Author Topic: dealbreaker #1: © Thinkstock (Read 16268 times)

ann · « **on:** November 03, 2011, 07:39 »

© Thinkstock where the contributor is literally out of the picture

dealbreaker #1: The contributor is never identified anywhere on images distributed by Thinkstock, including on the site.

pro@stockphotos · « **Reply #1 on:** November 03, 2011, 08:23 »

That's pathetic, its good I can keep my images out of that collection.

cathyslife · « **Reply #2 on:** November 03, 2011, 08:29 »

Yep, that's a Getty thing. You are a nobody.

fujiko · « **Reply #3 on:** November 03, 2011, 09:20 »

Thinkstock seems able to credit some files:
http://www.thinkstockphotos.com/image/stock-photo-turtle-and-chipmunk-wearing-party-hats/83290871

I believe it's more of an IS thing. It's not 'commercially reasonable' to credit IS contributors.

cathyslife · « **Reply #4 on:** November 03, 2011, 10:17 »

Quote from: fujiko on November 03, 2011, 09:20

Thinkstock seems able to credit some files:
http://www.thinkstockphotos.com/image/stock-photo-turtle-and-chipmunk-wearing-party-hats/83290871

I believe it's more of an IS thing. It's not 'commercially reasonable' to credit IS contributors.

Actually, I was with IS for about 6 years and any time I found my photo, it was credited to me personally. This subject was brought up before here, because IS has recently started to do this too (I personally have noticed it, including in such magazines as Good Housekeeping, where they now put ©istockphoto instead of the photographer ). sjlocke, in that thread, mentioned that Getty does this and contributors were complaining to Getty about it. Therefore, my reasoning is that IS has started following Getty protocol, hence my statement "it's a Getty thing".

And I don't really care if it's commercially reasonable or not for the agencies. Photos are copyrights of the photographers NOT Getty or istock and putting a copyright symbol next to the Getty or istockphoto name is just WRONG and deceitful.

lagereek · « **Reply #5 on:** November 03, 2011, 10:33 »

Only a complete asssshooole, would like his name/credit, from a place like TS.

cthoman · « **Reply #6 on:** November 03, 2011, 11:14 »

Quote from: lagereek on November 03, 2011, 10:33

Only a complete asssshooole, would like his name/credit, from a place like TS.

I want my name credited wherever my work is sold. My freelance business is tied to my stock art business and vice versa. The easier it is for someone to find my name and contact info, the easier it is for them to contact me with potential additional opportunities.

That said, I don't have any stuff at Thinkstock. Browsing there though I saw some photos had photographer credits, but others didn't. Is the stuff from iStock not credited?

ann · « **Reply #7 on:** November 03, 2011, 11:29 »

@fujiko: Thank you for the link.

©cclapper - Yes. Anyway, isn't it illegal for distributing agency to place/require just "© agency name" for whatever images contributors hold copyrights to? Or, when contributors do business with agency despite it, does it give some sort of implicit consent to hijack copyright notice?

(Full discloser: I've already deleted my small port from any agency that feeds to thinkstock.)

Quote from: cclapper on November 03, 2011, 10:17

Quote from: fujiko on November 03, 2011, 09:20
Thinkstock seems able to credit some files:
http://www.thinkstockphotos.com/image/stock-photo-turtle-and-chipmunk-wearing-party-hats/83290871

I believe it's more of an IS thing. It's not 'commercially reasonable' to credit IS contributors.

Actually, I was with IS for about 6 years and any time I found my photo, it was credited to me personally. This subject was brought up before here, because IS has recently started to do this too (I personally have noticed it, including in such magazines as Good Housekeeping, where they now put ©istockphoto instead of the photographer ). sjlocke, in that thread, mentioned that Getty does this and contributors were complaining to Getty about it. Therefore, my reasoning is that IS has started following Getty protocol, hence my statement "it's a Getty thing".

And I don't really care if it's commercially reasonable or not for the agencies. Photos are copyrights of the photographers NOT Getty or istock and putting a copyright symbol next to the Getty or istockphoto name is just WRONG and deceitful.

fujiko · « **Reply #8 on:** November 03, 2011, 11:56 »

Quote from: ann on November 03, 2011, 11:29

@fujiko: Thank you for the link.

©cclapper - Yes. Anyway, isn't it illegal for distributing agency to place/require just "© agency name" for whatever images contributors hold copyrights to? Or, when contributors do business with agency despite it, does it give some sort of implicit consent to hijack copyright notice?

(Full discloser: I've already deleted my small port from any agency that feeds to thinkstock.)

The contributor agreement says they will do what is 'commercially reasonable' to credit the contributor but they don't guarantee it and require the contributor to waive this right. I think it's because they want to promote only themselves and not contributors. So if anyone sees an image credited to istock, they will go to istock, but if the contributor is credited, buyer can look for the contributor elsewhere. I think that's the reasoning behind this because of the word 'commercially', although they will say it's a technical problem but the agreement is clear, it's about money. They want all credit, 85% royalties and complete control over the files. Greedy companies do those things.

BaldricksTrousers · « **Reply #9 on:** November 03, 2011, 12:38 »

It would be more honest to put "Source: TS". To try to claim it is their copyright is simply false. I don't suppose there is a single image on their site to which TS is the copyright owner.

gostwyck · « **Reply #10 on:** November 03, 2011, 13:12 »

Quote from: fujiko on November 03, 2011, 11:56

The contributor agreement says they will do what is 'commercially reasonable' to credit the contributor but they don't guarantee it and require the contributor to waive this right. I think it's because they want to promote only themselves and not contributors. So if anyone sees an image credited to istock, they will go to istock, but if the contributor is credited, buyer can look for the contributor elsewhere. I think that's the reasoning behind this because of the word 'commercially', although they will say it's a technical problem but the agreement is clear, it's about money. They want all credit, 85% royalties and complete control over the files. Greedy companies do those things.

Great points.

ann · « **Reply #11 on:** November 03, 2011, 15:03 »

They're creating a whole new class of "orphan works" where, for all practical purposes, the enduring lineage for lots of stock images will just be an agency's name as the years go on.
From vantage point of contributors' heirs - argument could be made that the agency is kidnapping images right in front of ©-holder's eyes.

And they bought a company that tracks images. Simply an ironic coincidence?

greedy companies get away with what they are allowed to get away with

cthoman · « **Reply #12 on:** November 03, 2011, 16:32 »

Quote from: ann on November 03, 2011, 15:03

They're creating a whole new class of "orphan works" where, for all practical purposes, the enduring lineage for lots of stock images will just be an agency's name as the years go on.
From vantage point of contributors' heirs - argument could be made that the agency is kidnapping images right in front of ©-holder's eyes.

And they bought a company that tracks images. Simply an ironic coincidence?

greedy companies get away with what they are allowed to get away with

That seems a bit overly dramatic. A quick Google image search would yield the copyright holder for almost all images. That's hardly orphaned. Look, I don't approve of not having the proper copyright credits, but I don't see any danger of losing any copyrights. It also seems like a fairly fixable problem that a little grumbling on the mothership (istock) would fix.

BaldricksTrousers · « **Reply #13 on:** November 03, 2011, 16:53 »

If they have got a copyright attribution - even a wrong one - how can they be "orphan works"?

ann · « **Reply #14 on:** November 03, 2011, 19:35 »

Cthoman & BaldricksTrousers -

Yes, it sounds rather melodramatic the way I worded it, so I can't disagree with you.
And since I didn't mean the images would literally have no attribution - but, rather a False one - I should have not used the term "Orphan Work."

Separate from any images the agency may own outright:

The agency is the distributor.
It does not own the copyright to the images.

Writing (c) Agency Name is a Lie.
And it strengthens agency's tie to the work at the expense of distancing the work from the contributor.

Think about the effect of having one's images "out there" over the Years with just some agency name after the copyright symbol. It wll be unnecessarily harder for contributors and their heirs to keep track of the use of images they hold (c) to.

FD · « **Reply #15 on:** November 03, 2011, 21:02 »

Quote from: fujiko on November 03, 2011, 11:56

The contributor agreement says they will do what is 'commercially reasonable' to credit the contributor but they don't guarantee it and require the contributor to waive this right. I think it's because they want to promote only themselves and not contributors. So if anyone sees an image credited to istock, they will go to istock, but if the contributor is credited, buyer can look for the contributor elsewhere. I think that's the reasoning behind this because of the word 'commercially', although they will say it's a technical problem but the agreement is clear, it's about money. They want all credit, 85% royalties and complete control over the files. Greedy companies do those things.

Bingo and very well to the point. That's why I didn't sign their agreement. Fair enough. Nobody was forced to sign the agreement. If it's a dealbreaker, then don't cut the deal. I still don't miss IS (and vice versa I suspect)

RacePhoto · « **Reply #16 on:** November 04, 2011, 00:43 »

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on November 03, 2011, 12:38

It would be more honest to put "Source: TS". To try to claim it is their copyright is simply false. I don't suppose there is a single image on their site to which TS is the copyright owner.

Not so sure that's true. For example, not our work, but everything that Getty owns, all those old collections and agencies they scooped up, which is licensed through ThinkStock might be considered ThinkStock? Or to go with your logic, then none of the agencies can claim Copyright to anything they distribute or sell for us? So they can't say, © agency name, artist name?

As for the people who can't get over misrepresenting orphan works, or how it would work. The fact that it has a copyright on it, even if it's wrong and says ThinkStock, means it's not an orphan. End of argument. No one can claim orphan when it's clearly marked © and has a name. The bill is about old files in archives, lost attribution and no clue where they came from, not modern works and people trying to steal Microstock instead of pay the lousy few dollars.

And yes, even if it's ThinkStock I'd like my name on the images as the artist, not some soulless agency name. Any personal publicity can't hurt?

BaldricksTrousers · « **Reply #17 on:** November 04, 2011, 01:38 »

My understanding is that copyright resides with the creator of the work or, if the actual creator was employed to create it, with whoever supplied the materials with which the work was created.
I'm not even sure that you can "sell copyright". In the music biz artists are now able to claw back copyright that they transferred to record labels decades ago, which rather suggests that while you may sell exclusive usage rights the underlying copyright remains forever with the creators.

Having a "wholly owned" collection probably doesn't transfer copyright, it just passes on exclusive usage rights from the previous agency to the one that bought it. Unless, of course, the agency hired the photographer and supplied the films.
The materials thing is quite important because it explains how a photographer hired for a wedding shoot retains copyright over the works while a newspaper staff photographer doesn't, the copyright belongs to his newspaper (and it is illegal for him to supply agencies with images from shoots using newspaper materials unless he has an agreement with his employer to do so).

So, no, none of the agencies should use "copyright: Agency/Shooter", at the very least it should be "copyright: Shooter/agency", making it clear that the agency's name is just being added to that of the copyright owner.

As I'm damned sure TS has never handed a camera to anyone and paid them to shoot a job, it can't legally hold the copyright to anything. Even an image Getty paid to have created would technically still belong to Getty, not to TS, as the companies will be established as separate legal entities.

Unfortunately, we don't live in a perfect world and it seems that if we want to do business with agencies we have to put up with their routine misrepresentation of our copyright as being their own when they know damned well that it isn't. If they believed their own lies, I am sure TS would be suing SS and DT for all the "Thinkstock copyright" files they are licensing.

RacePhoto · « **Reply #18 on:** November 04, 2011, 02:12 »

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on November 04, 2011, 01:38

My understanding is that copyright resides with the creator of the work or, if the actual creator was employed to create it, with whoever supplied the materials with which the work was created.
I'm not even sure that you can "sell copyright". In the music biz artists are now able to claw back copyright that they transferred to record labels decades ago, which rather suggests that while you may sell exclusive usage rights the underlying copyright remains forever with the creators.

Having a "wholly owned" collection probably doesn't transfer copyright, it just passes on exclusive usage rights from the previous agency to the one that bought it. Unless, of course, the agency hired the photographer and supplied the films.
The materials thing is quite important because it explains how a photographer hired for a wedding shoot retains copyright over the works while a newspaper staff photographer doesn't, the copyright belongs to his newspaper (and it is illegal for him to supply agencies with images from shoots using newspaper materials unless he has an agreement with his employer to do so).

So, no, none of the agencies should use "copyright: Agency/Shooter", at the very least it should be "copyright: Shooter/agency", making it clear that the agency's name is just being added to that of the copyright owner.

As I'm damned sure TS has never handed a camera to anyone and paid them to shoot a job, it can't legally hold the copyright to anything. Even an image Getty paid to have created would technically still belong to Getty, not to TS, as the companies will be established as separate legal entities.

Unfortunately, we don't live in a perfect world and it seems that if we want to do business with agencies we have to put up with their routine misrepresentation of our copyright as being their own when they know damned well that it isn't. If they believed their own lies, I am sure TS would be suing SS and DT for all the "Thinkstock copyright" files they are licensing.

Thanks I see where you are headed now.

OK so "images on white", sells their in house created collection to Getty. When someone makes something under contract the place paying them owns the rights. Lets call it work for hire.

If Agency IOW has 100% work for hire, and sells that to Getty and Getty owns ThinkStock and ThinkStock has the right to sell rights, someone has to own the right to the images?

The general rule is that the person who creates a work is the author of that work. However, there is an exception to that principle. The copyright law defines a category of works called “works made for hire.” If a work is “made for hire,” the employer, and not the employee, is considered the author. The employer may be a firm, an organization, or an individual.

I suppose that everything according to your view, would be attributed to Getty Images? Same for IS and photos.com? Keep in mind that EdStock is really Getty Images. Then anything sold from IS from that account needs to be labeled as Getty Images?

Anyway, we do agree that everything where possible should have the artists name not the agency name. Just that small point where some images are owned by the agency. And I do believe that someone can sell all rights to something or that rights can be transferred, otherwise we have a real mess that only the author owns everything, forever?

As for the music, I'd have to read more in each case where fraud may have been involved or improper contracts. But the part that is creating the new claims and changes is not the right for an artist to sell their copyright, but expiration. Important distinction. It's not as simple as, the artist can't sell the rights to his own works.

The Copyright Act includes two sets of rules for how this works. If an artist or author sold a copyright before 1978 (Section 304), they or their heirs can take it back 56 years later. If the artist or author sold the copyright during or after 1978 (Section 203), they can terminate that grant after 35 years. Assuming all the proper paperwork gets done in time, record labels could lose sound recording copyrights they bought in 1978 starting in 2013, 1979 in 2014, and so on. For 1953-and-earlier music, grants can already be terminated.

Copyrights can be transferred!

BaldricksTrousers · « **Reply #19 on:** November 04, 2011, 02:55 »

"Transferring" a copyright is not quite the same as "selling" it, is it? If you sell something you can't have it back after a certain time.
As for your example, I suspect the copyright owner might still be "Images on White" rather than Getty, but I'm not a lawyer and it really doesn't matter with regard to what TS is doing.
The thing is that the copyright of an image belongs to one person, it can't simultaneously belong to me, TS, SS, iS and everyone else. So the TS claim is simply a lie and if copyright is being credited to anybody it ought to be to the person who owns it, not someone who doesn't.
I suspect that what they are doing is,illegal and isn't covered by their cop-out clause. There is a big difference between agreeing that they will only credit you if it is "commercially reasonable" according to their thinking and agreeing that they are allowed assert that they own the copyright of your work. They may not be able to credit you, but it doesn't follow that that means they have a right to say it belongs to them. Not only do they fail to preserve your copyright info in the file, having stripped it out they proceed to assert that they own the copyright. Legal? Really?

cathyslife · « **Reply #20 on:** November 04, 2011, 06:53 »

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on November 04, 2011, 01:38

snip
So, no, none of the agencies should use "copyright: Agency/Shooter", at the very least it should be "copyright: Shooter/agency", making it clear that the agency's name is just being added to that of the copyright owner.

Exactly. Copyright symbol shouldn't be anyways near the agency name.

SO glad I'm not at istock anymore, too. I hope none of the other agencies are doing this, either.

ann · « **Reply #21 on:** November 04, 2011, 07:06 »

Right, copyright symbol should be next to contributor's name, not agency!

And when it uses/requires: © agency name agency is openly claiming copyright on millions of photos it does not own copyright to, so a competent copyright lawyer could have a field day with this one.

Contributor (class action suit or not) could hire a copyright lawyer who sees the potential not only for fees but also priceless publicity.

"The Emperor Has No Clothes" "The Agency Has No Right to Claim Copyright"

FD · « **Reply #22 on:** November 04, 2011, 08:30 »

Quote from: ann on November 04, 2011, 07:06

"The Emperor Has No Clothes" "The Agency Has No Right to Claim Copyright"

Why bother? Just dump iSuck.

ann · « **Reply #23 on:** November 04, 2011, 09:16 »

That's exactly what I did months ago with my tiny port, but an enterprising lawyer could decide the potential publicity, at least, made this worth her while.

-------------
I'm gong to use BIG brand names now so most will be familiar with them:

No store is going to advertise Coke or Pepsi as Amazon.com Cola or Walmart Cola
not only because because Coke & Pepsi would rightfully sue them Big Time, but because the brand names Coke and Pepsi mean a lot to a lot of customers.

Coke & Pepsi would never be where they are now if, in the early days, they let whatever store sold them call their cola soda by the store's name! Which, in effect, is not far different from contributors allowing © agency name. And they continue to have top lawyers actively protecting their brand name, because they know that the brand names are Gold to their company.

Well, by promoting just the agency name, even at agency site, with false © agency name - the agency is helping prevent brand awareness, and therefor power, of the contributor/copyright holder - in favor of strengthening brand awareness, and therefore power, of the distributor.

Quote from: AttilaTheNun on November 04, 2011, 08:30

Quote from: ann on November 04, 2011, 07:06
"The Emperor Has No Clothes" "The Agency Has No Right to Claim Copyright"
Why bother? Just dump iSuck.

RT · « **Reply #24 on:** November 04, 2011, 10:02 »

Quote from: ann on November 04, 2011, 07:06

And when it uses/requires: © agency name agency is openly claiming copyright on millions of photos it does not own copyright to, so a competent copyright lawyer could have a field day with this one.

Actually a competent copyright lawyer would just point out that the copyright symbol ( © ) just specifies that the work is copyrighted, not that they're claiming ownership of that copyright, the purpose of having a name after © is just so that anybody who wants to enquire about the identity of the copyright owner then has a point of contact, and if you want to be really technical all that Getty (or any agency come to that) would have to do to justify them putting there name there would be to show the the contributor (or any contributor) uses a different pseudonym at different agencies, to go even further, take your own name (assuming it's not a unusually unique one) and search the web to find out whether there's anybody else in the world that has a photo displaying the same name as yours - and there's your answer and the reason why Getty would win before it even went to court.

I'm not justifying them not using our names (and I'd rather see my own because it links to my website) just explaining why they can do it, not that they legally have to display any copyright anyway. To be honest, from a protection point of view, unless you do have a truly unique name it's probably better having Getty/Thinkstocks name after the © than your own.

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Author Topic: dealbreaker #1: © Thinkstock (Read 16268 times)

ann

pro@stockphotos

cathyslife

fujiko

cathyslife

lagereek

cthoman

ann

fujiko

BaldricksTrousers

gostwyck

ann

cthoman

BaldricksTrousers

ann

FD

RacePhoto

BaldricksTrousers

RacePhoto

BaldricksTrousers

cathyslife

ann

FD

ann

RT

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