Corbis, Copyright And Digital Rights Management

I’m not going to talk about Vista, so relax. I’m going to talk about Corbis – a company founded by one William Gates III, and based on the same fantasy that has infested Microsoft. That’s the copyright fantasy. [...]

Here’s a quote from a professional photographer: “Corbis and Getty are able to use their monopolistic position to set higher prices than the rest. The percentage that goes to the photographer varies between about 35 percent and zero.”

He went on: “All agencies are now striving to achieve ‘fully owned content’, which means the photographer gets nothing (beyond an initial fee). Much Corbis work is commissioned on that basis – a one-off fee for full rights assignment.” Royalties? Bah. [...]

Now Corbis is taking a web site to court for using one of its photos without paying, having detected its watermark. ... Legally, Corbis is in the right. In reality, it is painting itself into a corner, because no web designer will ever pay that sort of money for a stock shot. But once they realise how Corbis polices the internet, they will start making darned sure they use free clipart.

And in the public mind, I suspect, Corbis will start to be seen as a rapacious parasite, giving nothing to the creative artist, and ambushing unsuspecting home page designers. We’ve seen what that sort of tactic does for the RIAA, which has been suing teenagers for thousands of “lost” dollars on CD downloads; a PR disaster.

Digital rights management is dead. It’s time we buried the rotting corpse.

 

Guy Kewney of UK-based IT Week in "Pic agencies portray copyright´s ugly side, A legal dispute over a stock photo shows the copyright system is no longer fit for purpose".

 

Tough words. But neither copyrights nor the digital rights management principles are dead. If you own the copyright as a photographer or stock house, you´ll make sure that this fact is respected using PicScout, Idee Inc or Digimarc.

As for the "unsuspecting home page designers", they won´t probably be satisfied using only "free clipart". Either way, they have to respect the rights of the copyright holders.

Next, there is something called micropayment stock photography, the preferred source for "home page designers", SOHO web designers and even e.g. the Washington Post for acquiring high-quality low-cost stock photos (in the best case).

 

Related:

• A picture paints a thousand invoices (Feb. 01, 2007)
• "This is just the tip of the iceberg on this issue. Can copyright be protected in the blogosphere? I think the genie is already out of the bottle".
  David Schonauer in "Perez Hilton Sued for Copyright Infringment" (Dec. 01, 2006).

 

Comments

[J Photographer]

Hello,

I understand you are upset with Corbis about DRM on their imagaes. But is not your right to ignore them and sell through another company, or even better to start your own? I am also wondering why you would want to kill DRM? If we as photographers would actually band together and create a DRM system for our images, we might be able to have more controll over them and be able to earn more money. Everyone in the industry knows of the guy in your market that will under cut you to get the job..... Well if you have ever done this even once, a tiny tiny tiny bit, you are also a part of the problem. It is a commonality among photographers who are trying to make a living. It happens even if you don't know it. An agency will come to you and five other photographers and pit you against each other without you even knowing it. DRM will save the freelance and independent photographers. It will allow you to protect your images and know for sure just how many times and where and when and so on a so forth is happening to your images. This is not a hard thing to do. I believe any of the large photography organization would be able to create this system. Thank you for your time and I hope you will respond.

Sincerely a very concerned photographer.

[Photographer Italy]

Photography is a world in great changes. Getty and Corbis are not the only player that are playing a bad role in this business.