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from the copy fraud division
Now we have spoken up to now about the truth that the inventive works of the federal authorities are within the public area and can’t be protected by copyright. That is fairly specific within the legislation. In 2009 we had uncovered the truth that the Obama White Home was (helpfully!) posting pictures taken by White Home photographer Pete Souza on Flickr, however that they had been being given a restrictive license. Flickr had created a particular public area license particularly to deal with these pictures, however the White Home nonetheless required restrictions it had no authorized proper to (the photographs are within the public area). That occurred a few occasions sadly.
After all, the White Home by no means went after anybody for any of this.
That mentioned, final month, Souza revealed on Instagram {that a} copyright troll extortion operation, Copytrack, on behalf of “WENN Rights Worldwide,” despatched Souza a word demanding fee for violating copyright legislation. . with one in every of his personal pictures of the White Home that is positively within the public area (I would embed the instagram submit right here, besides the instagram embed function appears to be fully damaged, and we have been ready for it to be mounted and now I am giving up and simply posting a screenshot as a substitute ).

That is what his full submit says:
You possibly can’t make this shit up… a present story about this {photograph} from 2009.
We had been flying from London to Paris throughout President Obama’s first overseas journey as president. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had joined us on board the aircraft, and he or she and her workers demonstrated in what is known as the workers cabin. I took this image from the hallway wanting in the direction of the little cabin. A month or two later, we posted this picture on Flickr as a part of a gallery in regards to the president’s first 100 days. In doing so, he instantly positioned the {photograph} within the public area. (There isn’t any copyright concerned in official White Home pictures.)
After I left the White Home in 2017, I included this {photograph} on my web site in my President Obama picture gallery.
I’m now being threatened with authorized motion for displaying this {photograph} on my web site. Say what?
I acquired a discover from Copytrack on behalf of their consumer WENN Rights Worldwide as a result of I’m utilizing a picture with out permission for this {photograph} that WENN claims to personal the copyright to. I responded to Copytrack, and their response was that I’m “legally obligated to compensate our consumer for the injury attributable to this copyright infringement.”
So to recap: I took this {photograph}. It’s within the public area. WENN is licensing this picture for publication. Copytrack is threatening to take authorized motion towards me for displaying this {photograph} on my web site, as their companion WENN claims to personal the copyright to the picture.
Like I mentioned, you’ll be able to’t make this shit up.
In order that they demand fee not solely from the photographer himself, but in addition from a picture that may be very, very within the public area.
After all, as soon as this began getting consideration, WENN apologized, however probably not.
PetaPixel spoke with WENN CEO Lloyd Beiny who says the takedown discover is a mistake.
“Most picture businesses, together with WENN, obtain PR pictures from quite a few organizations who admire having their pictures distributed to the media on their behalf. It might appear that that is what occurred on this case”, explains Beiny.
“Copytracks are employed by WENN to hunt and search compensation for photographers whose work has been printed with out apparent permission being granted. On this event, it seems that the picture in query made its method into a gaggle of pictures that Copytrack was chasing by mistake.
That… will not be very comforting. The concept picture businesses are despatched PR pictures could also be true, however what the hell does that need to do with WENN/Copytrack? then declare copyright on them? None of that is smart. And, right here, for all Beiny’s speak that Copytrack is meant to exit and “search compensation” for work that “has been printed with out apparent permission”, it is unusual that he says when the issue right here is that sought charges for copyright infringement on a picture during which the he had completely little interest in copyright, nor may he.
After all, it seems we have written about WENN earlier than. You might keep in mind just a few years in the past there was a whole lot of fanfare (and what appeared like inventory pumping and dumping) when Kodak introduced some form of bizarre cryptocurrency scheme. It turned out that it was really WENN, this copyright trolling agency, that was licensing Kodak’s title to check a sketchy cryptocurrency scheme (which, after reporters began stating how sketchy all of it was, by no means got here to fruition). To be).
So not solely is it a sketchy copyright trolling operation dabbling in hype and pointless cryptocurrency ICOs, however additionally it is attempting to extort photographers for public area pictures.
Filed Beneath: copyright, copyright trolls, pete souza, public area
Corporations: copytrack, wenn digital
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That Time The Former White House Photographer Was Threatened By A Copyright Troll Over His Own Public Domain Photo