I was a bit curious about this theory of the artist "seeding" photos. It seems a little implausible that the artist would be seeding overtly. That is: I would be surprised if a photographer is visiting a wallpaper site and uploading his images himself.
Being familiar with the web, I think it's worth looking into ways that a photographer might
inadvertently be contributing to the problem. I googled around a bit and found some possible paths (and other info.) So here goes:
Possible way path for Photographers wallpapers to appear at zillions of wall paper sites.1)
http://www.hawaiianphotos.net/SiteMap.htm appears to be VK Tylor's site.
2) Hawaiian photos' site map links to webshots page with VKTylor images.
Web cite capture of site map on Jan 10, 2012
http://www.webcitation.org/64ai2bj4N3) Road to Hana Turquoise Lagoon appears at Webshots
http://www.webcitation.org/64aiKdzpz (thumbnail)
http://www.webcitation.org/64aiTIGO6 (Large-- but webcite may be blocked from seeing whole page. At least today, you can see the page I tried to archive:
http://www.webshots.com/pro/photo/3158973?navtype=search Webshots appears to display the "hover" image but that's blanked out for webcite. Click the pretty lagoon picture to see similarity between Webshots page and archived page.)
4) Even on the partial archive, you can see that webshots makes wallpapers downloadable.
The price is fairly low-- one gets a monthly membership.
https://subs.webshots.com/reg/comparison?res=high&photos=3158973&done=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.webshots.com%2Fpro%2Fphoto%2F3158973%26path%3D%2Ftravel-north-america-united-states-hawaii-maui&path=%2Ftravel-north-america-united-states-hawaii-maui%3Fexp%3Dphoto_page&vhost=www&collection=Travel+-+Mauihttps://subs.webshots.com/reg/comparison?res=high&photos=3158973&done=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.webshots.com%2Fpro%2Fphoto%2F3158973%26path%3D%2Ftravel-north-america-united-states-hawaii-maui&path=%2Ftravel-north-america-united-states-hawaii-maui%3Fexp%3Dphoto_page&vhost=www&collection=Travel+-+Mauihttp://www.webcitation.org/64alEDRWaNote: Platinum membership-- the top of the line is $39.99 a year, which is low enough that anyone profiting from a free wallpaper site would pay it. You can also get a free 1 day membership. Possibly those running free wallpaper sites would figure out a way to join using disposable email addresses but I wasn't going to try test that out.
5) Webshots copyright is archived here:
http://www.webcitation.org/64aiwTYIgIt grants limited rights-- certainly if those running the free wallpaper sites have not been granted licenses through Webshots.
==== Digression.
Up to this point in my investigation, my tentative notion is that it's possible for someone running a free wallpaper site to obtain images very cheaply from Webshots. (Or failing that, some anonymous person might obtain the images and uploads to a free wallpaper site. Each wallpaper site operates differently and some may pay uploaders a few pennies for each download thereby encouraging uploaders to do the grunt work of creating content.)
If it's done this way, then the photographer might not be
intentionally "seeding" his image.
However, the images copying is rampant, and by now, one would imagine any photographer who has been suing numerous people must know that the images are all over the web. He may not know how his wallpaper images are getting to these wallpaper sites. But it appears to me that what I've describe represents at least one path for many of his images to appear at free wallpaper sites. I also think it's relatively obvious: Wallpaper sites are getting his images from the Webshots, which sells the image
cheap!
===== Since HAN is involved, I think it's worth closing the circle and showing these:
6) HAN displays similar image. As far as I can tell, they make these available as
print only.
http://www.hawaiiart.com/products/Turquoise-Lagoon-Photograph.html http://www.webcitation.org/64akVcPDi7) HAN's Copyright terms for buyers are seem largely similar to Webshots
http://www.webcitation.org/64akOZTGZThose who buy images from HAN don't have a right to display on the web, resell & etc. But-- as I noted-- at least looking at the images I linked above, I only saw prints for sale. (Moreover, as a potential customer, I'd assume HAN's restrictions don't prevent someone who bought the image at Webshots from using it the way Webshots license allows.)
However, I don't have access to the terms for Artists. So, I don't have anything that indicates whether HAN has exclusive rights for distribution on the web.
Looking around HAN, I have not found any method for someone to download wallpapers. So, I think the path to free wallpaper sites is likely not HAN. (And they may not be aware that some of the images they sell are also sold as wallpapers with the authorization of the photographer through Webshots.)
Anyway: For the time being, my operating theory are
- The photographer Tylor loads them to Webshots in the hopes of making a little money. (Perfectly justifyable.)
- Webshots makes these available at a price that is somewhat reasonable for digital wallpaper. (In fact, that price may only be attractive to people who steal it and resell, making money by selling advertising or collecting email addresses to resell to spammers.)
- Quite a few Wallpaper places (group A) get the images from Webshots representing them as free.
- Then "party B" looking to create a site downloads from the free wallpaper site an use the image. Then HAN and Tylor sue Party B.
I'm not a lawyer, so I don't know how a judge would react to demands for large settlements from the photographer or his agent in the hypothetical circumstance where one or the other knows the photographer makes images available through Webshots, knows Webshots makes high resolutions images easily available and
likely knows or ought to know third parties (group A) are representing these images as free and the ones being asked for large damages (i.e. party B) are the coming across these images hosted by someone in "group A".
But I think the fact that this path exists is something an attorney might want to know about so he could decide whether it's important to his fact pattern.
Also: If I were HAN, and my business model was to sell photographs, I would insist my artists not make their images available as wallpaper through Webshots. Even though HAN is suing for web display, it's pretty obvious that anyone who wants a nice, high resolution print image of "Road to Hana" can just download it from Webshots or a wallpaper site, print them on nice paper, display them at home and never get caught.
Topic: Free Baitpapers (Read 100788 times)