Posted on 03/29/2014 1:12:32 PM PDT by smokingfrog
Lush green hills under a cobalt blue sky with precisely the right amount of fluffy clouds floating about. Who hasn’t been lost in reverie staring at the default Windows XP wallpaper, dreaming of Middle Earth or maybe a weekend in Cork County?
Yet that shot of a bucolic paradise has turned into a very personal nightmare for Charles O’Lear, the man who captured the iconic photo and sold it to Microsoft.
O’Lear took a one-time payment for the photo rather than trying to negotiate a license fee. Even a tiny fee per Windows XP license would have yielded him a hefty payday over the years.
Surprisingly enough, the photograph was actually taken on the side of a highway in Sonoma, California, rather than Ireland or New Zealand. According to a somewhat hazy estimate by The Sydney Morning Herald, a billion people have viewed the scene since Microsoft bought it.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Awesome thanks!
Why would Microsoft have licensed the photograph from him?
Heck, Bill could have grabbed one of the cool digital cameras he had lying around and snapped one himself.
Exactly.
A very juvenile premise here.
Microsoft and Gates were always barracudas.
Let's see... at 1c royalty per copy,
$10,000,000
Yowza!
Microsoft Windows XP Users Offered $100, But There Is A Catch; What Is It?
Yeah, what about the woman who designed the Nike ‘Swoosh’ logo back in the day for $35.
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