Richard Weisgrau

The founder(s) of the coop say " Stocksy, a digital licensing co-op launching March 25, 2013, is a new concept in the world of stock photography: An online marketplace owned collectively by its photographer-members."

While I applaud the effort the fact is that MIRA.Com was, as far as I know, the first photographer stock agency co-op. I was executive director of ASMP from 1988 through 2002. ASMP set the wheels in motion to form MIRA by securing the capital and photographers to make it work. That was in 2000. The 9/11/2001 tragedy held it back as the economy went bad, but it did survive and is licensing images today. Check out www.mira.com.

I just read the plaintiff's complaint. It's long and historical. From my read it seems that he is suing only for alleged infringements after he registered the image in 2011. As I recall, the statute of limitations is 3 years after an infringement is discovered. The 2011 date fits within the that. I don't know if laches applies to the infringements after 2011 or not. It seems to me that it ought not to. If the photographer has decided to enforce his rights well after he failed to assert them in many older instances, why should he not have that right? I think his bigger problem will be in getting damages in any significant amount because his failure to enforce his copyright for so many years in the face of many unauthorized uses would seem to me to indicate he did not value it much. Of course the court would probably evaluate damages based upon the uses and not the photographer's perceptions. I think.

I think the contest is a great idea, and that "Rules" are reasonable except that the requirement for a release from any person in a submitted photo. Personally, and the lawyers would argue against my point, I can't see why a release is necessary since the end use is a public display or publication that seems not to be either trade of advertising use. The required release will certainly be a handicap to anyone working on the street as so many do. How many times can you stop to explain what and why you are shooting the subject without just getting frustrated and misdirected? I would hope, with little expectation of success, that the release Rule would be changed.

I find the decision to be extremely troubling. Even if no defense was made, the idea that creative expression was copied should never have been allowed as the basis of a complaint. The red bus on a monochrome background is creative expression but to make it the basis of a infringement decision when the photographs have so little similarity borders on incredulity. Imagine in the US if shot the red, white and blue American Flag against a blue sky. On the basis of this decision you would be infringing because that has been done before.
Whacko!

Certainly editorial stock has low costs (primarily time) associated with it. Of course, it also has low licensing fees since without releases it can only be used for editorial purposes. Those are low paying uses. Additionally, the market for editorial stock is shrinking rapidly in the print publication market while growing in the Internet publication realm. Internet editorial use is among the lowest paid use in the business. A good stock file can be built at low cost in editorial but the payback is very small unless one has great content that is in demand. Remember that the vast majority of editorial images are not timeless and have a much shorter sales life than promotional stock.