Free advertising or copyright infringement?

Click here to buy the cruise ship photo To begin with please go to and read the Missing funny bone leads to DMCA for Awkward Stock Photos article on Ars Technica.

I’m on the fence here, I can’t decide if it’s free advertising AKA Fair Use or copyright infringement. Just to be upfront about it. I sell photos on www.istockphoto.com and few others sites such as www.fotolia.com. So I have a vested interest in the topic at hand, iStockphoto.com sends me money for my photo sales, not nearly as often as I would like, but the bottom line is I get paid for my photos. If someone wants to use one of my photos they buy the rights to it on istockphoto.com. Forbes.com and whatsitcost.com have both used my photo of a cruise shop, This I was able to discover using www.tineye.com. So Obviously I want to protect my future income generated by the photo sales and not have they stolen and misused.

So why am I on the fence?

• Is it because the site in question was not a commercial site?
• or was it because the stock photos had they watermarks in place?
• or was is that the site linked back to the originating site?

Maybe its because all those add up to Fair Use under the DMCA? I’m not lawyer, nor do I play one on the web, but it sounds like fair use to me.

Here is a hypothetical scenario:

I setup a website and I called it the www.bestofstockphotographyonthewebtoday.com, where I post photos from various stock photography sites, I give full credit to the photographers and the stock agencies, I leave the watermarks in place and link back to the site so that the photo could be purchased.

Would anyone complain? Wouldn’t that be fair use? If so why did http://awkwardstockphotos.com get into trouble? Fighting these battles can be expensive so its understandable why http://awkwardstockphotos.com/ capitulated, but it would have been nice to get a court decision on this.

My two cents