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The Greenbrier Historic Resort Hotel, built in 1858 just outside White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia
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For most of its history, the hotel was owned by the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway and its successors, including the CSX Corporation. Following years of heavy losses, CSX placed the hotel into bankruptcy in 2009. Justice Family Group, LLC, a company owned by local entrepreneur Jim Justice, bought the property and guaranteed all debts, resulting in dismissal of the bankruptcy. Justice promised to return the hotel to its former status as a five-star resort and to introduce "tasteful" gambling for guests as a revenue enhancer. While the huge hotel and its championship golf courses are the Greenbrier's main attractions, there is another, less opulent one: a massive underground bunker that was meant to serve as an emergency shelter for the United States Congress during the Cold War.
Credit line: West Virginia Collection within the Carol M. Highsmith Archive, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.
Purchase; Carol M. Highsmith Photography, Inc.; 2015; (DLC/PP-2015:055).
Forms part of: West Virginia 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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