This started making the rounds yesterday. The Stolen Scream: A Story About Noam Galai. I thought it important to post here. Wanted your thoughts to be a part of the conversation.
IMHO, this is:
Exciting.
Scary.
Different.
Opportunistic.
Cannibalistic.
Visionary.
Divisive.
Should we celebrate it or hate it? Lawsuits or a new suit of clothes that recognizes the times?
Two obvious sides with no obvious answer. And on and on… It’s our newest classic challenge as a rapidly evolving industry with the rapid deployment and sharing of information.
What say you?
(via the nice folks at fstoppers)
Has he hired a lawyer to go after those publishers, clothing manufacturers and other money-making ventures that are getting paid from the proceeds of a stolen image? I’m sorry, but if he doesn’t, he’s contributing to the problem. As a photographer, this is exactly why I post a copyright tag on all of my images that are published on the web and don’t publish a lot of them for general consumption.
I do copyright my photos. All of them. I would suggest to every photographer that they do the same.
I used to work at a large stock agency and have some experience with this, so you’re not entirely correct in saying that a photo isn’t copyrighted until you file. As the artist, you automatically own the legal rights to your own work. So even if it hasn’t been formalized yet, an artist does have some recourse in the event of theft.
If you can prove ownership of the image, you can still file a suit for unlawful usage regardless of whether the formal copyright is in place at the time of usage.
what if the person using the photo edits the image. do you still own the rights on the image.
In my understanding, yes you still own the rights because what they created is a derivative work of your image. There are rules about those things. They might be able to get away with it if they did something that was considered a parody.
First of all you don’t automatically own the copyright in all countries so be careful about throwing that around. You do in the US though.
In order to sue you will need to register your copyright but if the suit involves an unregistered copyright, at the time of the infringement, then you are limited to actual damages. If the copyright has been registered then you are eligible for statutory damages and lawyers fees in addition to actual damages.
Yes, but I think he can still register them with the copyright office and pursue litigation. I watched a video on one Scott Kelby’s websites (Photoshop User TV, I believe) and they spent like 2 shows talking about this type of stuff with an actual copyright lawyer
I see what you’re saying, but really – if you or I were in his situation, would we have the financial resources to sue potentially hundreds of people in dozens of countries in dozens of legal systems? I’m gonna guess “no.” You can go broke trying to do that. It’s not as easy as it might sound. I cut him slack.
I hope he got a team of lawyers and nabbed as many of the thieves as possible and got his money’s worth.
Theft, plain and simple. You can’t pay bills with photo credits and tear sheets.
I agree… no obvious answer. But I think it does speak to the notion that art/photography has become severely devalued since the advent of the internet. People love and use the image – as long as they don’t have to pay for it.
Its awesome for the political stuff, but when other artists and photographers claim it as theirs, that just upsets me.
I think I’d be equally annoyed by the political stuff, especially if it was for a cause with which I didn’t agree.
4:33 is not arabic text. It was persian, I guess somewhere in Tehran !!!