‘Brazen, extortionate’: Photographer sues Getty Images for $1billion after copyright claim on her work

‘Photographer Carol M. Highsmith is suing Getty Images for $1 billion in damages for using her images after she was slapped with a lawsuit from a company which screamed infringement after she published one of her own photos on her website.
It turns out Highsmith had no idea Getty was making any money off of her 18,755 photos, which, as she specified on her website, were donated “copyright-free” to the US Library of Congress. This means they were to be available to the public freely.
Not so, believes the plaintiff, License Compliances Services (LCS). The company accuses Highsmith of copyright infringement and has issued a takedown request in addition to a $120 fine to compensate online distributor Alamy.’
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