https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20190329/15352641901/getty-images-sued-yet-again-trying-to-license-public-domain-images.shtml

Back in 2016, we wrote about two separate lawsuits involving claims that Getty Images was selling "licenses" to images it had no rights to sell licenses to. The first one was brought by photographer Carol Highsmith, who sued Getty after Getty had sent a demand letter to her over her own images, which she had donated to the Library of Congress to be put into the public domain. That lawsuit mostly flopped when Getty pointed out (correctly) that Highsmith had no standing, seeing as she had given up the copyright in the photos. The second lawsuit was even more bizarre, involving questions about Getty's rights to various collections it licensed, and whether it had changed the metadata on photos from photo agency Zuma Press. At the time, we noted that little in that lawsuit seemed to make sense, but it still went on for over two years before Getty prevailed, and basically said the only mistakes were done by Zuma.

Well, now we've got another lawsuit against Getty over allegedly licensing public domain images. This one was brought by CixxFive Concepts, and... also seems to be a stretch. How much of a stretch? Well, it starts out by alleging RICO violations, and as Ken "Popehat" White always likes to remind everyone: IT'S NOT RICO, DAMMIT. This lawsuit is also not RICO and it's not likely to get very far.