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A worker power washes a multi-ton, freshly quarried block of white marble at the processing facility owned by Colorado Stone Quarries in the aptly named town of Marble in Gunnison County, Colorado
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Founded in 1899, Marble lay below the historic Yule Marble quarry (named not for Christmastide but for one of the mine's early owners). Its stone, considered to be of exceptional quality, was used for the Tomb of the Unknowns and much of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., as well as civic buildings in San Francisco and a skyscraper in New York City. It was thought that the marble quarry had played out, and the town of Marble turned into an obscure outpost of rough-hewn mountain cabins. But Colorado Stone Quarries, an Italian-based company, found a new and rich vein and (as of 2015) is producing, distributing, and exporting high-quality white marble, Colorado's state stone, once again.
Credit line: Gates Frontiers Fund Colorado Collection within the Carol M. Highsmith Archive, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.
Gift; Gates Frontiers Fund; 2015; (DLC/PP-2015:068).
Forms part of: Gates Frontiers Fund Colorado Collection within 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/)
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