Microstock Photography Forum - General > Image Sleuth
Abiding by the DMCA does not mean you "take copyright seriously"
cathyslife:
--- Quote from: Pauws99 on May 05, 2019, 08:12 ---If I saw someone stealing sausages from the butchers I wouldn't expect to report it for the Police for them to say "They are not your sausages its none of your business"
--- End quote ---
There is a popular saying going around now...”see something, say something.” It is in regards to crime. Any crime. Stealing other people’s property, whether tangible or digital, is a crime and should be investigated and punished. And dismissing the good samaritan, and continuing to reward the criminal, is inconscionable.
Pauws99:
--- Quote from: cathyslife on May 05, 2019, 08:58 ---
--- Quote from: Pauws99 on May 05, 2019, 08:12 ---If I saw someone stealing sausages from the butchers I wouldn't expect to report it for the Police for them to say "They are not your sausages its none of your business"
--- End quote ---
There is a popular saying going around now...”see something, say something.” It is in regards to crime. Any crime. Stealing other people’s property, whether tangible or digital, is a crime and should be investigated and punished. And dismissing the good samaritan, and continuing to reward the criminal, is inconscionable.
--- End quote ---
In the UK huge amounts of cyber crime/fraud are ignored by the Police due to a combination of lack of resources and perception that somehow because it doesn't involve something physical its not a "real" crime. Meanwhile probably 100s of vulnerable people are fleeced of their life savings every day.
PigsInSpace:
Not taking things down unless you’re the copyright holder requesting it doesn’t make sense. I understand their concern about people making mistakes, but don’t they also have a responsibility to the customer? If I want to purchase a photo and there are two identical photos on two different accounts, which one am I supposed to buy?
Uncle Pete:
--- Quote from: PigsInSpace on May 05, 2019, 15:41 --- Not taking things down unless you’re the copyright holder requesting it doesn’t make sense. I understand their concern about people making mistakes, but don’t they also have a responsibility to the customer? If I want to purchase a photo and there are two identical photos on two different accounts, which one am I supposed to buy?
--- End quote ---
I agree that the agencies should do more, and especially when they only remove one per claim when the whole collection is known to be fraudulent. Some day, the laws may get changed and then there will be real protection, instead of this waste of time. I got this from an attorney, and I asked because I didn't understand why only the owner could file a claim.
Under the DMCA, the takedown notice specifically states "...notification from a copyright owner or from a person authorized to act on behalf of the copyright owner..." so it's not possible to issue a valid takedown if you are not the copyright holder or their authorized agent.
Under the Copyright Act, to sue you must have standing. Standing has been highly litigated since under copyright law there may be multiple parties that have interest in a copyright. I'm not talking about multiple copyright holders, rather this has to do with rights-holders that have full rights for different types of rights. For example, someone may be the copyright holder but another party may be the sole rights-holder with regard to royalties. In that situation, there becomes a legal question as to who can sue. It's actually very complex and there are many law review articles written on legal standing in copyright infringement cases.
The places that do nothing, have an interest in selling stolen works, because they make money from the content. Conflict of interest?
Brasilnut:
SS's in-house Legal team has obviously advised their management that in order to escape the brunt of legal issues, they just has to follow the DMCA procedures. This is wholly inadequate since the copyright owner is left in the dark in the vast majority of cases.
However, no such procedure was followed when they've removed the user passing off Ansel Adams's Snake River. Simply had to tag SS's top management on twitter, including Jon Oringer. If you do spot these fraudulent accounts, do post it on the SS forum and twitter. They'll shut down threads but simply start a new one. Latest one here:
https://forums.submit.shutterstock.com/topic/95117-another-thief-among-us/page/5/#comments
Public shaming of thieves is by far the most effective way to combat this issue. A few mistakes will be made along the way but that's why there needs to be a robust procedure in place.
I really do want to help them out and in talks but they're really expecting me to do their work for free, really. Shocking.
Part of the problem are those scummy free download sites: Pexels, Pixabay, Unsplash, etc but that's another issue related to the devaluing of their/our work.
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