Some men just want to see the world burn, and some men want to commodify it. When the Boston Marathon Bombings happened, loads of images were flooding the internet. Photo based sharing network Instagram started the #PrayForBoston hashtag and many images from the event were made public. One man, Steve Goldstein, tried to make some extra dough from all these photos–so he put together a small photo book and charged some money for it.
Unfortunately, I don’t think that Mr. Goldstein knows just how protective the photo community is of their images. For example, our site asks for permission to use images if they’re not ours every time we publish a story if the images aren’t ours or in a public domain. The images that Goldstein included were from major news sources–and he was treated with a cease and desist from the NYTimes. Usually, it is these major outlets that are stealing images that will try to get away with anything to not pay someone. But this time around, it was pretty much the reverse.
And apparently, this isn’t the first time that he’s done it.
