The "Leaning Tower of Groom," a tilted water tower that used to suppy a now-extinct truck stop off old U.S. Route 66 in tiny Groom, Texas
Summary
Title, date, and keywords based on information provided by the photographer.
The tilt was not the work of an earthquake, tornado, or out- of-control airplane. It was deliberate marketing strategy by the truck stop's owner, a strategy that alone was unable to draw customers once the interstate highway passed Groom by.
Credit line: The Lyda Hill Texas Collection of Photographs in Carol M. Highsmith's America Project, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.
Gift; The Lyda Hill Foundation; 2014; (DLC/PP-2014:054).
Forms part of: Lyda Hill Texas Collection of Photographs in Carol M. Highsmith's America Project in the Carol M. Highsmith Archive.
In 2015, documentary photographer Carol Highsmith received a letter from Getty Images accusing her of copyright infringement for featuring one of her own photographs on her own website. It demanded payment of $120. This was how Highsmith came to learn that stock photo agencies Getty and Alamy had been sending similar threat letters and charging fees to users of her images, which she had donated to the Library of Congress for use by the general public at no charge. In 2016, Highsmith has filed a $1 billion copyright infringement suit against both Alamy and Getty stating “gross misuse” of 18,755 of her photographs. “The defendants [Getty Images] have apparently misappropriated Ms. Highsmith’s generous gift to the American people,” the complaint reads. “[They] are not only unlawfully charging licensing fees … but are falsely and fraudulently holding themselves out as the exclusive copyright owner.” According to the lawsuit, Getty and Alamy, on their websites, have been selling licenses for thousands of Highsmith’s photographs, many without her name attached to them and stamped with “false watermarks.” (more: http://hyperallergic.com/314079/photographer-files-1-billion-suit-against-getty-for-licensing-her-public-domain-images/)