Sotomayor's ruling on NY Times Photographer Chris Usher

a) what professional phographer is so painfully-dumb as to have no backup?
b) see a) above.

Interesting. His lawyer has an "entourage", a "crew" if you will. If I was a judge having to listen to that guy, I might tend to be a little unsympathetic as well. ;-)

perhaps in the year 2000 pro photographers did not carry backup bodies afterall.

12,660 photos, how many have historical value or any value? I think some one failed to prove the money damage. I guess the photograhers handed over film and I not familar with film, but I am not sure why copies were not retained or the images insured?

Copying a negative can be triple work. It's not like right-clicking on a digicam file; it requires math and technical competence, and it takes up time and resources, on the order of three times the building of the original. What news photo did get duped on a daily basis? Probably almost none, unless it was discovered later that a particular image was important.

He may (I don't know) have been working under an agreement that made all of his images the property of someone else. Who knows? That's not outlined there.

On one hand, I can see why he would be mad; after all is said and done, he probably got his annual salary paid, with nothing for his trouble. But, he still got a salary for the work, and that's more than some people get. If you get as good as you give in this world, you came out lucky.

Does it matter that Corbis is rich? Part of the article seemed to be about the Little Guy sticking it to The Fat Cats, and that didn't happen. Well, their wealth means that they can pay the decided upon amount in a timely fashion. That doesn't always happen.

I know I've seen one court case about something else where someone's property was destroyed, knowingly and willingly, and the payment plan for the decision was parsed out into such small packets over such a long period of time that they were arguably not much of a compensation for the damage done; in that instance, the wrongdoer who had the court decide against him was so poor that it would have been impossible to hold him to anything more.

I'm not saying all of that is a good idea, but a check for something is better than a check that amounts to nothing. Probably the best decision in his favor was court publicity about how the agency (Corbis) trashed thousands of photos and was seen by the photographer as not making things right. It would have been cheaper for them to unroll the red carpet, since they apparently can afford it.

They're wealthy; they'll blow it off and not care. Yet, Usher can make another picture of something.

Bill Gates again.
Sound to me like the award was for projected sales $ and there is nothing for the loss of the negatives.
Maybe photogs ought to get together and form their own assn owned by photogs and run for photogs like Magnum and not deal with Corbis and the like ?
Thats a business model for someone. You may forward the finders fee anytime.

Mr. Fairhurst, Corbis top lawyer, said...

“Why would photographers be immune from the laws of economics?” he said. “If I had a 20-year-old business selling nails, and you were interested in buying my nail business, would you not look at how it performed? Would you not look at the gross revenue over 20 years and at the net and what the competition is, in order to fix a price? Why would photographers think they’re immune from these things? It’s a commodity.”

I wonder if they would say that to Van Gogh? He died a pauper and his work at that time was worthless yet his paintings are worth millions now.

I also thought a photographer was considered part of the creative community just like any other artist with the same rights and appreciation of content past and future.

Mr. Usher is a professional photographer. My upstairs neighbor used to be a hobbyist amateur photographer and showed me some of his 100's of Kodachrome slides he'ld taken 20 years ago of Florida events. He said he was paid $500 by rich retired acquaintances he'ld met in bars who saw and liked his photos. Going by that if my neighbor were to lose those Kodachromes in an apartment fire should the insurance company pay him $500 a piece? The guy's a barber by profession.

If this happened to a paparazzi who often get paid six figure sums for shots of celebrities, would Corbis be required to pay six figures for each lost image?

There's some really poor arguments on both sides on this IMO. Mr. Usher needs to keep fighting.

Here's a link to the opinion:

http://vlex.com/vid/usher-v-corbis-sygma-56181687

".. the loss of what he says were more than 12,600 images ...he had entrusted the pictures for a brief period almost a decade ago." (my italics)

1) "he had entrusted." ie Usher intentionally put his images at risk, just as everybody did back then when they sent original slides to publishers...he accepted the risk unless Corbis guaranteed something more than he got. I saw guarantee limits of $250/slide thirty years ago, did Usher get a guarantee?

2) "he says" Did he present a receipt for 12,600 images in court?

Ten years ago the images were probably film: he evidently didn't back it up, although that was certainly possible ... some photographers did ...exquisitely good reproduction-quality duplicate slides were available (Galen Rowell did sometimes). 12,600 would have been expensive, but HE evidently decided they weren't worth it, so HE established the value as less than the cost of duplication. Sounds like he was lucky to get $7 each.

Back em' up.