China's Largest Stock Photo Provider Attracts Fire Over Use of Black Hole Image

Reader hackingbear shares a report: As soon as the European Southern Observatory released the black hole photo, under Creative Commons license, on April 10, Visual China Group (VCG), China's leading stock image provider that's compared to Getty Images, made the image available for sale in its library without attribution to the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration. "This is an editorial image. Please call 400-818-2525 or consult our customer service representative for commercial use," said a note for the black hole image on VCG's website. Internet users took to social media slamming VCG for monetizing a photo intended for free distribution among the human race. VCG swiftly revised the note to say the black hole photo should not be used for commercial purposes, but the incident sparked a plethora of comments on Weibo condemning VCG's opportunist business practice.

For example, the price tag of the national emblem image ranges from150 yuan ($22) to 1,500 yuan ($220.) "Copyrights protection should definitely be promoted. The question is, why is VCG allowed to price photos of the black hole and the likes out of the market? Why is it able to exploit loopholes?," Du Yu, a Beijing-based freelance technology journalist, said to TechCrunch. China's the cyberspace watchdog of Tianjin ordered the photo site to end its illegal, rule-breaking practices. "We have taken down all non-compliant photos and closed down the site voluntarily for a revamp in accordance with related laws," said VCG. Shares of VCG, whose executives are mainly American and Canadian citizens and filed 16 copyright lawsuits per day on average (in Chinese, Google translate), plummeted 10 percent Friday morning in Shanghai Stock Exchange.

150 yuan ($22) to 1,500 yuan ($220.)

[Anonymous Coward]

Well I'm glad Chinese money works on a linear scale

Re:Well, that should work

[Luckyo]

That's actually one of the select few things that makes CCP apparatus act. CCP's primary concern is "societal harmony", which means that you can make your money illegally as long as you don't stand out.

This company stood out because it attracted public's attention. Which is why it shut down the site ASAP when its people realised what happened. If it was up, CCP's political apparatus would have likely moved to crush it already as the outlier that disturbed the "societal harmony". Taking the entire site down shows the CCP apparatus that company is aware of its responsibilities to the Party, the nation and its people.

If the storm on social media dies down, they will be successful. If not, CCP will likely either act to rapidly crush the company, or censor the social media, or both.

Re:

[Luckyo]

FYI China and its companies file most copyright claims in the world by a large margin at this juncture of history.

It is not opportunistic

[WillAffleckUW]

It's theft.

Call it what it is.

Re:

[grep -v '.*' *]

Call it what it is. [Theft]

Call it what it is: Black Hole Theft(!)

Then hurry and get a patent on it "while you're filing on average 16 copyright lawsuits per day."

Re:

[WillAffleckUW]

I see, where did they teach you that theft of a copyrighted work (which all work is by creation) is ok in Communism School?

I hold copyrights from works I did a long time ago. Stealing my work is still theft.

Same goes for the picture.

Anyone is allowed to sell it

[Anonymous Coward]

The photo was licensed as Creative-Commons-Attribution. There is no problem with selling it, only with not giving attribution.

Typical

[kingbilly]

I purchased something from Amazon this week. The product listing stated it included adhesive from 3M. When I got the product, the adhesive was a cheap knockoff and in most places it said M3, instead of 3M.

Re:

[kingbilly]

Dang, can't edit. Forgot to mention it clearly came from China. You could tell by the language on the box.

Similar things happen to Wikimedia Commons images

[xack]

Even one of the wiki’s admins was in on the scam.

Use a different CC License

[Roger W Moore]

The image was released under a CC 'by' license so technically the only thing this company did wrong is in failing to provide attribution to ESO. If they want to prevent selling of the image by others use the non-commercial clause and/or share-alike clauses. That being said just providing attribution is such a low bar and the company failed to even manage that so they really deserve to get a lot of grief about this.

gimp

[bugs2squash]

it seems silly when you can make your own black hole "photo" in gimp in a few seconds .

Put some hair around it

[nospam007]

...and the hole will be censured throughout China.

Standard procedure/policy

[VeryFluffyBunny]

This is precisely what just about every big IP company, from Disney to Getty & more, do. They're literally stealing control of content from others, including private individuals', CC, & public domain works. Don't like it? Tough: They'll bankrupt you in court regardless of whether their claim of copyright infringement is legitimate or not. It's quicker, cheaper, & less problematic to just pay them for it, and they know it. I'm not against copyright - creatives should get paid - but this isn't what's happening. How copyright law is implemented & enforced needs some major adjustments to level the playing field to make everyone equal under the eyes of the law, regardless of their ability to pay for hoards of corporate lawyers & law firms.

No honor culture.

[Ryanrule]

Trash ass no face society. Racist as hell. Believes they are a separate species.

Re:

[magarity]

When America and Canada sends its people, they're not sending their best. ... They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems ...

You mean the executives who were born and raised in China, bought a US or Canadian citizenship and then immediately went back to China? They got it just so they can skip out more easily when the crackdown comes.

You wouldn't download a black hole!

[aaronb1138]

Filthy pirates!