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Re:Google Images Restored by errantspark on Saturday January 16, 2021 @03:28PM (#25805198)
Fuck Getty Images. Fuck IP law. Fuck copyright. All that shit needs a massive refactor. I can't bear to think about how much harm has been done to software and human reality in general by lawyers and MBAs seeking to extract the maximum amount of value from things.

I'm glad things like this exist, but so sad that they need to.

EDIT: and as one commenter astutely pointed out, fuck Pintrest too, a perfect example of the hubris of SEO focused trashes with no morals or sense of personal responsibility; degrading the commons for their own gain

Re:Google Images Restored by gkoberger on Saturday January 16, 2021 @03:41PM (#25805306)
What's wrong with Getty? They spend a lot of money to take pictures, and other people pay money to use them. How would you change their business model?

EDIT: I hadn't realized that Getty is the reason for the removal of the view image button! I stand by my comment in general, however I do think removing that button is crappy.

Re:Google Images Restored by markdown on Saturday January 16, 2021 @03:50PM (#25805386)
Getty charges $1000 for public domain photos. Fuck 'em!

EDIT: They also fraudulently claim to own public domain photos and legally threaten people who use them, demanding payment.

Re:Google Images Restored by gkoberger on Saturday January 16, 2021 @04:12PM (#25805555)
I don't understand your point. If you hate copyright and IP, then you inherently also have to believe Getty should be allowed to take public domain photos (or someone else's photos) and sell them.
Re:Google Images Restored by ceejayoz on Saturday January 16, 2021 @08:21PM (#25807170)
They have the right to sell them. I'm not sure it's ethical to do so for $1k/image.

It's definitely not OK that they billed the photographer who took the public domain photos for using them on her own site. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carol_M._Highsmith#Getty_Image...

Re:Google Images Restored by de6u99er on Saturday January 16, 2021 @09:57PM (#25807660)
I think people buy public domain images from Getty, because Getty will be liable in case that an unknown license of a public domain image suddenly pops up. Means they protect their customers from IP trolls.

That being said, anything published on the web should be free. E.g. if some don't want their image to be used, they should not publish it publicly in the first place.

Re:Google Images Restored by markdown on Sunday January 17, 2021 @09:46PM (#25817581)
If you're using my IP without my permission, saying your friend told you it was actually his IP isn't a valid defence.

I mean, maybe you can sue your friend later on, but that's between you and him.

All that matters to me is that you've used my IP without my permision.

Re:Google Images Restored by matttb on Saturday January 16, 2021 @05:13PM (#25806013)
I'd never heard of this before so I searched it and the first result turned up this[0] (see lines 2-4/Exhibit A). Big jump from selling public domain images to seeking out payment for public domain images.

[0] https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3001353/Filed-Com...

Re:Google Images Restored by LocalH on Saturday January 16, 2021 @08:31PM (#25807220)
They shouldn't be able to threaten legal action for those who acquire public domain images elsewhere, just because they choose to fraudulently license them.
Re:Google Images Restored by gkoberger on Saturday January 16, 2021 @08:45PM (#25807294)
Agreed. It was a (shitty) mistake and they apologized immediately. This was not part of the court case, and Getty has never argued they should have been able to do this.

I imagine they automate copyright takedown notices, and there was a bug somewhere. It's not great, but I don't believe it was malice.

Re:Google Images Restored by markdown on Saturday January 16, 2021 @05:29PM (#25806126)
> If you hate copyright and IP

Are you responding to someone else? Wrong thread? Because I haven't expressed that sentiment here.

> you inherently also have to believe Getty should be allowed to take public domain photos (or someone else's photos) and sell them.

Are you responding to someone else? Wrong thread? Because I never said they shouldn't be allowed to profit off public domain photos.

There is profit, and then there's just fucking people over. $1000 for a photo they didn't take and didn't pay for is just disgusting. All it does is restrict access to historical photos to 99% of the world, allowing only the very rich access to this window into our past.

Re:Google Images Restored by leonry on Monday January 18, 2021 @09:32AM (#25822125)
Maryam Jafri has had a small installation called "Getty vs. Ghana" (https://www.maryamjafri.net/gettyVsGhana.htm) that was once shown in the MAC/VAL.
Re:Google Images Restored by 0df8dkdf on Sunday January 17, 2021 @03:20AM (#25809125)
This is the exact reason why I don't like these large corporations. Suing to take down content vs hiring competent IT personal to put images you don't want unauthorised person to download behind an authentication (there are plenty out there).
Re:Google Images Restored by Xelbair on Saturday January 16, 2021 @05:48PM (#25806257)
What's worse - instead of fixing their shit, they bloody sue google.
Re:Google Images Restored by mackrevinack on Sunday January 17, 2021 @06:34AM (#25809925)
duckduckgo lets you view images no problem
Re:Google Images Restored by amelius on Saturday January 16, 2021 @03:37PM (#25805273)
You forgot to mention Pinterest.
Re:Google Images Restored by syndacks on Saturday January 16, 2021 @06:08PM (#25806398)
We wouldn't have modern civilization without IP law. Curious how you make a living; if it's like anything like the vast majority of the people on this site, or society in general for that matter, it's rooted in laws protecting theft of intellectual property.
Re:Google Images Restored by lolc on Saturday January 16, 2021 @07:42PM (#25806991)
The term "intellectual property" lumps together quite disparate concepts. It's not helpful to use it. And "theft" is a poor analogy.

I'd say society wouldn't change much if copyright were abolished. Probably for the better. Claiming authorship should still be protected in my opinion, see next point.

Trademark law gives some nice protections to consumers, so I'd vote for that one to stay.

Patent law? Ahhahaha where do I begin? To think that we rely on that crutch to develop medication makes my head hurt.

Re:Google Images Restored by mminer237 on Saturday January 16, 2021 @11:18PM (#25808066)
Wouldn't programming, writing, music, and art as careers basically be gone overnight without copyright? Who is going to create a book, video game, or movie when they can't sell it? Programmers would be the best off of those I guess, but only because they would have the option to move all code server-side to stop piracy.
Re:Google Images Restored by Fargren on Sunday January 17, 2021 @04:46AM (#25809468)
Copyright law has existed for only a few centuries, and people created art and science before it, as careers, for the entirety of human history. These jobs would be a lot different without IP law. They might be payed less and be done less, or maybe not. If they are payed less, it's true probably they wouldn't be as prolific. But they would still exist, it's disingenuous to claim IP law is a requirement for creative endeavors.

As a matter of fact, programming already works as if IP law didn't exist from the point of view of many programmers.I'm hired by a company to produce a product, in exchange for a salary. I don't know any IP that I might produce as a result of my work. I'm simply paid for my time. Could (as an example) novel writers be payed for the time spent writing a book rather than as a function of the sales of their books? I see not logistical reason why not. Maybe the market won't bear many writers under those conditions... But they would still exist, right?

Note: I think Trademark law is really good. And patents have issues but they are mostly good. I'm only talking about copyright here. I'm not entirely against the concept of IP, but I do think copyright law is not nearly as critical as it's made out to be. Maybe the optimal solution is weak copyright rather than no copyright, but I think it's important to understand that no copyright is not as crazy as it sounds.

Re:Google Images Restored by mminer237 on Tuesday January 19, 2021 @02:30PM (#25837703)
Computers, speakers, monitors, and printers didn't exist for most of human history. Reproducing a work was quite an ordeal, you couldn't just upload it to your website where anyone could google it and download it in two seconds.

Also, for most of human history, artists were funded by doing commissions. People wouldn't create music and movies for their fans, they would do it for the millionaires who could afford it, a la Once Upon a Time in Shaolin.

As for programming, maybe you don't care about your IP, but your company sure does. How would your company be funded if anybody could download its product? A few products might be able to survive just by being developed just for government contracts or for other large companies, but any care for ordinary consumers would be gone. And there is no similar market for books. Sure you could set up a book-writing company like you could now but where would the money for those salaries come from? No one will pay the company for a book they can download for free more easily.

Re:Google Images Restored by Fargren on Wednesday January 20, 2021 @04:05PM (#25851982)
There are many things to answer to here, but let me pick at least a few

> As for programming, maybe you don't care about your IP, but your company sure does.

I don't think they do. The software I write is used by workers in my company's warehouse. It's valuable because it makes their job easier. Sure, we don't give the software away, but we also don't sell it. We would lose very little if we released it for free. I know this doesn't apply to all software, but it applies to a sizable amount of it. It would be interesting to measure which fraction of time spent writing software is for projects like this, I don't know how to even begin estimating it.

> Sure you could set up a book-writing company like you could now but where would the money for those salaries come from?

Some ideas, in no particular order. Asa I said before, maybe reduces the amount of books that get written, but can't say for sure.

-Preorders. The publisher commits to only releasing a book once it has received X orders for it. GMT does this for boardgames.

-Patreon-like model, or plain subscriptions. Customers commit to paying for whatever is released, or just pay periodically and the publisher/author commits to releasing stuff that makes customers happy.

-Making nice editions: this could get very competitive, but surely a publisher who makes nice editions would still sell them. The publisher would be incentivized to pay popular authors to create books so it has more stuff to sell, even if other people could make other editions.

Re:Google Images Restored by int_19h on Wednesday January 20, 2021 @01:38PM (#25850153)
How about sane copyright terms at least, for starters?
Re:Google Images Restored by userbinator on Saturday January 16, 2021 @08:11PM (#25807129)
China isn't "modern civilization"...? ;-)

https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=284

Re:Google Images Restored by errantspark on Saturday January 16, 2021 @09:39PM (#25807575)
I am calling for a refactor, not anarchy. I will go on record as saying that we would be better off as a society with drastically reduced intellectual property protections, especially along the temporal axis. You shouldn't be able to hold onto IP of any sort for more than a decade or so under any circumstances.
Re:Google Images Restored by dendodge on Sunday January 17, 2021 @05:55AM (#25809752)
I'd even accept life. I don't necessarily agree, but I can see the argument that someone should have the exclusive right to profit from their work for the rest of their life. Maybe even add a few years as a grace period to give the estate time to adjust business practices in response to a sudden death.

But why we need to add another 70 years is a mystery to me. How does that encourage creativity and innovation?

Re:Google Images Restored by dendodge on Sunday January 17, 2021 @06:02AM (#25809777)
Avoiding the obvious argument that theft is a poor choice of word for this case, I'd like to question whether we actually treat intellectual and traditional property as similarly as IP proponents like to claim.

If you sell me an antique chair, I'm free to upcycle it, transform it into something new, and sell it on. I'm free to examine it and build an exact replica. I can give my chair to whomever I want and let any number of strangers sit on it. Such is the nature of property.

If you sell me a song, I must keep it in your proprietary system, leave the DRM intact, and definitely never even think about remixing it and selling my derived works.

IP is not property, it's a distinct beast of its own. It can't be "stolen" in the traditional sense, and it seems it can't really be bought or sold either.

Re:Google Images Restored by alacombe on Saturday January 16, 2021 @06:27PM (#25806516)
> We wouldn't have modern civilization without IP law.

Disney focused copyright laws have nothing to do with the development of modern civilization. There is plenty of case where overly tight licensing has proven detrimental to a technology.