I don't think he overreacted.

1st - the law is obviously on his side. 2nd - he is the little guy in the case which for me matters 3rd - he is not looking at extreme damages but is making a small claim. 4th - it seems to me that he is mostly annoyed for not being credited properly and being just dismissed/made fool of by the company statements.

And lets be honest - whatever a person views should be for non commercial infringement (mine are extremely lax) and sampling/transformation (the author should be entitled to part of the earnings, but should not have the ability to stop the work from being created or distributed) if you make money out of someone's IP he is in his right to say Fuck you, pay me! for some part of that amount.

No, you're not the only one.

I totally get him, but I think the way in he expressed his belief came up as just whiny.

Also I believe the problem is with copyright laws and not with BuzzFeed. They are not selling that image, they are just illustrating their content and the same article without his image would have exactly the same value.

But beyond all, what pisses me off the most is the blue background on those link, good lord!

I am not selling your code, I am just using your code verbatim without your permission to make money and compete with you.

I do open source software released under GPLv2 so, literally, be my guest.

Oh, you mean you gave the world permission in advance through a formalized licensing agreement? Just like the article's author didn't?

I have tried reading Cracked articles without the images to save traffic (they pay and attribute every image). It was not the same - the experience was degraded for me. Images do provide lots of value.

They changed the image for other similar to the original. How that changed the value?

Parent is arguing that having no image significantly changes the value. It is very challenging to determine how much value was created by using the infringing image, one that the court must decide. What is not challenging to determine is that the image provided some value (where that is a dollar or a million is a different question).

Actually, even if it provided no value whatsoever, even if Buzzfeed did not make a profit off of it, this would still be infringement and the photographer is entitled to remuneration.

> Actually, even if it provided no value whatsoever, even if Buzzfeed did not make a profit off of it, this would still be infringement and the photographer is entitled to remuneration.

I never said the guy was wrong. I said I think this is silly and he should just move on.

Why? What about this is silly? The man's photography was appropriated without permission by a commercial entity and used to generate revenue that he was never offered. This is the kind of thing that upsets content creators. What about it is silly?

If it doesn't change the value then why didn't they use the 2nd image in the first place?

He really just sounds like a butt hurt copyright troll.

I don't think you understand what the term 'copyright troll' means.