In a Thanksgiving announcement, veteran photojournalist Yunghi Kim created ten $1,000 grants to be awarded one time to ten photographers. The $10,000 kitty fueling this generous gift came from awards to Kim paid by copyright infringers of her work, and she states her reasons for creating the grants thus:
“I am doing this to emphasize the importance of copyright registration of your work and as a way for me to give back to the profession of photojournalism, an industry that I love and I am proud to be a member of for more than 32 years.”
It’s hard to miss the significance of Ms. Kim’s use of this money in contrast to Google’s recent announcement that it would pay legal fees IF certain YouTube video creators happen to find themselves in lawsuits resulting from DMCA disputes. At best, that announcement is an empty PR gesture; and at worst, it’s a $400-billion-dollar gorilla potentially menacing independent rights holders. Meanwhile, ten grand is real money for a photographer–real money for most people–and the fact that Kim decided to do this with it, and to emphasize the need for creators to protect their work, is an encouraging start to the week.
See the full story at Petapixel here.
