Copyright-related news that affects our industry ...

Supreme Court To Decide Copyright's Fate For Online Monetization

The U.S. Supreme Court will soon make its most momentous decision affecting photographers, stock photo agencies and other creators. It will soon decide whether creative works must be registered with the U.S. Copyright Office before they can be included in a class action law suit concerning copyright infringement. What's at stake is the future of revenue for most of the Internet uses of creative works.

The USA is one of the countries that require governmental registration to enforce one's copyright in court. At issue is whether or not this formal registration of copyright should be required to participate in a class action law suit that is copyright related.

Fairness Of Google Book Settlement Has Its Day In Court

Two-dozen blind people squeezed in line with lawyers, professors and journalists outside Judge Chin's courtroom on February 18th, eager to attend the final Fairness Hearing on the Google Book Settlement. One man still had the store's size tag stuck to his collar. For the blind, accessing more books is such an important cause that this gentleman had bought a new white shirt to look his best at the hearings. Once the courtroom filled, the remainder gathered their jackets, brief cases, white canes and guide dogs and navigated down 12 floors to the overflow courtroom until that space also filled to capacity.

ASPP has announced the full slate of 2010-2011 Board Officers. They are:

• National President - Michael Masterson
• Vice President - Holly Marshall
• Treasurer - Mary Fran Loftus
• Membership - Maggie Fellner Hunt
• Secretary - Sidney Hastings

A PDF containing detailed bio's is downloadable.

Special thanks go to our outgoing National President Amy Wrynn, and outgoing Secretary Rachael Youdelman, both of whom served for two years.

Image Registries, Copyright, Licensing and Tracking: This field is exploding with new players and new offerings from existing companies.

Copyright Registry is new offering Site Protector for photographers and illustrators. This new service enables automated registration of images on a web page in the name of the image creator.

ImageRights offers a new web crawling service which seeks unauthorized online image usages.

PicScout Image IRC™ uses fingerprinting technology to index images and maintain a metadata registry. And their new Image Exchange service is now in beta testing.

The PLUS Coalition remains the gold standard for transparent communication and management of image licensing rights.

The low-tech Orphan Search service coordinated by PACA seeks to find unidentified copyright owners of images. Email your This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it !

TinEye, developed by Idée, is an interesting 'reverse' search engine which uses image identification technology.

If we've omitted other emerging or key online image-service players, please let us know.