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Getty Images has severed ties with a freelance photographer after an image he captured of a golf tournament was determined to have been altered with software.

The photographer, Marc Feldman, was cut by Getty after the manipulated image was discovered by a photo editor at the Dallas Morning News.

"Getty Images actively advocates and upholds strict guidelines pertaining to the capture and dissemination of its editorial content," Getty's public relations manager Jodi Einhorn wrote PDN in an email.

"As such, when Getty Images was made aware of (the) altered image in our coverage of this event, it was immediately removed...from our website and a mandatory 'kill' request was sent to our feed-based subscribers. In adherence with our zero tolerance policy on photo manipulation, we terminated our relationship with freelance photographer Marc Feldman."

The story broke when photo editor Guy Reynolds of the Dallas Morning News stumbled on the altered image while perusing photos of the Reno-Tahoe golf tournament. Reynolds found two Getty images of golfer Matt Bettencourt, one showing him with a caddy behind him, the other with just trees.

At first Reynolds thought the images were shot by two different photographers from slightly different angles but, as it turns out, both were credited to Marc Feldman, a Getty freelancer.

After inspecting the images more closely, Reynolds discovered they were the same shot but "one had been doctored with software to remove the other man."

Reynolds contacted Getty's picture desk in New York about the images and a "Mandatory Kill" advisory (to the right, above) was sent out shortly thereafter.

(Via Dallas Morning News' Photography Blog.)

 

Today's New York Times includes a story about a jury verdict and $20 million judgment against Corbis for stealing trade secrets and defrauding a Seattle start-up company called InfoFlows, which had been hired to help the stock agency develop an image fingerprinting and tracking system to fight online infringement.

It's a compelling David-and-Goliath story about an entrepreneur named Steve Stone who entrusted Corbis with his company's unpatented technology secrets back around 2005. Stone later claimed that Corbis was patenting that technology behind his back as their own intellectual property, as they were pumping him for information. 

"The irony is that Corbis is an intellectual property company, and here they are stealing someone else's intellectual property," Stone tells PDN.

One problem with the Times story, though, is that it is last summer's news. The jury verdict came down in August 2009. The trial court affirmed the verdict last February. And now, almost a year later, the Times glosses over the date of the verdict as if it happened yesterday (yeah, we missed it, too).

Corbis spokesperson Dan Perlet says Stone "has been seeking coverage on this for ages and finally convinced the NY Times." Stone says he just started speaking publicly about the case because his talks with Corbis to settle it (and avoid their legal appeal) finally broke down.

In a statement that Perlet provided, Corbis says the court applied an erroneous legal standard in upholding the jury verdict. "The terms [of a contract between Corbis and InfoFlows] were clear that Corbis would pay InfoFlows to build a license management solution conceived and designed by Corbis, and that Corbis would own any resulting intellectual property."

We'll see about that when the appeals court rules. And we'll try not to miss it this time.

A new competition supported by the Annenberg Space for Photography and other public and private organizations invites amateur and professional photographers around the world to submit a photograph completing the phrase “Democracy is…” Winning submissions to the International Democracy Photo Challenge will be selected by a combination of online voting and an independent panel of judges. The competition is open for submissions through July 28.
 
The judging committee, which is co-chaired by documentary photographer Phil Borges, International Center of Photography director Willis Hartshorn and Academy Award-winning director Louie Psihoyos, will announce 36 finalists on August 19. Submissions will be evaluated on three criteria: Relevance to the contest question, quality of the image’s technical elements and creativity in completing the prompt “Democracy is…”

Between August 19 and August 26, the contest winners will be selected via online voting by the general public. Two winners from each of six global geographic regions (Western Hemisphere, East Asia Pacific, Europe, Africa, Near East, South & Central Asia) will be announced on the United Nations' International Day of Democracy, September 15.

The twelve winning submissions will be exhibited at the United Nations in New York, as well as at other galleries in New York, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles, including the Annenberg Space for Photography. International galleries that will host the exhibition have yet to be announced by the contest sponsors.

Click here for more information on the competition including submission instructions.

—Eli Meixler
 
 
Related:

Annenberg Space Pioneers Digital Exhibition of Photos