Another question about photos.

[sren]

I'm building a website for fans of some professional footbal players. The written content is original by me but know I'm looking for some pictures of those celebrities.
I don't want to fall into copyright infringement and I wont.
But also day after day I realize how hard if not impossible is to find copyright free pictures of celebrities. There aren't.
The worst thing is seeing pictures of these famous players in most of the fan sites (hundreds of sites) all the time. And it looks like they have no problem at all.
That doesen't mean I will do the same, that's why I'm writting.
As I don't expect my site to become a big success I don't think I'm able to pay a big fee for 100 pictures or so.
I've found some royaltie-free pictures in Getty, but I'm not sure about the price.

Can you guys recommend me another path to take?

Thanks.

[Beagle]

By the way, if your wife is a lawyer, why don't you ask her if all court decisions are available for free online as part of the public record. All recent federal cases are available via PACER, but the last I checked, only certain of those cases are available for free.

All court decisions are publicly available one way or another, if not online then at a law library. But someone can win or lose a lot of money when a case is settled out of court, and that won't be recorded among court decisions. It may be different in other countries, but in the U.S. a condition of many out-of-court settlements is that the parties not divulge what the settlement was.

Looking only at court decisions may be great for studying legal precedents, but in the real world of financial and personal consequences they only scratch the surface.

[BigDave]

You are absolutely right Beagle. the vast majority of copyright cases will end up in settlement, and the only record will be a document where the judge signs off.

But lobo wanted someone to post a link because all court decisions are public record and available on the web. That was just another case of him showing his ignorance.

[Lobo]

Please .. I asked 1 person to show his court case as he said he'd sued before and it didn't ring true.. it still doesn't and he still hasn't ..

And Beagle makes the point I've been putting forward from the start, what you read in a book or online has little relation to the real world..

[willjan]

Well Lobo, I'm not a lawyer, I'm not married to one, but I am in the process of going after 12 significant copyright thefts. I have a top law firm, 4 months of steady research on my part, and in fact have just been hired as a consultant to a photographer's trade organization to educate members on copyright issues.

2 of the 12 folks that will face action are small sites that refused DMCA take downs by devious means. They moved from being politely dealt with to the "A" list and will face a full press from a major firm taking my cases on pro-bono.

A friend, a NY lawyer, has just filed in Federal Court against a thief in Michigan on behalf of a another photographer. This is a small time operator who thought he could ignore a DMCA and sent the photograph to hundreds of other small sites. This guy thought he could hide behind having his address as a vacant lot, but he has been served and now has had to hire two lawyers to defend himself.

Some people take copyright very seriously. Among them, the NFL, which often has photographers assigned to cover them, sign contracts to protect further distribution of coverage of their games and players.

Your advice seems so off the wall I find it hard to believe you have any idea what the final effect of your advice can bring.

Willjan

[malachite]

Lobo old boy, I have successfully issued proceedings on many occasions - do feel free to search the records at [registry-trust.org.uk. ]

I suggest you read the Design, Copyrights and Patents Act 1988.

I also suggest you re-read the posting guidelines for this forum. Posting of personal information is not encouraged, nor is posting of information which would identify third parties.

In case you haven't worked it out yet, I am not American. As I pointed out to you in an earlier post, European copyright law is far more stringent than that of the US; it is also relatively inexpensive to commence proceedings. Breach of copyright can, and does, sometimes lead to a criminal record.

Sren has not revealed his or her geographic location. The "football" referred to may not be grid-iron but what Americans call "soccer". If that were the case, all the more reason for Sren not to breach copyright as he/she will fall under the gaze of European copyright holders.

And one more thing. The "he" you keep referring to, is a "she".