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Fuck Getty. They claim licensing rights over public domain images, and then tell the original copyright holder (who placed the image in the public domain) to fuck off.

https://petapixel.com/2016/11/22/1-billion-getty-images-laws...

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Unfortunately this seems like a good reason to never release something to the public domain, but only with something like a creative commons license. If she'd done that, she likely would have retained some control and possibly won that law suit.

IP law in the US hasn't functioned as intended for a very long time now. People seem to be starting to pick up on that more. I can only hope that continues and we eventually see some real reform.

The work was in the public domain, which means anyone can do anything with it, including selling it. The original copyright holder has no more rights than anyone else once the work is in the public domain (thats kinda the point of it).

This lawsuit was really rather pointless.

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