That's why people who specifically do not want their art to be exploited by big corporations like Getty Images should never use the "public domain" license period. It's ripe for abuse. Consult a lawyer and create your own special license, or use creative commons.
> The problem here was trying to enforce on something that was obviously non-exclusive.
No problem here, only Getty Images acting in bad faith. They know very well how the photographies are licensed and are abusing their position to "threaten" people and businesses who don't know better. It's morally reprehensible as a business model, legal, but scummy.
How about we just forbid copyright claims over public domain material, instead of shifting the burden from the large licensing corporation to the individual creators and consumers? In other words, change the law to make Getty's behavior illegal.
There no such thing thing in law as a "public domain license". That's part of why CC0 was created, because public domain is an ill-defined concept, not a license.
> The problem here was trying to enforce on something that was obviously non-exclusive.
No problem here, only Getty Images acting in bad faith. They know very well how the photographies are licensed and are abusing their position to "threaten" people and businesses who don't know better. It's morally reprehensible as a business model, legal, but scummy.