This pic has been in the public domain for 12 years and reprinted millions of times.
I don’t see a copyright on it either.
They are going after Palin because of who she is, not that she used it as a tribute to those that gave their lives on 9-11
Obama could wipe his ass with it and the media would never utter a word about it.
Every one of those unlucensed uses could have been sued over. The reason they hanve’t is that the owner didn’t want to in those other cases. Why? Because there was no incentive to do so. Some every day citizen using it is uncollectable and the company would lose money on a lawsuit. they’d win the case but they’d lose money.
in Palin’s case, she is collectable...and they also obviously politically disagree with her, so they have a non-financial incentive to sue her to stop using it as well.
I got a cease and desist letter one day (I think it was from Columbia Pictures Television) for using the “Entertainment Tonight” theme music on the radio as a music bed for a daily concert information feature. but my station had a blanket ACSAP music license and that music was listed on the CD as being an ASCAP work, so we had a license to use it that way. I wrote them back telling them to shove it along with a picture of the CD jacket showing the ASCAP representaion and a copy of our active license for all ASCAP works.
They never contacted me again.