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So the library of congress says they're public domain. If they're public domain are you not free to sell copies of them? Such as how you can sell copies of famous paintings or copies of Firefox for that matter.

If they're not actually public domain shouldn't she be suing the library of congress for misrepresenting the license?

Yes, if they're public domain Getty shouldn't be trying to enforce ownership but that seems their only misdeed.

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You might be able to sell prints, but you can't sell the rights to display those prints. You certainly can't come into people's homes and demand that they pay you for a copy you got from the Library itself.

I think you can, if you generate a derivative work. And I would bet that could be something as insignificant as color correction of the image.

Pretty sure that doesn't qualify as a derivative work. Changes must be substantive. Otherwise correcting a typo in a book would give you a copyright for that correction, preventing others (including the original publisher) from making the same correction.

Moreover, the photographer here certainly didn't use any "derivative" from Getty. So even if Getty could claim copyright on their "derivative", they cannot justly claim copyright over the original.

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