Photographer sues Getty Images for selling photos she donated to public

This photograph, like nearly all of Carol Highsmith's, is donated to the public via the Library of Congress. (credit: Carol Highsmith / This is America! Foundation)

A well-known American photographer has now sued Getty Images and other related companies-she claims they have been wrongly been selling copyright license for over 18,000 of her photos that she had already donated to the public for free, via the Library of Congress.

The photographer, Carol Highsmith, is widely considered to be a modern-day successor to her photographic idols, Frances Benjamin Johnston and Dorothea Lange, who were famous for capturing images of American life in the 19th and 20th centuries, respectively.

Inspired by the fact that Johnston donated her life's work to the Library of Congress for public use in the 1930s, Highsmith wanted to follow suit and began donating her work "to the public, including copyrights throughout the world," as early as 1988.

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