Getty being sued for $1Billion

Sure, keep changing the hypothetical situations, eventually you will find someone to agree with you... either they will have to change their practices or they will face extinction. The law of how much the damages awarded can go up will make sure of it.

Where did I put up two hypothetical situations? Please point that out me.

Hypothetical 1: The company goes bankrupt and long term implications are that photographers will have reduced/no income, other employee impacts, no place to get photos online, and executives move on to continue their shoddy business behavior.

Hypothetical 2: The company immediately goes under within just a few weeks before the Olympics, and now nobody can shoot the Olympics.

There are numerous invalid assumptions being made to form Hypothetical #2, but the two are distinctly different situations, one surrounding immediate dissolution and thus affecting world events, and the other much more long-term, which allows all other organizations to pick up the pieces and lessen the impacts.

Can't we just drop this? There isn't really anything to win in this game (and one that isn't really any fun) of "let's assume this". They are being sued, and rightfully so, so now we just wait to see what the outcome ends up being.

Well, firstly I didn't propose that they went bankrupt, and I just used an obvious major event to create a hypothetical situation to illustrate how photographers could be affected, so I didn't change anything. But yes, of course there are invalid assumptions, it's a hypothetical situation, not a real world business risk assessment.

CyberDyneSystems wrote in post #18085569
If I read it correctly, the higher number comes from a law that says if you were already sued for the same thing, and then continue to perpetrate the same crime, the next time you can be on the hook for triple the damages.
(and it should continue to scale up with more repetitions! IMHO. Don't know if it does though)

Not quite. I think they're relying on 17 U.S. Code §1203(c)(4) which reads:

Repeated violations.—
In any case in which the injured party sustains the burden of proving, and the court finds, that a person has violated section 1201 or 1202 within 3 years after a final judgment was entered against the person for another such violation, the court may increase the award of damages up to triple the amount that would otherwise be awarded, as the court considers just.

So yes, if a person (or company) infringes upon another's copyright, a court can impose treble damages. It doesn't scale up, though.

So Getty have responded with "errrr nope!".

Put simply they are saying that the photographer put the images in the public domain and as such she can not then come back later and try to put restrictions on the use of the images. Public domain means just that - the public are free to use the images in any way they wish, inc commercially, without limits and without any need to credit the author.

I don't know how exactly the photographer released the images into the public domain (or if she did at all). But if she did in fact do so (instead of releasing them under some form of creative commons licensing) then I can't see that she has a leg to stand on.

You and I are not reading the same lawsuit and reply then.

US commissioned the photographer to take pics of Americana, and nearly 30K images are in public domain over the years from this effort. Getty added them to their repository and has been charging people for them. Getty assumes anybody using these images got them from Getty and invoices them for the use. This photographer received such an invoice for her own pictures. They are now being sued for making money selling public domain images, and not only that, wrongfully strongarming anybody that uses those images into paying for them, even though those people didn't even use the Getty service.

She is not dictating the terms of use of these images other than to say, "these images are free, and anybody should be able to use them without receiving a Getty invoice".

It would be like you taking a picture of a great landscape scene, then you put it into public domain for all to use. You find out that Getty has made thousands of dollars on your image by charging people for the use once they added it to their archives. You find this out because Getty accuses you of stealing the image and using it on your website, when you really are the author of the photo.

Dan Marchant wrote in post #18127554
So Getty have responded with "errrr nope!".

Put simply they are saying that the photographer put the images in the public domain and as such she can not then come back later and try to put restrictions on the use of the images. Public domain means just that - the public are free to use the images in any way they wish, inc commercially, without limits and without any need to credit the author.

I don't know how exactly the photographer released the images into the public domain (or if she did at all). But if she did in fact do so (instead of releasing them under some form of creative commons licensing) then I can't see that she has a leg to stand on.

According to the article referenced in the OP, the photographer is suing because:

"Getty and its subsidiaries are “falsely and fraudulently holding themselves out as the exclusive copyright owner” of Highsmith’s images"

If they did so with public domain images, how does she not have a leg to stand on?

moose10101 wrote in post #18127727
If they did so with public domain images, how does she not have a leg to stand on?

If defendants can show she suffered no legal damages, it's a leg sweep.

This lawsuit is a disciplinary suit, not a damages suit

I wouldn't mind seeing a class action lawsuit by all the other people who got stiffarmed by Getty into paying a fee. That's like a goon guarding the entrance to the city park and demanding a fee for anyone to enter.

TeamSpeed wrote in post #18127809
This lawsuit is a disciplinary suit, not a damages suit

The complaint is seeking statutory damages, no?

1/2 is statutory, the other 1/2 is repeat offender disciplinary amounts. Also, by the very definition, statutory doesn't mean any loss, it means that the complainant has broken laws/statutes, and any damages awarded are disciplinary in nature and aren't there to cover loss, regardless of who actually ends up with the money.

She doesn't have to show any loss here.

TeamSpeed wrote in post #18127908
1/2 is statutory, the other 1/2 is repeat offender disciplinary amounts. Also, by the very definition, statutory doesn't mean any loss, it means that the complainant has broken laws/statutes, and any damages awarded are disciplinary in nature and aren't there to cover loss, regardless of who actually ends up with the money.

She doesn't have to show any loss here.

I think we're getting in the weeds here. I don't really care about "damages", and I'm not lifting a finger to research the DMCA. I was just reacting to the previous comment asking why the plaintiff may not have a leg to stand on. The disciplinary amount (whatever it may be called) is irrelevant if plaintiff doesn't prevail in the first instance. Defendants are evidently rebutting plaintiff's prima facie case by challenging plaintiff's copyright assertion (a routine defense), alleging that plaintiff placed the images or caused the images to be placed in the public domain. If (a big if) the court sides with defendant's attack on the validity of plaintiff's copyright in a motion to dismiss, the complaint gets bounced for failure of the plaintiff to state a valid claim. If the plaintiff is in essence invalidated, it doesn't matter if the defendant's actions were right or wrong in this particular matter. Then the plaintiff would likely amend the complaint as of right or with leave of the court in an attempt to correct any deficiencies, etc., etc., etc.

PineBomb wrote in post #18127948
Defendants are evidently rebutting plaintiff's prima facie case by challenging plaintiff's copyright assertion (a routine defense), alleging that plaintiff placed the images or caused the images to be placed in the public domain. If . . .

If the images are in the public domain, what sort of claim to ownership could justify Getty in charging for their use? Getty can't claim that it holds the copyrights.