority of problems come from small orgs who may seem to lack an awareness of copyright, so to protect myself, I am now taking the decision not to use their images unless I have built up trust in the sender.
However, even large orgs have been caught out - one example was the large theatre that paid for a license to use an image in a marketing poster, only for the stock agency to object to it being used on my website because the license (weirdly) only permitted use in their publications and no where else.
That's a large org trying to do the right thing, and I am trying to do the right thing, and still getting hammered by... well, yes, they're copyright trolls.
[+] [-] firecall|2 years ago|reply
I've helped one client who had been targeted by infringement notices for photos they own. In the process of helping them, I did some research into what's going on.
What happens is that Photographers supply their content library to a company that promises to defend their images against unauthorized distribution and collect appropriate licensing fees.
The problem is this:
1) these companies are very aggressive 2) they use some form of image matching search to detect image copies 3) the notices sent out are automated 4) the notices demand fees or legal action will be taken 5) there is no one to talk to or explain anything too 6) it's automated, abusive and often just plain inaccurate
This approach is very stressful for clients who haven't done anything wrong and dont understand what is happening. In some cases they have no control over an image that is published but attributed to them.
So yes, they are Trolls.
This isn't honest creatives defending their work.
In my clients case they had legitimately taken a very similar photo of a very popular public tourist attraction. Fortunately I was able to connect with the original photographer, and eventually, get them to call off their dogs.
[+] [-] growt|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hsbauauvhabzb|2 years ago|reply
Personally, I think image trolls (and most copywrite complaintants in general) can get fucked.
[+] [-] benj111|2 years ago|reply
So it's plausible that the organisers did get a license that allows this.
It's also plausible that they thought they were getting a license that allowed this.
Ultimately though, it seems the photographer had been paid at least once.
Further, in this case, it seems to me the onus should be on the organiser sending out the images intended to be used to promote the event, to make sure they have a license to do that, not on the individual websites. How are they supposed to confirm the copyright of an image, other than what they are told by the supplier of that image?
[+] [-] lionkor|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fortran77|2 years ago|reply
But that's not what he did. He used the artwork his client supplied.
[+] [-] michaelterryio|2 years ago|reply
Every once in awhile you just have to lol.
[+] [-] tehwebguy|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thih9|2 years ago|reply
I'm trying to understand how this works. E.g. what is their business model, is this something that would be used by individual photographers, by agencies or by corporations, etc
[+] [-] deepfriedbits|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mwenge|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] iandanforth|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 0xblinq|2 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] 0xblinq|2 years ago|reply
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