Emphasis mine Over the years he filed more than 100 lawsuits for the unauthorized use of an Indianapolis skyline photo he claims to own the rights to. [...] The attorneys use the pressure of federal lawsuits and potential statutory damages of $150,000 to extract high settlement fees from defendants, without fighting a case on its merits. [...] When Bell contacted Carmen Commercial he was offered a $1,000 settlement. However, the attorney wanted more and requested $5,000. He threatened a lawsuit if the real estate company failed to pay up.

He is aggressively greedy, not just protecting his copyright.

He doesn't seem to be able to prove he is the rights holder to that photograph though?

Further to this, in other jurisdictions you would have to litigate this in a court that would not award costs so drastically out of step with the claim. That must be at least part of the problem?

And in fact he was either completely mistaken about several substantial aspects of the photographs or he committed perjury.

The mere fact that 'trivial' Fotos of a skyline are copyright protected indicates that there is something wrong with the system. Fun fact: you are not allowed to take a picture of the Eiffel tower at night and publish it. Your own picture.

I've heard this before and it is mostly false: Only for commercial purposes, since 2016 it is freely available for natural persons to do so in a personal setting.

From wikipedia (easy source in this case, links for more info via them):

> "Since October 7, 2016, article L122-5 of the French Code of Intellectual Property provides for a limited freedom of panorama for works of architecture and sculpture. The code authorizes "reproductions and representations of works of architecture and sculpture, placed permanently in public places (voie publique), and created by natural persons, with the exception of any usage of a commercial character".[20]"

This is the case in most of Europe by the way. Some even allow commercial exploitation.

On this photographer, if the photo is trivial the user of it should have no problem taking their own or paying the (presumably trivial) market rate to license a photo someone else took, no?

Some classes of objects are not under copyright protection because they are ubiquitous or utilitarian. For example the design of clothes can not be copyrighted. You are paying for the material and the production costs, but not for the design, and any competitor can take the same colored cloth and sewing pattern and produce and legally market an exact copy of your clothes.

Skyline fotos, unless being really unique or special, for my understanding fall into the same category. Of course you ought to be paying for material and transportation, which is close to zero for a digital photo.

Copyright is out of whack. The general idea might well be okay and sane, but the implementation has been distorted into something grotesque.

Photographers are having a hard time, since the picture quality of comodity cameras, like the ones built into higher end phones, is really high and the cost for one picture is near zero, resulting in a maelstroem of really nice photos produced by a plethora of clicking monkeys.

Professional photography is being pushed into a niche profession.

From the article:

> The court correctly mentions that Bell has filed many lawsuits over the ‘skyline’ photograph. It also notes that other judges have mentioned that his motive appears to be to extract quick and easy settlements instead of protecting his copyrights.

It's not protecting if you are in it to get rich.

That’s exactly what you protect copyright for