Is there a good website for public domain images?

Public Domain Photos

  • I have a website where I upload all of my photos and license them as public domain. Each photo is individually listed as public domain, each has a link to it's Creative Commons "license" as a work in the public domain, and the site is rather obviously all about photos in the public domain. The problem - Large companies are taking my photos and, without editing them, putting their copyright on them. Is this evil, and how nasty should I be about it? http://www.americangreetings.com/downloads/category.pd/downloads/wallpapers/nature-scenes/. In the nature scenes category alone most of the images they use are mine. There were all taken from my site 100% unedited as far as I can see. Now........ They do put my name on some of them, but not the website, and while some mention me many don't. However - My issue is just the copyright notice. I don't mind them using the image, even if they don't give me attribution. But putting the images in the public domain means a lot to me. Having a large corporation place their copyright on them seriously bothers me. It is my hope that people will take the images and do wonderful things with them. And that includes taking them directly from American Greetings, stripping off their copyright, and using them for any purpose. I understand that I lose control of the photos once I place them in the public domain. I'm fine with that. But I want the image to stay in the public domain. In other words, everyone loses the same control over the image, not just me. And I understand that creative application of the image could result in a very legitimate need for copyright. There are other examples, some even more gratuitous. But this is the latest example and the one that is making me think I need to take action. Can a company take works in the public domain and assert a copyright, especially if the work is unedited? Please note - I'm avoiding a self link, but my site shouldn't be hard to find by even a cursory attempt. I'll be happy to link to the original location of the photo linked above if such a self link is deemed appropriate.

  • Answer:

    It is actually somewhat murky whether there is actually any way to intentionally put a copyrighted work into the public domain. The only way permitted by the law is by the expiration of the copyright; the law does not provide any means for you to waive your rights. From a legal standpoint, then, it is entirely possible that you still own the copyright even though you intended to put the works into the public domain. The matter has not been decided in court as far as I know, though of course people behave as though a disclaimer of copyright does the trick, so if it ever does go to court, this practice could be upheld. It's kind of a toss-up. But sure, they can claim a copyright. It wouldn't hold up in court, of course, but it could cost you a substantial sum to take it there. Note that there is something called a "compilation copyright." That is, American Greetings can claim a copyright on their site as a whole even if the individual creative works that make it up are uncopyrighted or copyrighted by others. This is intended to prevent another company from copying their site wholesale, changing a few logos, and calling it their own. I don't see copyright notices for the individual images, so this is probably what they are actually doing here.

Ragma at Ask.Metafilter.Com Visit the source

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Okay. Happy ending. So while everyone was clamoring to brand American Greetings as a big bad corporation they have been working with me to make this right. I've been in contact with their corporate council and she is setting things right to my satisfaction. In fact she's gone out of her way to make it right. I can say, without exaggerating one bit, they are being extremely cool about the whole thing. She thinks an honest mistake was made, and so do I. If you look at the smaller photos you'll see they have the attribution to me, but they lack the copyright. Which is fine. They use my name and that's much more than they need to do. It's pretty cool in my humble opinion. But the large versions have the copyright added, off-center and in a different font. I suspect those were added much later. Given that probable chain of events the person who added the copyright would have no idea the photos were public domain rather than works for hire. American Greetings is going to make it right. And that's about 100% more than I get from others who abuse my licensing. I also find it interesting that they found out about my concern through AskMefi. Truly one of the best sites on the net.

Ragma

1. Copyrights don't mean the owner of the copyright is the creator of the work. This is true. So the fraudulent copyright charge falls flat. This is not. AG does not hold the copyright to these, and are claiming that they do. The fact that AG is not claiming to be the creator of these works does not mean they are correct in claiming copyright. American Greeting do in fact own the copyrights because they were not previously copyrighted This is absurd. I can't just go and find something that's in the public domain (perhaps something that's never been copyrighted, because it existed before copyright, such as one of Shakespeare's plays) and claim copyright on it. unless the OP left that part out. Plus, ragma did hold the copyright on them at one point anyway. Copyright is effective as soon as a work is "fixed in a tangible medium," meaning ragma owned the copyright on these pictures as soon as he took them. No further action on ragma's part was necessary. As kindall notes, the act of releasing them into the public domain is somewhat murky, but the law is quite clear that ragma initially owned the copyright. American Greetings copyrighting these pictures is less about them taking credit than preventing others from using the same pictures as they do AG has no legal right to prevent others from using ragma's pictures, as much as they might like to.

DevilsAdvocate

Ragma, major props to you for what you're doing with your photos. I understand your "throwing it into the wind" desire, and not wanting to make it complicated or add watermarks or put requirements around people being able to use your images. I think that's brilliant. And like you, I am not a fan of Creative Commons licenses - they're broken in a number of ways, often by the licensor in implementation, in fact. In the case of American Greetings, it's pretty clear they are asserting copyright on images to which they do not, in fact, own the copyright. They are, in short, stomping on your good will because they are big and you are little. I personally would not be inclined to let them get away with that. I'm not a litigious person, and in a case where Joe Shmoe just misunderstood or or did something like this without really thinking about, I wouldn't consider doing anything except maybe sending a friendly mail. In this case, however, they are a major brand and have in house counsel and a keen understanding of copyright. They are being asshats and honestly, I'd be pissed and be looking to do something punative. Apologies from huge corporations don't mean a lot to me, and I suspect they don't mean a lot to the company either. Money does. I'd follow up on the link Caddis sited, and look for financial compensation. If you yourself don't care about the money, that's cool, but the charity of your choice will.

DarlingBri

Yeah, they're clearly putting their own copyright symbol, and claiming copyright, on his photos directly. See this link, which is the American Greetings high-res download of this photo, which is without a doubt this photo of Jon's. I see that they give a cursory attribution at the bottom left, but then claim copyright at the bottom right... makes no sense.

caddis

Very nice, and it is always nice to see corporations take a little extra effort to do the right thing. Mistakes were made, but don't we all make mistakes? The important thing is that they are correcting them. Good for American Greetings.

caddis

Here's what I'm wondering. Could American Greetings have said "hey look, we have our copyright on this and you're hosting this image on your webpage - you need to take that down!" I mean, it's nice that American Greetings wants to play nice now - now that you've noticed what they did. However, it makes me wonder why they didn't wait until they had an agreement with you first. There are other public domain images out there and I'd be shocked if American Greetings didn't already have a large photo library to work with. But I'm mostly curious at whether a large company could do this and know they could get away with it due to the legal costs involved in trying to set things right through the system. Can Ragma prove that the photos are actually his once they've been turned loose like he has done? In the past there was this one guy who was selling cds of Free Stock Photos for $50 plus - and they were 95% images from Ragma's site. It's always interesting to see what happens when you put something into public domain... (Disclosure: I am Mrs. Ragma, with all the biases that come with that.)

batgrlHG

I'm not likely to pass on what she said. They seem very willing to make it right. That's cool. And that's enough. If there are juicy details, I'll let you know. I doubt there will be juicy details.

Ragma

What did you ask of her Ragma? what was her reply? Is this a case of corporate abuse? did they fess up? Did she put up a fight? tell me more tell me mooore tell me more tell me more. =0)

Student of Man

I got an email from their Corporate Counsel. She seems very open to my concerns and willing to make the needed changes. Interestingly she seems confused about what the real issue is, as if she didn't read the thread. But I have every expectation they'll handle things properly. I'm happy. Also notable - She responded to this thread rather than my emails. Once again AskMe influences corporate policy for good. Thanks all for the information and suggestions.

Ragma

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