Getty, Shutterstock merging; And?

I saw this a week ago via LinkedIn News. Per one commenter there, it's pretty much a nothingburger unless other things change at the merged company.

Smartphone improvements and easier to use DSLRs (which have gotten cheaper with the rise of mirrorless) all put as much pressure on both Getty and Shutterstock as do AI.

The press release says that the merged company will be "cutting edge" on its own image search and use of AI. But? I've used one of the photo-generative AI programs twice. Even in a small town, I had enough internet to create Woody Allen in a cowboy hat in less than 5 minutes. Something else, not "real world" in that sense but more dynamic, took a little longer but not that much. And, when I had Substack do me an AI image for a post? Something "acceptable," which gets back to a commenter, took 2 minutes or so.

The only real hope for this merged company is a mixture of totally redefining itself and the hope for massive copyright lawsuits against AI scraping.

So, the "and," as usual with me in such situations, is ultimately rhetorical.

There is a sidebar to all of this.

It's arguable that many photos now copyrighted should be in the public domain, not because they're photos, or photos of a certain type, but that copyright law gives way too many years of protection with its various lengthenings over the last couple of decades, and that this doesn't benefit individuals nearly as much as rich corporations ... like Getty. "Who Owns This Sentence" is a GREAT book on the history of copyright.

Yeah, Getty will stick it to the people it pays for images that are new images. It's still part of the problem.

Internet Archive loses its appeal

The Second Court of Appeals upheld a district court ruling earlier this month over copyright issues, filed by the book giant Hatchette (Hatchet!). The Archive had claimed fair use rights in the initial case and on appeal. It's unclear if it will appeal again to the Supreme Court or not. Full ruling here.

It should be noted the suit was against just one of the Archive's programs, one started in 2020 in response to COVID called the National Emergency Library. This, the Wired piece linked up top notes, was an expansion of its old Open Library. That had a one-to-one lending policy. The NEL did not.

The Second Circuit did offer what Wired calls a Pyrrhic victory, ruling that the Archive is non-commercial.

I don't understand why Archive staff is so puzzled by the ruling.

Had I read the district court's ruling when it came out, I would have seen this as correct. The story also notes the two sides negotiated terms of a settlement while the Archive filed the appeal.

And, I don't know who Ben Werdmuller is, but he's wrong.

Per a link in the story, the Archive probably should cut its losses and settle the lawsuit by music companies before it goes to trial. If it wants to lobby for cutting back some of the recent extensions in length of copyright? Fine. This is different.