In article , Mayayana
wrote:

Interesting story here, about one Carol Highsmith
facing demands from Getty Photos for payment to
use her own photos, which she put in public domain:

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2...ty-images-for-
selling-photos-she-donated-to-public/

she's suing:
http://pdnpulse.pdnonline.com/2016/0...g-1-billion-ge
tty-images-copyright-infringement.html
Photographer Carol M. Highsmith has sued Getty Images for copyright
infringement, alleging ³gross misuse² of 18,755 of her photographs of
Americana. She is seeking $1 billion in damages, an unusually high
amount for a copyright infringement claim.

and it ain't the first time for getty either:
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-me...-idUSBRE9AL16F
20131122
A federal jury on Friday ordered two media companies to pay $1.2
million to a freelance photojournalist for their unauthorized use of
photographs he posted to Twitter.

The jury found that Agence France-Presse and Getty Images willfully
violated the Copyright Act when they used photos Daniel Morel took in
his native Haiti after the 2010 earthquake that killed more than
250,000 people, Morel's lawyer, Joseph Baio, said.

The case is one of the first to address how images that individuals
make available to the public through social media can be used by
third parties for commercial purposes.

tl;dr getty is ****ed.